This blog is now rarely updated, but remains as an archive of bits and pieces I've collected from around the internet. To see what's caught my eye more recently, find me on twitter.

Thursday 30 September 2010

Ant Blog - A summary

Why & what gets posted?
I'm a sucker for fascinating science great design and anything that can combine aesthetic perfection, scientific rigour and top-class entertainment will fit right in here. I'm a huge believer in the entertaining communication and sharing of science as widely as possible, and I'll post anything I find that relates to that. It's not all science, and I put up anything that catches my eye.



Science stories and intellectual curiosities:

European energy consumption. Click on the image and have a play:

The science of Big Bird:


Making science fun:

If you can combine great presentation/animation with interesting science or anything educational, I love you:
NY Times - Turbine-Free Wind Power from Antfood on Vimeo.







Posters/designs I love:



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I Love a Good Animation:



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Miscellaneous Greatness:





These murals are just fantastic:



Or check out my writing on super suits, mind control, trolls, and loads more.






-Ant.

Friday 24 September 2010

#81; Strangers

No real explanation needed here - I just think it's clever and quite nice.
(from here).

Wednesday 22 September 2010

#80; bus pass design

Super quick post - the geeky designer inside me loves this set on flickr of great old bus passes. Really nice designs.

Saturday 18 September 2010

#79; Wild Things

Another unorganized pile of stuff. Like an online car boot sale, with only good stuff, and all for free.

This is a super sweet tribute to Where the Wild Things Are. I really like the animation in this. Really subtle, and tells a sweet story.

Buildings & Vampires from Nico Casavecchia on Vimeo.


This is a very short wordless film - possibly advertising boxing on HBO in the US, but it's pretty effective:


And Street Art made out of colourful tape:

TapeArt - Stella & Rex & Jurij Lozic from Multipraktik on Vimeo.

Thursday 16 September 2010

#78; Another Mixture

Again, today I'm just going to vomit out a series of things I like. As usual, using this place as an archive of personal favourites as much as anything else. For a slightly more practical post, I've written another post for Wisdom London. Continuing their "ever wondered about..." series. This time, Paper.li gets the treatment. (previous posts were on Issuu & Android)

The Walls Are Dancing (there's a "Making Of", too):



I've posted similar things to this before, but I love this Hero/Villain series. This one - Batman/Penguin. It's Very clever...

This ad made me smile. I think it's clever, funny, and gets its message across well:

And finally, another ad. Not quite sure how it gets any real message about Samsung across, to be honest, but I do love the video, regardless:

Monday 13 September 2010

#77; A mixture

Just a bunch of things that I like:

First, I really like this animation, It's very clever, and cutely animated:

Umbra (HD - 2010) from Malcolm Sutherland on Vimeo.



These images are clever. One of those things I wish I'd thought of first:
Street View "Google's World"

And for anyone who followed the consistently entertaining @BPGlobalPR, here is an interview with the man himself.

Sunday 12 September 2010

#76; Vincent, Tim & toys of the future

A nice little tribute to Tim Burton's classic Vincent reminded me to re-watch the original, which really is great:

Tim Burton's Vincent:


And the tribute, TiM:

TiM from Ken Turner on Vimeo.


good stuff.


Totally unrelated. A video about potential future screen technologies. I want all of these things, right now, please. I think the best thing is the expandable handheld tablet phone thing. All very exciting:

Friday 10 September 2010

#75; Ikema

Two nice ads. First, Ikea set loose 100 cats in the store near me:



and, for those that way inclined, quite a good "making of" video:



Then, a really cool puma advert. I've always quite liked puma and felt they could do a lot better at advertising themselves. This is good:

Thursday 9 September 2010

#74; A post full of Wisdom, and a building with a face

There's a post written by me over on the Wisdom London blog today. It's basically an explanation of Issuu - a great tool that I've used for a variety of things. Predictably, having gushed about how easy to use it is, we couldn't get it to do what it is meant to and embed a file on the blog. C'est la vie.

In other news, a skyscraper in Taiwan got a little makeover:


Why isn't there more stuff like this? One day, when I own an entire city, all of the buildings will look as fun as this.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

#72; Pixar

Again, no wicked-cool "stuff" to show today, but a post I read about Pixar has got me thinking a bit. To satisfy the visual thirst/hunger of my millions of loyal readers, here is a quick behind the scenes of the short Day&Night, played before Toy Story 3. If you haven't seen Toy Story 3, you're an awful person.



