The Tadpole

The tadpole

This is a cute animation short with a stylized  graphic style. I like the watercolor look of it and the simple humor. The audio design is nice too, great sound effects and a jazzy sound track. It was created by Passion Pictures, a London-based production company. Passion Pictures is better known for  their work for the animated rock band Gorillaz and the opening and closing animation for The Beatles: Rock Band video game. This year, their film The Lost Thing has been nominated for best animated short film Oscar.

The Beatles: Rock Band

 

 

Beatles: Rock Band

The Lost Thing

Passion Pictures

Gorillaz

Madagascar travel book excerpt (Madagascar, carnet de voyage, extrait)

Madagascar, carnet de voyage, extrait

This animation by Bastien Dubois looks like a travel sketch book come to life. It uses 3-D animation with a traditional look and music. 

A sexy song and beautiful type design

The sublime type foundry House Industries has a new video that’s a visual treat. You’ll see many of the fine fonts, books, posters and other products by their designers. There are scenes of the designers in action. All the visuals are timed to the catchy, slightly 1960s sounding Polite Dance Song by the duo of Inara George and Greg Kurstin — better known as The Bird and the Bee. Kurstin, is a music producer and keyboardist that has worked with Lily Allen, Barenaked Ladies, The Flaming Lips and Beck.

The fonts in action

Hand lettering

Book design

Ink work

Awesome

“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.”
—  Laura Ingalls Wilder

This TED talk by Neil Pasricha is funny, sad and very inspirational. Enjoy!

Neil Pasricha: The 3 A’s of awesome

The movie title stills collection

His Girl Friday (1940)

Rear Window (1954)

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

American Graffiti (1973)

Almost Famous (2000)

The opening design of a film — the editing of the first scene, the music and title sequence — sets the mood. Here’s a web site with many title slides organized by year.

Vivian Maier, Street Photographer

Vivian Maier, Self Portrait

This will appeal to anyone who hopes to find a treasure at estate sales or auctions. It’s a mystery story about a talented photographer who chronicled life in 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

In 2007, John Maloof went to an auction and bought a box of 30,000 negatives. He started looking through the negatives and found an incredible body of work of a street photographer. He could only learn that the photos had belonged to an ill, elderly woman. The auction house would not tell him her name. He was intrigued. Who was this wonderful, unknown photographer?