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Maneli Jamal – Movement III – Ziur

I can’t stop watching/listening to this – amazing arrangement, it’s just stunning.

Weekly Wrap Up

Besides making Christmas lists amid the usual chaotic routine of studying, freelancing and managing the schedule of two small boys, this week has been interspersed with some other rather interesting bits and pieces. Last week saw the MADMA students learning processing with Ollie Glass. “Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions”. I was pretty excited about learning processing and the amazing results that can be achieved – if you know what you’re doing that is. However my lack of studying for 10 years and perhaps my age (!) became quite apparent as I tried to get the creative and logical parts of my brain to work in tandem. Let’s say that this part of the course is a work in progress and I’m hopeful my confidence levels will rise enough to post some of my creations at some point. One day I might be producing work like this Flock of Birds.

Friday night was spent at the Glug Brighton Meetup at The Basement for designer ‘notworking’ fun, hosted by Crush and Agency Rush. A free drink, live artwork, animation and a dj set kept the bold and the beautiful of Brighton entertained for a few hours. Live painting feels simply terrifying to someone like me who can spend an hour debating a brush stroke so I thoroughly enjoyed watching the creations take place. The Basement is a pretty good space for an event too. You can view the Glug Brighton photos from the night on their Flickr page.

Yesterday we were introduced to Semiotics and Memetics with Micheál at the Lighthouse. Thanks to Marie and Matt for the info and well done for making the presentations! Your wise words have kick-started my brain which is now working away on some new ideas for a piece.

Finally, eight weeks of teaching my new group of students at the Sussex Downs College has really motivated me as a teacher. A shaky start and initial struggles have been replaced by sparks of innovation and some really wonderful results. I feel a real sense of achievement for them and plan to keep a journal of their efforts via a Flickr group. I’m hoping to see some of their work adorning a gallery wall sometime soon…I might actually get around to posting some of tutorials at some point too.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa
I’ve have worked very this year, ran the ‘Race For Life’ in June, got over some difficulties and generally been a very good girl.  So I thought I would take 5 minutes to make a small Christmas list. I hope this finds you well in time for the 25th December.

1. Being a very creative type, I’m never without my A4 sketchbook. However due to it being very heavy, I’ve been suffering from backache and think the new Microsoft Courier Tablet would be a welcome addition to my handbag. My chiropractor says it would definitely benefit me in the long term too.

2. I’ve had to spend my well earned pennies on broken boilers and cleaning carpets from muddy rugby boots latterly and therefore haven’t been able to take the kids on holiday. I was thinking it might be nice to have a few air tickets to New York to go and visit the 5th Avenue Apple Store. This would of course be very educational for the boys, enhancing their ICT as well as their Design & Technology skills. Economy class will be fine.

3. Finally, something simple to remind me of all the important people in my life, past and present with these very stylish genealogy charts next to my desk. They would provide a very functional, informative way of teaching the boys about their family history. The sleek design would complement my decor beautifully too.

Best wishes and much love to the Mrs

G xxx

Theremin

A truly original gestural interface…

The electronic instrument of his design which also bears his name — by all accounts the first electronic musical instrument — is notable for its whooping and sliding high-pitched squeal. The theremin has influenced popular music, classical music, television and film soundtracks, and the musical avant-garde. Read more at Wired.com

Today I’m Listening to…

Vania & The Masters 'Forget'

Forget from Michael Fragstein on Vimeo.

Yummy music, scrumptious video…

More Flash Inspiration

http://www.jonathanyuen.com/main.html

Just lovely…

Emotion & IxD

http://creativity-online.com/news/on-interaction-design/136614

Note to self…explore further. Now I must go and teach my Photoshop class.

Website Navigation

Having now started designing my long awaited website, beginning as a template in Photoshop, I’ve trawled through some of good and the bad designer portfolios on the web. Flash? CSS? HTML? I’ve come to the conclusion that simplicity is the key for not only ease of navigation but also to get your message across. Clearly, concisely. Simple is so much more elegant darrrrling. Think of it as Coco Chanel on the web: functional, strong lines, limited colour/complementary colour palettes, where the message is the key ingredient rather than frills and frippery.

Here are some rather nice little finds helping me on my way…

http://www.icblind.com/

http://www.ribbonsofred.com/

http://alifelski.com/about

http://alexcoleman.net/

http://billcenglish.com/

Oh and here’s a rather useful article ‘10 Principles of Navigation Design and Why Quality Navigation is so Important‘.

More gorgeous flash work

Blog mad today but had to share this.
Lovely visuals. Simple, elegant. Putting the Art in Communication. This cute site from Sintesis + SPC really did it for me.