Breaking the Rule - Embroidery Animation

Aubrey Longley-Cook

The person in the picture above is the one person that has broken the rule of making animation, usually people would draw (by dry/wet media or using computers) their characters but Aubrey Longley-Cook has found a very unique way of presenting his animation. He makes his animations by using embroidery. I'm going to put some of his works and put a link to his blog down below:

"Runaway"

This is one of his most famous piece of art, a running dog. He did this by embroidering fifteen individual frames, which would've taken him forever to do.

"Laviona Everton"

This work of his contains nine individual frames which looks like a fabulous person who is definitely gay (gay as in happy :D (dw I'm not homophobic, you can trust me ;) )).

"RuPaul Cross Stitch Animation Workshop"

This one is very interesting in terms of the details and colours used in the different frames. This would've taken ages to do but the result turns out to be stunning.

"RuPaul Cross Stitch Animation Workshop" - Back View

This one is very interesting to me, to be honest more than the front view, because to me it shows so much more of what he has done; seems like it shows much more legitimate result of his hardwork because it seems rougher.

"RuPaul Cross Stitch Animation Workshop" - Combination of  Front and Back Views (Back Flipped)

However, even though this is the same piece of work it still is the best to me. This gives me the chills cause it just looks really amazing - the front and back view keeps changing frame by frame which makes the work looks so much better. The details, the colours, the presentation are all beautiful. This is art.

For you people who wants to see more of his masterpieces go to: http://spoolspectrum.blogspot.sg/

Nest Labs - The Future of Home Automation

Tony Fadell with his product called the Nest Learning Thermostat

Nest Labs is a company with Tony Fadell as the CEO. It is a company that makes stuff like thermostats, smoke detectors and other home automation devices. However, it is not just like any home automation devices, Nest Labs have created them in a way that it will observe what you do to them and it will memorize it. 

The Nest Learning Thermostat:

This is their product that made them famous, it is a thermostat that could memorize your habit of changing the temperature at certain times and it would memorize the changes so you will not have to keep on changing all the time. It is also Wi-Fi-enabled, which means that you would be able to change the temperatures from your phone. The point of this is so that it could conserve much more energy.

 

The Nest Protect:

The Nest Protect is a smoke detector that can detect not just any smokes, but it can figure out what kind of smoke it is detecting or where the smoke comes from. It can tell you what is going on when the alarm beeps and you can even check it from your phone, you can also deactivate the alarm from your phone.

This all comes back to Tony Fadell's speech on TED Talks about how we have to look into the little problems, those who have been masked by habits. They have succeeded in seeing the problems and actually did something about it. For the thermostats you won't even have to walk to the thermostat back and forth every single time, and for the alarm you won't have to even be super panicked anymore when you burned your popcorn and your alarm beeps. Thanks to these creative and brilliant minded designers that we can have these better technologies that make our life much easier than ever before.

iPod - Why Not Just Get a Phone?

Tony Fadell holding the first generation of iPod

I'm doing this post because of the previous post that I did, it was about Tony Fadell. He was the man who created the concept and initial design of the first iPod, he also has his own product called the Nest (which I'm going to talk about in my next post). With Tony Fadell, the idea of having "1000 songs in your pocket" became a reality in 2001. 

    

Sales:

The first iPod sales were not that great, however in 2004 iPod became very successful with the release of the Classic 4G iPod with approximately around 2 million units sold worldwide. Even much more successful since they released the 2005 models which rocketed up to over 5 million units sold worldwide, and the product continues to get profit each year. You can see the list of iPod sales throughout the years since it was first released to public in 2001:

Models:

iPod is known well for its various and different kinds of models throughout the years. Until now it has over 5 different models with 25 different iPods in total. The 5 different models are iPod Classic with around 6 generation of iPods, iPod Mini with 2 generation of iPods, iPod Nano with 7 different iPods, iPod Shuffle with 4 generations and last but not least is the iPod Touch with 6 kinds of iPods. Here are some different models of iPods:

The first time I saw something like this was when I was still in elementary school, it was an MP4 type which you can listen to music and watch a movie or videos with. I thought, "Wow, I gotta have one of these!" I was so excited about it until my bro told me, "Why not just get a mobile phone?" It kinda hit me in the face cause he's got a point. A mobile phone can do those also plus you can call and much more stuff (besides I didn't have a phone at the time). In 2001 mobile phones were still kinda sucky so I understand that the idea of iPod was to make listening to music so much easier, but technology advanced and I don't really get why people would still buy these iPods when they have their mobile phones. iPods do have nice designs and some which you can even have in different colours, but for me to be attracted they need to come up with something refreshing and new cause these past years iPods seems pretty much the same to me. That is all I have to say about iPods. But, seriously though, just use your phone.

