hi
September, 2003
27
Sep 03
MPEG4 Interactive War Demo
The application of this when we were talking about doing it was obvious – the Gulf War II was going on complete with rolling tv and web news from all sources. As an interactive broadband channel it would provide an up to date live feed while allowing detours into deeper information areas such as the military side, detailing weapon technology or geo-political backgrounds of neighbouring countries.
I worked out a bunch of interface elements in schematic form, allowing the user to see the flow of news items coming up, and to use that to keep track of the ‘live’ flow while exploring non-linear areas. As the flow was made up discreet elements, they became archive fodder the moment their time had passed, which allowed the ‘live’ flow to work in a similar time-shifting way to the live feed on a TiVo.
: An early PDF schematic.26
Sep 03
Comic Books via Poser
Having just ordered a (cheap) graphics tablet from Wacom I’m quite keen to give the whole electronically produced comic a whirl. Unfortunately, not being the worlds best figure artist I may need a little help. Which is where Poser comes in. Now at version 5 it can do wonderful things like cloth, great lighting, etc. I may be saved – updates as the project progresses.
Currently trying out Kung-Log which is pretty nifty. Now listening to Kids from the album “Tigermouth” by Kelli Ali. Oooh that was nifty.
25
Sep 03
Now Thats What I reCall Music
Planning to make a great poster based on the entire collection of the “Now Thats What I Call Music n” series of pop compilations running all the way from 1981 to 1999 (there has been little of note since the end of last century – even the late 90’s are getting a bit ropey).
It’ll be great with lots of slices of info-porn. You’ll be able to chart the rises and falls of individual musical sub-genres, artists, labels, etc. It’ll look great as a big A1 poster. What will be even better will be a huge interactive “Now…” explorer, complete with streaming snippets of tunes, links to sites, stores and stories. Oh yeah…
24
Sep 03
Path Finder 3
The mac based design community is pretty heavy on late switchers to OSX. Whether it’s a lack of computing horsepower or simply an unwillingness to jump in and have to relearn an awful lot of skills, this absolute gem of an application makes life much easier.
Standout features for this designer were the coloured folder and file labels, essential for filing projects; being able to reduce file lists down to crisp 9 pixel geneva; a trashcan on your desktop; customisable keys – apple+N for new folder again, oh joy; preview in column view available when you want, removable when you don’t; the absolute killer implementation of a breadcrumb trail along the top of your file listings.