Now really, I could easily post absolutely anything that has been produced by Pixar, because they have never once missed a beat. They have now had 11 (I think) consecutive critical and commercial successful films. That is absurd. Their worst film (Cars? Must admit, have not seen Ratatouille) is still good competition to the very best that anyone else has produced in the same genre. In terms of modern animated feature films, those that can compete with Pixar in terms of entertainment, story, humour and visuals are few and far between.

So how do they do it? And why isn't everyone else doing the same!? I am determined to end up working somewhere that I truly enjoy, partly because I want a happy life, and also because I think that's the way to get the best work done. I think we are at our best when we are doing what we want to do. Read this (or watch one of the Pixar documentaries etc etc). It seems to me that this is why Pixar creates such great stuff. People are working in an environment they love, on things they love, unrestricted, and with a dedication that means that nothing but the very best will do. Time, care and love is given to everything. The studio doesn't whizz out several films a year, but carefully crafts one or two, but makes sure they're good. Quality over quantity.

So much to be learnt from the way they do things, regardless of your industry. I don't think there's an organisation in the world that couldn't benefit from adopting a little bit of Pixar's philosophy.

One day, I want to work somewhere that I love as much as I imagine the Pixar folk love it there, and I want to have that feeling of pride and ownership over what I'm doing.



PS: Watch Cloudy with A Chance Of Meatballs. I was put off by the silly title and colourful images for ages, but it's great. Not Pixar at all, but great. Trailer.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

#71; Big Promises

I haven't found any great, hilarious or fascinating things in the last couple of days, so will instead ramble a bit about the new campaign that UBS have launched. As always, I'm just using this space to vent opinions as they occur to me - this isn't a carefully considered critique, but more a gut reaction.

I've just started a 2 week internship at Wisdom London, and yesterday morning Kate mentioned having seen one of these ads. UBS are running the line:
"We Will Not Rest..."
The point made was that this is a very big promise. Is it too big? Should companies promise unrealistic things? Does this just build distrust in ad campaigns and brands themselves?

Of course, grand promises that aren't followed through are detrimental for everyone involved, and companies should only ever promise that which they know they can deliver. I completely agree that if this sort of campaign isn't coupled with genuine internal change and a massive introspective effort, then it is something that should be criticised and which will ultimately fail.

However, consider the context of this campaign. The bank's image is in a dire position. Globally, public trust of all large financial bodies is very low, while the situation for UBS has been worsened by a very public tax dispute in the US. UBS need a big, powerful message to win back the public, and this is it. This puts major pressure on themselves, but I think that's a good thing. This shows self belief and genuine commitment. The very personal statement of intent from the CEO, in which he says that this is "much more than a simple advertising campaign" augers well. He suggests that, starting with himself, the whole company will take this as the attitude and approach to all that they do.

It may be my naive and overly trusting view of these things, but I'd rather an organisation come out like this and show that they are willing to work hard and commit to winning people back, than have them show a weak and half hearted attempt. This is a huge commitment, and perhaps UBS have made life hard for themselves. But doesn't the fact that they are willing to put this pressure on themselves merit our admiration?

If they do not deliver on the promise then it will be their own downfall, and I will sheepishly admit that this is not a case of a brand being ambitious and commited, but deceitful and short-sighted. But I like to see a company put itself on a limb like this. If they didn't trust themselves enough to carry this out, then why should we trust them to do anything?

There is no reason or excuse for making promises that can't be kept. But putting yourself under pressure, and publicly committing to change and effort seems like a good thing to me. After all, if you don't deliver, it'll be you that suffers the most.

Friday 3 September 2010

#70; Clever uses of the internet

Two things. Just like yesterday, I can't embed them, but you absolutely should go look.

First, Arcade Fire's GREAT promo trick. No idea how it's done, but it's very clever, and very very good.
Go HERE and type in the name of the street you live on.

Then, on a similar note, go check out the new tip-ex ad. A bit new, a bit clever. I like.

Thursday 2 September 2010

#69; Animated Typography

For some unknown reason I can't embed this video, so you'll just have to CLICK HERE.

A really nice video of a font. It's better than it sounds...

Wednesday 1 September 2010

#68; King of Kong & an animation

First, a film recommendation. Watch King Of Kong. The trailer gives you the idea:


Basically it is a documentary style film which follows the attempts of someone who is presented as being an incredibly nice, unassuming guy to break the world Donkey Kong record, which is held by one bizarre "god of the game". This film is hilartious, moving and entertaining. Watch it. It's great.

Then watch this fantastic little animation, which was posted on the consistently high standard animade blog. The character of the two circles, the visual animation & the music are all perfect. I wish I could make things like this:

Spheremetrical (Here With You) from impactist on Vimeo.