Tony Fadell: The First Secret of Great Design

Tony Fadell is a product designer, he said that it is his job to see everyday things. He tells us that as human beings, we get used to things very fast and this could be their chance or opportunity to change them into something better; our everyday things improved so that it could be better.

By using a sticker on a piece of apple as an example of us getting used to taking the sticker off of the fruit before we can eat it, he explains how the brain turns these everyday things into a habit which is called "habituation". An example of how this is a positive thing is when we learn to drive - we'll get used to the objects around the car when driving around the road, and how this could be a negative thing is when we get used to the problems around us, making us blind of their presence hence automatically preventing us from fixing them. To fight habituation, Tony gave us 3 tips: to look broader, to look closer and to think younger. This tips will help us improve our ability to finding little invisible problems around us to fix them.

Tony says something important, he said, "It's easy to solve a problem that almost everyone sees, but it's hard to solve a problem that almost no one sees." This is the main idea of their profession as a product designer or even anyone who are willing to see, if they are able to notice things that people don't see, they would become the most successful people on Earth. By using our creativity, we can design things to be much better than they were; things that only you, me or anyone can see that has a problem that most people don't even aware of, and this is the next step into the future and successfulness.

Unboring Fruits

Pyramid and cube shaped watermelons

Fruits have been known to mankind since our ancestors walked the Earth, but aren't we all bored of eating the same fruits from time to time? If you are then just keep on changing the fruit, but what if it's not enough? Then you can try fruit molding! :D The picture above shows us a uniquely shaped watermelon into a pyramid and a cube shaped watermelon. This is an interesting technique which anyone can do on their own. If you want your fruit to be shaped like anything you want, you can order them online and they will make the shape for you. Oh, and btw don't be mistaken by the word "mold", it is not when the fruit gets rotten but it is the one which forms the fruits into whatever you want them to be shaped as.

Molded fruits are done by making a mold out of plastic material, and it will have to sides of the plastic container for the fruits so that you can open them and put the fruit inside and bolt them. After that all you have to do is to wait until the fruit grows into the shape. Here is an example of the fruit molder down below:

Cube watermelon molder

Being able to come up with an idea as creative as this could make anyone of us successful in no time. Creating something that people would have never thought about will definitely surprise people around you, especially if something as simple as fruits made much more beautiful than they already are. I will put some more pictures of fruit molding down below:

Finish Him! (Or Her)

First of all, the reason why it's kalled Mortal Kombat with a "K" instead of a "C" kause it just sounds kooler, you know? Alright, so Mortal Kombat is a video game that was first made for an arcade game in 1992 by Midway Games, the main story is about a monk named Liu Kang who has to save Earth by defeating an evil sorcerer named Shang Tsung who was kommanded by the evil king Shao Khan ,which the tournament has been approved by the Elder Gods, and the point of this is that if Liu Kang (and the other Earthrealm defenders) loses the battle, Shao Khan will merge Outworld and Earthrealm into one. Mortal Kombat is famous for it's gory finishing moves back then and even now. Until now, Mortal Kombat has roughly around 20 games for different platforms, which is pretty amazing. The logo for Mortal Kombat is said to be a depiction of the Elder Gods (they are the ones who runs the universe) in their purest forms. I will now explain the playable kharacters and the realms in Mortal Kombat down below:

Playable Kharacters:

Mortal Kombat has a lot of playable kharacters, and each one of them are very unique in their own ways. Personally, I think that Mortal Kombat is one of the best fighting games out there mainly because of the different unique kharacters with interesting background stories and of kourse, their FATALITIES (or finishing moves). In total, Mortal Kombat has around 64 different playable kharacters with all of them being (mostly) very different in terms of kharacter design, abilities and stories. Kreativity took an amazingly huge part in this, kause kreating a kharacter that works is not easy, and especially when they have to konnect them with the Mortal Kombat universe and to other kharacters as well.

