Weblog for reading internet design.

The plan tonight was to come home, finish up a little bit of work, and then hit the sack. But then, the Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks decided to go to 4 overtime periods.

When it comes to sports, I honestly don’t care. But if it’s hockey, I’ve been known to get into fights over teams. I probably shouldn’t be allowed to drink at a hockey game, especially if the Stars are playing.

The game ended shortly after 3.30 am, and I should be going to bed angry, but I’ve got to finish up some work. Blah.

Tonight was the AIGA Kyle Cooper presentation. I earned my free, thrid row ticket into the event by directing traffic outside. I saw a few people I recognized, but didn’t get a chance to go say, “Hey, what’s up? How are you doing? Really? Aww. That’s too bad.”

It started on time, 15 min after scheduled. It was amazing.

For those who don’t know, Kyle Cooper studied under Paul Rand. He’s old-school, in a new exciting way. The key thing to take away from what he said was that you have to be a great graphic designer before you can become good at motion graphics. Essentially, the concept comes before the technology. (Where have I heard that before?)

Paul Rand’s work has a lot of motion despite being still. As is my understanding of motion graphics, it has to look good as a still before it’s going to look good in motion.

What I liked best about his work was his ability to just do what was best for each project. Kyle’s a strong Christian, yet he made a name for himself with the titles for “Seven”, in which he has said he was able to get into the mind of the serial killer in order to create the piece. He’s also relentless in achieving beautiful, perfectly crafted work in an insanely short amount of time. If you’ve seen the title’s to “Superman Returns”, that was done in 5 weeks.

There was a lot to be gotten (word?) out of the presentation. I’ve got a few images on Flickr.

Interesting article about how Paris residents are using Second Life to pressure the city to speed up redevelop a central city area. I know a lot of people are confused by Second Life, so I thought I’d share.

One quick thing before I pass out:

Kyle Cooper will be speaking in Atlanta Wednesday evening at 6:30 pm. If you don’t know who he is, I gurantee you’ve seen his work. His current venture is Prologue Films. Keep refreshing the page and you’ll see more work. The event information is here.

I got to spend some time at Prologue Films in L.A. a few weeks ago, and the stuff is truely amazing. If you’ve got nothing to do, go to the presentation. If you have something else to do, skip it and come to the presentation.

David Lynch on product placement.

It’s amazing what a great photographer can do with slightly mediocre work. Special thanks to Jorge Menes.

More… 

My first test in After Effects:

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I somehow managed to burn through a 512Mb SD card Friday night without killing the batteries. It took a while, but I’ve got the pics up from Sweetwater and Ritcheous Room on Friday night. No pics of the snow, though.

Sweetwater:

and Ritcheous Room:

I heard about Second Life from a podcast almost a year ago. I decided to check it out. Essentially, Second Life is a 3-D environment where your digital character can live, play, work, whatever you want to do. It’s an entire community in and of itself.

However, I haven’t been able to get on Second Life a lot due to general lack of time, and the inability of my computer to handle the processing and networking needs of the Second Life app. Still though, it’s an interesting way to meet people from all over the world.

There’s going to be a meeting at PC on Monday night to discuss Second Life, and I highly advise all of you to come:

Monday evening Joe Corr will be giving a seminar at Portfolio Center around the topic of Second Life. Joe has a unique perspective as he is someone who sees the opertunity for the platform but also understands it’s limitations. The session is free, open to the public and should be allot of fun.

Overview of Second Life By Joe Corr, Sr Interactive Developer IQ Interactive

“Second Life is not a game, it’s not the 3D web, and it’s not yet ready for prime time. It is laggy, visually and technologically unsophisticated, and full of questionable and controversial content. So why should you bother with it? Because it has emerged as the first realized virtual arena that tackles the legal, financial and ethical questions that will eventually cripple it’s competitors. You should know the history of SL, the creative opportunities it affords, the current legal and business possibilities, and it’s potential future.

Joe came to Georgia for the Interactive Design & Game Development MFA program at SCAD in Savannah in 2005 and currently calls Athens home. While in the low country, he worked with Evoca.com on their flash app, SCAD as their Flash/Backend developer, and presently at IQ Interactive as an Interactive Developer. His Second Life character (Freedom Polonsky) was born in 2005, and he’s very interested in the future of all 3D networked spaces as they relate to media, entertainment, information and education.”

Here’s me in Second Life:

I’m broke, but atleast I can fly.