Digital Arts "Design Language"

PES will keep your desktop warm this winter

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:53:00 GMT

Stop-motion wunderkind PES has released a screensaver that every designer's going to want on their desktop this winter.

Diesel cleans up porn for SFW XXX viral

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:41:00 GMT

Viral ad of the month has to be the one for Diesel's series of gigs-cum-clubnights-cum-parties, titled Diesel XXX. Viral kings The Viral Factory has put together a stupidly funny video called SFW XXX to advertise the events, putting cartoons over 70's porn to remove the rude parts, replacing them with more innocent activities such as horseriding, playing the maracas and blowing up a dinghy.

Adobe CS4 - the (almost) final verdict

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:26:00 GMT

After sneak peeks, rumours, speculation, outright trash talking, and the announcement of an announcement, Adobe's Creative Suite 4 is finally here. We've taken an in-depth look at beta versions of the individual applications, but what do we make of it overall?

Game trailers grow up

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:22:00 GMT

To the CG community, game-related videos – trailers, intros and in-game FMV sequences – are often seen as a bit of a laughing stock. But the latest generation show that they're a match for Hollywood's output.

Kick off the Bank Holiday with a huge-scale VJ gig

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:58:00 GMT

Our favourite VJ crew are returning to the National Theatre on the South Bank tomorrow (Friday August 22) for their fourth annual outdoor mix of music and visuals. Addictive TV combine bouncy electronica with film and TV samples, with matched clips projected onto the huge exterior wall of the Flytower. The performance can be seen all the way from the other side of the Thames – though it's best to be on the balcony of the NT, where crowds congregate for a bit of a boogie.

Another must-see music video from the Chemical Brothers

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:43:00 GMT

Midnight Madness is the latest music video from the Chemical Brothers, and like almost all of the DJ duo's promos, it's a corker. Pushing a digital download-only single in the run up to the release of the best-of album Brotherhood, the video for Midnight Madness matches previous work for the act by mixing a great idea and execution with subtle use of visual effects.

When not using Photoshop leads to disaster

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:40:00 GMT

It's easy to mock poor Photoshop work. There's so much of it around that there's even a whole blog, Photoshop Disasters, dedicated to shonky cutouts, retouching and the like – and the Daily Mail seems to have turned it into an artform. But a recent press photo sent to us by Sony shows exactly why Photoshop-based retouching is so necessary to avoid looking foolish.

Have you the nerve to play poker with coders?

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:37:00 GMT

The creative industry thrives on networking events -- not just because we're all sad misanthropes with no real friends of our own, but because the things that we look for in collaborators and employees are hard to discern using the usual interview process. But it's not every event where you get to see how fast other creatives can think on their feet when under pressure – and see how you measure up too.

The Daily Mail needs Photoshop lessons

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:00:00 GMT

One of the funniest design-related blogs around is Photoshop Disasters, which collects examples of shockingly shoddy or slapdash retouching from newspapers, magazines and Web sites around the world. One surprising serial offender is the Daily Mail, which regularly finds time between running scare stories about immigrants, the EU and anything that smells even a little bit foreign -- and classifing everything in the world as causing or curing cancer -- to publish a catalogue of how not to use Photoshop.

Peek behind the curtain at newspaper site design

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:58:00 GMT

From an information architecture perspective, most of the best designed sites on the Web today are newspaper sites. To succeed, news sites must put a structure to a huge amount of traditional content - stories, features, blogs - and online-specific media such as slideshows, audio and video.

Donnie's back and you still suck at Photoshop

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:11:00 GMT

"Uh, this is Donnie and you suck at Photoshop. You do. You're awful. And that's why your here."

Burma book brings together top designers

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:37:00 GMT

The devastation left by Cyclone Nargis across Burma has galvanized many members of the creative community into action. Last month we covered Shilo's video for MTV, and last week saw the launch of book bringing together the talents of fifty top designers and studios -- including Stefan Sagmeister, Wim Crouwel, Eboy, The Designers Republic and Pentagram -- from which all the proceeds go to UNICEF.

Friday kickback

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:43:00 GMT

It's almost the weekend and the weather's not as bad as you'd expect considering it's the first day of Glastonbury, so allow yourself a break from your current project and find some extra creative inspiration to help yourself through the day.

Graphic design is back

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:55:00 GMT

Looking around this year's New Blood exhibition last night, it's gratifying to see that the best work is largely good ol' ink on paper. While there were some outstanding individual pieces of motion and interactive work, the overall standard wasn't as good as previous years -- but this was more than made up for by a wide variety of cracking old-school designs.

A sneak peek at Photoshop CS4's interface changes

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:29:00 GMT

Adobe's senior product manager for Photoshop -- and semi-official office gossip -- John Nack has talked about the thinking behind some interface changes that will be added to the next version of Photoshop. He's also posted a video showing how it will work.

So what do we know about Creative Suite 4 so far?

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:01:00 GMT

Adobe used to keep schtumm about new versions of its creative tools, not letting out a peep to the public until grandiose announcements shortly before boxed copies it shelves. Over the past year or two though, the company has opened up a little, offering sneak peaks and public betas -- discussing future features and offering public betas of software through its Adobe Labs site.

Cult of Ugly + b3ta = MGMT

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:13:00 GMT

By rights the new MGMT music video should be terrible.

CG crabs show the power of small teams

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:15:00 GMT

Last year we blogged about a music video created by Ryan Bosworth for the outstanding shoegazer band Asobi Seksu, which featured imaginative use of CG origami. The director and VFX artist's latest project is another CG-heavy music video for American indie act Faunts.

Shilo mixtape makes it good

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:14:00 GMT

Creative collective Shilo has proved that it's DJ talents are up to its design skills by releasing its first downloadable mixtape.

Play Tetris inside InDesign

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:12:00 GMT

Everyone's a fan of plug-ins, add-ons and easter eggs within their everyday tools that aren't exactly work-related. For years, designers have amused themselves with the Quark alien, the InDesign alien, and greeking in Klingon (which is built into QuarkXPress or requires the Chattergoofy plug-in for InDesign.

Weird ideas and out-there technology at SIGGRAPH

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 03:10:00 GMT

As excuses go for not discussing what's happenning with products in the future, Autodesk's current line is one of the most extreme we've heard: the government won't let us do it.

Autodesk: the future in the vaguest terms possible

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 03:08:00 GMT

As excuses go for not discussing what's happenning with products in the future, Autodesk's current line is one of the most extreme we've heard: the government won't let us do it.

Want creative innovation: find a university

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:07:00 GMT

While you'd expect the R&D teams at Adobe, Apple, Autodesk et al to be at the forefront of visual effects technology, sometimes the most innovative video and 3D tools aren't created by companies -- they're built in universities by post-graduate students looking to do something more creative than pure number-crunching for their doctorates.

Music video techniques: a change of pace

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 03:06:00 GMT

Over the past few months, many of the best music videos have rebelled against the countless cuts of traditional MTV videos and used the the appearance of a single shot to keep the viewer fascinated with what's happening on-screen.

Why aren't we bored of one-take videos yet?

neil_bennett@idg.co.uk — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:17:00 GMT

You'd have thought that music promo directors -- as well as us as an audience -- would have been bored of kooky single-take videos by now. But again the best promo of the last few weeks tracks an indie singer with a single shot through slightly surreal circumstances.