The playabe kharacter roster for Mortal Kombat : Armageddon (2006), minus Taven, Daegon and Khameleon

Realms:
Mortal Kombat has 6 main realms, they are Outworld, Earthrealm, Edenia, Netherrealm, Orderrealm, Heaven and Chaosrealm. However, in total there are 18 realms and all of them are kompletely different and special in a way. Each kharacters in Mortal Kombat kome from different realms, for example the humans are from the Earthrealm (which is on Earth), most of the bad guys from Outworld, the Gods in Heaven, etc. Being able to make 18 different realms is not an easy job at all, it would require patience, imagination and kreativity. Diversity would be really needed in kreating each of the realms, the environment kreated in each realm would also affect the kharacter's storyline.

The Outworld

These kind of video games require a high level of imagination and creativity which most of us has, but can't do anything about it, however people like Ed Boon (creator of Mortal Kombat) actually made his into a video game and some movies. Don't you ever wipe away your imagination, cause one day you might just be able to make it into a reality.

Tim Brown: Tales of Creativity and Play

The presentation that Tim Brown did on TED about Creativity and Play talks about workers that should be able to think freely by creating an environment to do so. Tim Brown urges people to bring themselves back into their childhood so that they can experience more freedom throughout theur stressful days.

Tim Brown talks about how people should be more playful by thinking freely with playfulness and creativity. He also explains how imagination and playfulness decreases as we grow up, since when we grow up we develop that fear of judgment from other people resulting the lack of confidence to try out something that you think is fun, imaginative and creative. Even though you can be playful it should also be creative and most importantly useful for others and not just yourself.

He states that roleplaying is important in his company, what he does is naking the employers the customers in order to experience and test their own products so if there would be any flaws they would be able to fix it themselves.

Play and Creativity - Creative Playing?

Do you remember the time when you were small, where playing with a bunch of friends using each others imagination (or alone) was the most amazing moments of your childhood? Well, I do - and it was really one of the happiest moments in my life. 

Now growing up seems to erase all those habits out of our mind cause we gotta study for school, we gotta go to college, we gotta have jobs and no time to play around. Even when you wanted to play nowadays most of us who has the money would buy consoles or PCs to play video games which really kills the imagination. Those who would play outside will play the same games as others will, like playing sports for example; stuff that other people are already doing.

However, what if I told you that you can bring those childhood memories back, by bringing back your original ideas from your imagination and add creativeness in it? If you can do so, people will definitely respect you because for sure that people must think a lot of those moments where they used to play around using their imagination. Now it will not be original if people will play using the same ideas as yours, that is why we need to be creative. However, do not forget about the rules, do not cross the line. Professionalism would also be definitely needed in this.

As long as we do not separate play and creativity, we could be the child that we were again.

Tasty Ice

I went back to Indonesia the other day (only for a couple of days..) and I went to one of my most favorite restaurants there called "Pancious". They had a beverage that consists of milk and earl grey tea, but the serving is very unusually exciting, it has a milk on a jar and two drinking glasses filled with frozen earl grey tea ice cubes (tastes so amazing). With this kind of idea you can freeze any kind of drinks that you want and pour some other drink on it (and you don't even have to pay extra money for this). 

Cute-shions

 I went to Bugis+ (which is a mall) and I found this cute watermelon cushion and bought it for my girlfriend (she loves watermelons). In the shop there were a bunch of different kinds of cushions, there were watermelons, kiwis, oranges, etc. With this kind of product people will definitely get attracted to its beautiful colours and the different kinds of cushions. Imagine if this watermelon cushion actually smells like watermelon, that would be awesome.

Pareidosomething

What do you see? I can see a couple of eyes, a nose and lips - I can see a face. This is a phenomenon called "pareidolia", it is when you see faces on inanimate objects such as the picture above (I spotted it infront of my hostel on the street). I remember watching on Nat Geo that this started all the way to our ancestors, in order to spot animals quickly the brain would recognize a face or a figure of an animal even on inanimate objects. This is pretty interesting to me because when I was small I got scared poopless when I saw these faces, I thought they were ghosts.

