Dystopian Design

August 12th, 2007Blog2 comments

I love dystopian future sci-fi movies. I think that in order to properly portray a dystopia you need to understand the present and design a world that accurately twists it. Not only add grime and soot, but project the results of social and environmental calamities on the present. In other words, you need to really know what the present is about in order to wreck it realistically.

I present to you two case studies in dystopian design. The first is the entire suite of commercial advertising from Children of Men. Witness ominous commercials for Homeland Security, happiness pills, creepy future-viagra, and other wonderful pieces of graphic/motion graphic design. Everything is extremely well thought-out and disturbing.

Next: An excellent article on the graphic design of Idiocracy. Some graphic design team had a field day with this one, taking logos that we all know and love and satirizing them in a most awesome manner. Behold the Carls’ Jr. Angry Star, the ST-A-8BUCKS logo, and “St. God’s Memorial Hospital”.

Dystopianism is pretty much a brand of satire. Man, it must’ve been fun to design these things. How do you get that job?

King of the Nerds

August 8th, 2007Blog0 comments

Currently reading:

This is Steve Wozniak’s autobiography and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect. As a kid, he and his friends built an electronic equivalent of a string-and-can communication system that linked their houses; it had a noiseless mode at night so they could coordinate sneaking out and toilet papering peoples’ houses.

What I like best about Woz’s ideas are that he sees himself as a pure engineer — an “engineer’s engineer”, developing technology to help everybody. That’s pretty interesting. I think that, ideally, when you seek your place in the world it should follow the hero’s journey:

Figure out what you want to do –> Master doing it –> Find a way to use what you do to save “the village”

From inside to outside, that’s true actualization — from taking care of yourself to finding a way to take care of other people.

Two Turntables and a Microphone

August 5th, 2007Blog0 comments

Bow down to the HD glory of:

HD TV is very good if you want to see lots and lots and lots of caribou on your screen at once. Planet Earth is available on HD DVD/Blu-Ray and is properly narrated by Sir David Attenborough; the “U.S. Version” is the exact same treatment narrated by Sigourney Weaver. Sir David Attenborough is to Sigourney Weaver as Lawrence Olivier is to Sigourney Weaver. Make sure you get the non-U.S. version.

This series is porn for people who love nature. It is Mother Nature at her nastiest, and in the highest resolution modern technology can muster. It’s full of shots of the camera pulling back further and further to reveal multitudes of birds (hundreds of thousands in one shot), making you realize that there’ll be plenty of food to go around if Ralph’s ever shuts down. You just have to learn how to shoot.

As for HD itself, I’m still in the honeymoon phase. The only thing that bothers me is the idea of having to re-buy all the movies that I already own on DVD — though honestly all I really need is Saving Private Ryan since most of my favorite movies aren’t explodey eye-candy.

The Best Thing I Found Today: NASCAR(tm) Brand Romance Novels.

Weapon of Choice

August 3rd, 2007Blog0 comments

I’ve watched the first two seasons of Slings and Arrows; I’m now two episodes into the third season and I’m dreading its end. There are only 18 episodes total, and there will be no more. I’m dreading the end.

This is like Freaks and Geeks for me. I still have that very last episode that I haven’t watched yet — when I watch it, it will be over. It’ll all be gone.

It’s kind of like that character on Lost saving up Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. This idea is apparently a tribute to John Irving (writer of The Cider House Rules), who is saving the same book up himself.

I have a lot of trouble with the concept of “over” and the idea of “the end”. I wish some things could just keep hamster dancing forever. Maybe I should get into fan-fic writing?

You know what’s mighty fine? Discovery Channel HD. A few friends of ours already know this fact. Let me say this: Grizzly bears at high resolution easily justifies the extra five bucks from the cable company for the HD cable box. The picture pops mighty, seems more three dimensional. Thumbs up!

Also big thumbs up for Sunrise Earth, a program suggested to me by our other friend Mike (no relation). Yes, HD is my new shiny objet du jour. It’s currently the thing keeping me sane!