Music

Tonight I was browsing through some old back up cd’s and dvd’s. And if there is one big inspiration for me as a creative person it’s music. Maybe that’s why I got over 50 Gig of music collected. Anyways, I listed a top 5 (wich was really hard), maybe there’s something in it for you too, but maybe not. Here we go:

1) My Chemical Romance (example)
This is my all time favorite band. I know them for about 4 years now and they are just mindblowing. They started out as a emo band but evolved into a rough punk band with alot of theater infulences.

2) Funeral For A Friend (example)
This is a emo band from Wales. What makes them great are the lyrics, they have something poëtic.

3) A Perfect Circle (example)
Maynard James Keenan is the genius behind this band. He’s a pure perfectionist in every way. His songs starts political and religous discussions. Maynard is also the mastermind behind the band Tool.

4) Funkstörung (example)
This two producers are experimental and are pushig creative barriers. The music they make is very difficult to describe, but it’s a mix of breakbeat/lounge/trip-hop, I dunno. I lots of their video clips they collab with the Designers Republic. Too bad you won’t see these clips on mtv, but you can check them out online! (thank god for the internet!)

5) Eagles of Death Metal (example) (example)
These are the kings of rock and roll! Live, these guys are unstopable, and they don’t give a damn about what others think or say. If they are ever in a town near you, check them out! even if you don’t like rock you should have seen how sexy the lead singer is.

Be open minded and check out the example’s, enjoy!

Nasty, bad, ugly, shocking and fantastic!

Sure movies like “300″ & “Sincity” are must see movies. Movies like “Pulp fiction” & “Reservoir dogs” should have been part of your life in becomming a grown up. But if you really love movies and you admire the twisted minds of movie directors you should check out the DVD’s called “Nacht van de waansmaak”. These DVD’s are are collections of trailers of some of the worst movies ever made. They are just nasty as hell, but if you think about it… That makes them brilliant! After seeing these DVD’s you’ll be flabbergasted what kind of movies where shown in Cinema’s and on national television. I’ve watched the DVD a few times now with some friends and they are just must haves. The best part is, they only cost €9,90!

Cashback

No this isn’t a semi erotic hollywood comedy/feelgood movie. Cashback is a short film written and directed by Sean Ellis. It’s about a guy from a art academy and the relationship betweeen him and his girlfriend has just been broken. Because of this he now suffers from insomnia. No fake and over reacted emotions or stupid actions, but pure thoughts and time to kill. To kill the time at night he decides to take a job at a supermarket (night shift). Eventually he starts to believe in a different world. A world where time stands still and he can admire the beauty of this world. A must see, if you don’t feel like seeing another over produced hollywood crap movie.

By the way, I find the simplicity of the dvd cover great! Not because of the naked girl, but just take a closer look at it. The picture shows no dynamics at all, the focus is really good and the centration is exactly the middle. Lots of white is always good and the title “Cashback” is out of the center. That makes it great! Talking about simplicity and a lovely layout.

Playstation 3 home

Thank god I have a “little” brother! Yngwie is a great guy, looks good, makes some good money, hase a very nice girlfriend, and above all: He’s getting the PS3 on the release date! Yeah baby! Sure I admit the Nintendo Wii is really cool, and I love the Wii controller too (although I don’t think it’s that revolutionary). But as I get more and more information from my brother about the PS3, I just thrilled to see it with my own eyes. Yes I am a “graphic whore”, Yes I love the “we are pushing the technical possibility’s” positioning of Sony, And I’m gonna love to say: “Ah you got a Wii, how sweet (for a party!)… But I’m gonna ROCK on the PS3! ” Nah, that’s another bad joke… I just hate the Wii hype, just like I hated the I-pod hype.

Anywayz, Sony made a presentation about the PS3 Home (this is living!). And they made it HUGE! Just check out what you can do with a powerfull 3D engine and a virtual community space.

Communication from machines to people

Being a Communication Multimedia Design student means that I know how applications communicate with people. If I make really good and smart interaction design model I could even predict what there’s going to happen and knowing why. We get alot of good pointers from our teachers and you can tell people are gettign better and better (ofcourse not all, only the ones who really want it). I really changed the way I look at design since my first interaction design class. Just a few minutes ago I was just surfing around and I bumped into this article about his upcomming book (the design of future things). It’s about how machines (software and hardware!) should communicate with people. Donald A. Norman sums up 5 basic rules.