The Beautiful Esplanade

Esplanade is a location in Singapore which according to me has the best view of Singapore (for free). From here you can see the skyscrapers of Singapore, Marina Bay Sands and the Merlion Park. Aside from the view, this location also has a stage (the pic above) where they usually have a concert, it also has river ferries stops and also some theaters. Most interesting thing in Esplanade is that the two main buildings has durian spikes for the roof, and the only way to know why is to pay for the guided tours (or ask someone who has been on one, or if your relative works as the tour guide).

Seizure Danger

Fireworks has been around since the 7th century, and as time passes people still use it in big occasions such as anniversaries, religious festivals, etc. Fireworks could differ in range of explosions and colours. People would get attracted of its beautiful and loud noise from the fireworks. Fireworks could also be organised into forming a shape but extremely difficult to get it right, here's an example of fireworks forming a smiley face:

Closeup of smiley face fireworks at the Bay Bridge Fireworks Festival in 2007

The Sleeping Cat Café

A while ago I went to Bugis Street to check out this café called the Cat Café, it is just like any other cafés but this one is filled with the cleanest, chubbiest cats you've never seen before. Once you enter you will have to pay SGD 15 for a drink and you can stay for as long as you want, the best part is you can play with the cats! This was my first time entering a café like this and I think that it was the best café I've ever been to. Oh, and they sleep so much, too much...

Someone Who Paints Buildings On The Street

I was walking out of an MRT station and I noticed people were watching someone doing something, so I came closer to take a look and it was apparently a man who was painting a building right in front of him. I took a closer look and it looked exactly like what was in front of him. I was really amazed by the technique he used (really fast painting with lots of water added with the paint) and also by the result at the end. Even though he was painting focusly, he was still able to answer people's questions with a smile :D. (oh and btw sorry for the uncool long title)

The Annoying Project

This Wire Project that I did was part of 3D Fundamentals class. What we had to do is to make an abstract work using a wire, so imagination is a vital part of this work (and originality). What I did is that I used one long wire to create a zig-zag-tree-like design and in the end I got a 4/5 :D. It was super tiring and annoying to make btw.

Triangle Papers Project Thingy

This Tangram project that I did was an assignment from 2D Fundamentals class. We had to cut off 7 pieces of paper from an A5 or an A4 paper to form 7 different shapes, then we had to use our creativity and imagination to form 12 human poses and 12 animals with it. What I learned from this is that you can make anything just by using little resources plus your creativity and imagination.

Flower Sandals

This interesting design of sandals I found while I was walking in Plaza Singapura is something that catches my eyes because of the creative and colourful design. They put together different colours of sandals to form different sizes and colours of flowers to promote a sale in the shop.

Cool Keychain

This keychain my girlfriend bought me (yes, it's a Batman keychain :D) is something I thought was very special and it is something that people would buy because of it's clean and awesome design. Keychains are known for the selective options of different looks or kinds, you can literally make any kinds of keychains if you want to (or if you can). This is something very creative and also an easy way to make money.

Blue Futuristic Trees

This picture I took of the Supertree Grove located at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore is something that attracted my eye the first time I came there, I took out my phone and took the picture right away. What I think about this is that this is something really beautiful and very creative, and it looks stunning at night. With the high level of  creativity customers would think that they are in a futuristic garden, and will attract them for sure cause people can see them from far away.

Best Tool For Those Who Are Allergic To Dusts

This cute and squishy dust blower is owned by my roommate and the reason why I'm posting it here I because I think that making something as simple as a dust blower used to clean parts of your computer into something adorable (what a cute squid-like creature) is very creative. I think doing something like this will attract much more customers, you can even have it as a collection if you want.

Graffiti (Not To Be Mistaken With Gravity)

 

Graffiti is mostly considered as vandalism, since most of the artist would spray their creativity onto walls and other people's property. I, for one, doesn't mind at all if someone would spray them on my wall, just as long as they came from the artist heart because to me graffity is pure creativity and artwork.