Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.
I remember discovering We Feel Fine back in 2005, and it blew my mind. Very creative and inspiring project. I am posting it here today because it has just as much—if not more—value today than it did 5 years ago. And really, to some people this site may be old hat, but it’s still important enough to give a shout-out to. You never know who might discover it today and become inspired to build the next great project tomorrow.
It’s funny how sometimes you have what appears to be an original thought or a new take on a subject, only to find out that someone else shares the same thoughts as you. Yesterday I ran across this clip of Talib Kweli on Def Poetry and felt like this was something straight out of my mind, of course written and performed with much more skill than I have. But it was striking to me how similar our thoughts were on the subject of religion. Finding this was a real treasure for me.
My friend recently forwarded me this great blog post on the great Chuck Norris, Karate master and jean inventor. Oh, how I need a pair of these special CN pants. In this ad, he’s sporting an 80′s style that is surprisingly trendy right now with the hipster crowd, especially with that sweet #1 Karate shirt. I realized that:
1.) He’s so cool, I wish I was the guy in the ad about to get my face kicked in
2.) I want Chuck Norris hair (complete with hidden death fist underneath.)
Sometimes during a brief moment of boredom, I will simply enter a phrase into my address bar to view the result. Bad Hair is the result of my search the other day. I find it to be magnificently conceived and humorous, without much rhyme or reason, and I’m glad I found it.
Just ran across this new graphic design / printmaking book released by Gestalten.
“Today’s graphic designers, illustrators, and typographers are rediscovering old printing techniques and handcrafts. They are inspired by passion for the unique; the feel of different papers, press cuts, and embossing; the brilliance of printing inks; and the originality of book binding techniques. The book Impressive presents the results of this passion.”
“Today’s fascination with old-fashioned printing presses and techniques started with individual designers and smaller collectives that created one-of-a-kind printed material by hand for special occasions, such as weddings or birthdays. Impressive features these artists and their personal work as well as a broad range of business cards, invitations, stationery, and publications that are designed and produced in a way that is both nostalgic and contemporary. Historical styles – from the Victorian grandeur of floral elements and adornments to the aesthetics of classical modernism – are used and referenced as well as combined and reinterpreted in unusual ways. Traditional and more exotic techniques such as silk-screen printing, stamping, woodcut, or linocut are used. What counts is doing it yourself.”
This is a true story. This past Saturday, as I was listening to the Gulf disaster unfold, I decided that enough is enough. I simply can’t be a willing participant in the dumb petroleum game. “I need an electric station wagon. Where is my electric station wagon? Who hasn’t thought of this yet?” After 5 minutes online, I found it. The future is here, thanks to EnVision Motor Company.
The Electric Wagon (do you guys need a branding consultant, by the way?) sports a nickel sodium chloride battery and has a range of 200 + miles and speeds of 75 MPH +. This is exactly what I was looking for. At $37,000, it’s a little steep for me, but the maintenance & fuel savings seems to make up for the price differential after 6-10 years or so. Oh, and it qualifies for the full $7,500 Federal tax credit.
The great folks over at Unit have released number 2 in “a series of ‘newspapers’ devoted to the overlooked and unexpected corners of graphic design and visual culture.” This time it is “Looking at Form, a quarterly magazine of the arts (1966—1969).” These great papers are available for £7.50 including postage. Buy it here.