1) Keep things simple.
The trick about keeping it simple is, make it feel natural. They shouldn’t even have to think about how it works. Keep in mind when design things “natural”, you still want people’s attention!

2) Always give people a conceptual model.
Give them the illusion that they know how it works and what’s comming next. It keep’s dumb people happy.

3) Give reasons.
People aren’t the easiest beings on this earth. If you give them an awnser, they won’t believe you 100% untill they see it them selves or you give them a logical reason for it.

4) Continually reassure.
In other words, give them constant feedback about what they just did and that it worked out fine. If you don’t they will panic and get insecure.

5) Make them think they are in control.
Aslong as there’s a good conceptual model and they getthe feedback they needed people think they are in control. This will make them feel secured and comfortable.

Norman, D. A. (2007). The Design of Future Things. New York: Basic Books. (Expected publication date is November, 2007: maybe later.)

Stereo type CMD student

At this point we are working on our 3rd project of this year. This means, we are starting from 0 again. This includes socializing with your new team, making a debriefing, a schedual, lots of marketing and target audience research. And above all: Persona’s! And not only for the project but for some other lesson’s too! Now I won’t say I hate them, but It’s getting borring to get a stereo type, make up realistic story for your application, and get a picture of a person who covers the whole target group. I also had a little chat with someone at school about all the different kind of students at our school. But after a while I thought; “they are not that different at all!” Even worse, most of them are the same. Only a few people really stand out of the crowd. So I tought, “Hey, let’s make a silly persona about CMD students!”

Okay then there are two groups, but they still are part of the stero type CMD student: Apple fanboys & Vista but I have a I-pod people.

Persona

Name: Gino
Age: 22
Hobby’s: gaming, downloading music, Chillin’ at home
Favorite music: drum&bass, electro (tiga), hip-hop(nerd, kanye west, outkast), pop-rock (kasabian, falloutboy, kaiserchiefs)
Favorite games: Silly internet games (during class), Warcraft, Couterstrike, and ofcourse they love the Nintendo Wii
Favorite movies: Sincity, Killbill, Pulpfiction & the Butterfly effect
Favorite websites: Geenstijl, Styleboost, Google, Bas Leurs blog
Favorite magazines: Blend, Bright, Computer Arts Projects

Now let’s look at the way they present them selves:

1) fuzzy/overslept hairsyle
2) a trendy colbert
3) an I pod
4) a Wii-tennis arm
5) a retro shirt or sweater
6) early symptoms of RSI
7) a 3.2 mega pixel mobilephone camera (often used to call or send text messages)
8 ) trendy vintage jeans, but wear them a bit baggy
9) Sneakers (adidas/converse)

Graffiti Research Lab

I just found something really awsome on youtube. And I don’t know if people knew this group (GRL) already but this video shows they are brilliant!

Imagine what could happen if you could use this techniqe for gurilia marketing actions. It’s digital,, it’s clean, it’s freakin’ bigand it still has the hardcore vibe that signatures the graffiti scene. I just love it!

Corporate style documents

Today I was trying to get a style document from a few company’s (KPN, Sony, Philips, Hema, Coca-Cola, TNT, Microsoft). I’m just really interested how much work they have gathert and how they use their brand/logo on different platforms. So I just browsed their websites, and searched for their phone numbers.
I just started calling them one by one: “Hi, I’m Lemmy. I’m a student from the HRO and study communication & multimedia desgn. At this moment I’m doing research for brand design and how it’s used on different platforms. Do you have a style document of your company that I can get somewhere?”

Trust me, it’s that simple to get them! Except for one company… Microsoft. “sigh”
Calling Microsoft was a bad idea. When I asked for the style document the “call-girl” didn’t had a clue what I was talking about. Okay, that can happen, but she asked me to wait, while she was gonna get someone to help her finding it. After 5 minutes of waiting and listening to a crappy piano tune she was back with the awnser!

Callgirl: “Hi Lemmy, thank you for waiting. This is what you need to do. Click on the start icon and select configuration screen, now click on the fonts map and there you go! All the fonts we use.”

Maybe you can imagine what happend. I was laughing sooo hard, that I almost started crying. The poor callgirl was totally confused at this point. I thanked her for the effort and hang up. Now I’m gonna think of some other company’s I’m gonna call for some interesting style documents.