Planet Detrus
Armando Alves @ June 14th, 2007Extra geek points for the Invaders pieces.
Archive for the 'Creativity' Category
Little Big Planet: Gaming 3.0
Armando Alves @ July 20th, 2007
Media Molecule are a brand new game studio (new as in since the beginning of 2006) from UK that joined forces with Sony to produce Little Big Planet, a recently announced game for Playstation3. The title has taken the big studios by surprise, proving that if innovation and creativity is nurtured (check their lab), great products come along.
(Alex Evans presenting the title)
(longer video demo at GDC, San Francisco)
With a website that reminds me the works by Saul Bass, with a touch of Friz Freleng, it was probably developed by Rexbox, that previously worked on Rag Doll Kung Fu the cult game were the founders came from.
I’m not quite sure if the game is a result or an answer to web 2.0, but it surely represents a in-your-face slam dunk at Second Life, that seems to be loosing the enfatuation. The game’s juicy features have several of the best things of today’s web:
- players can create their own character: Second Life, Gizmoz or user generated content done right
- customize your material: social networking profile “pimping”
- add your own items: hmm, widgets maybe ??
- ability to create your own detailed 3d worlds: think iGoogle
- upload them to the playstation network: social media, youtube culture
- invite others to play in you environments: communities, social networks again
Oh, on top of all that it’s educational, with lovely characters and seems to have a hell of a physic engine. Now they only need to add some RSS feeds so i can check my friends latests updates and i’m all set to Gaming 3.0.
(as if we needed the buzzword. Gaming is all about the ride)
Project 337
Armando Alves @ June 8th, 2007This is the kind of thing that Pedro will dig, as he’s so interested in creative collaboration.
Adam and Dessi Price, inspired by their trip to the 11 Spring Project, turned a downtown building they owned over to the art community in Utah. They started this project only knowing one local artist and every artist that joined after came from word-of-mouth. In the end, over 144 artists participate in the project. Over 7,500 people toured through the building.
Learn more about this project here.
Source: Wooster Collective
Offf Barcelona 2007 videos
Armando Alves @ May 23rd, 2007
Since 2004, i’ve attended OFFF at Barcelona. This year, having met/seen most of the speakers, i’ve decided to skip this event and focus a on more diverse subjects (maybe @media 2007 or Let’s Interact). I’m glad i did it since most of the talks are now available through Nice to Meet You and BD4D at http://ntmy.org/offf2007/.
If you’re into Post-Digital Creation Culture, Flash or Interactive development watch some of the panels by renowned names such as Craig Swann, Joshua Davis and Neville Brody (above) or the brilliant folks from North Kingdom.
Microsoft is killing creativity
Armando Alves @ May 14th, 2007 
Just in case you haven’t heard, Microsoft is taking a swing at the free and open source software movement. I hope they step on their own shit.
- Topic via: Software Livre
- Buzz heard at asterisco.paradigma.pt
- Image credits: Mandolux, hacked by me
Morpho Towers
Armando Alves @ April 3rd, 2007Beautiful.
Source: Cpluv
Bubble this!
Armando Alves @ January 12th, 2007Is this cool or what? Colored bubbles … weeeeee, yupiii.
Imagine the great experience marketing and enternaiment for children. After all, they are one of the greatest purchasing influencers.
From http://www.zubbles.com/whatAreZubbles/index.asp:
“Bubbles have long been a source of delight and fascination for children the world over.Now, after ten years of experiments and discoveries, the creative minds at Ascadia have done what scientists claimed was impossible… we’ve combined the simple joy of bubbles with the beauty and magic of color, inventing the world’s first real colored bubbles.
We call them Zubbles®.”
Color for web design
Armando Alves @ November 27th, 2006Color schemes seem to be a hot topic these days. Just after I’ve read Digital Web magazine article about color, Adobe launched Kuler, a tool that allows you to create and share color schemes.
These online tools are great but you get best results if you learn a bit about color theory. The role of light, primary and secondary colors, analog and complimentary or the works of Munsell or Kandinsky is a knowledge that always comes in handy no matter how good taste you have in designing your own color schemes.
While theory is great, nature still is the richest source of inspiration when you have to come up with something new. The psychological and anthropological connections of color, the tones and contrast that flowers use to attract the insects or the way the animals change their skins to repel predators are great examples of the importance of color in nature.
These relations can be brought to the web in many ways, for instance:
- Use yellow and green tones if your website has something to do with travel or agriculture.
- Choose colors that are clearly identified with the product such as brown chocolate, plum or olive.
- Red has a cognitive perception of danger and warning. You can use it when you need to have immediate attention by the user.
- Light yellow and blue in a horizontal layout can create a calm and peaceful design, reminding us of the beach, the sea and the horizon.
Another great choice you have to pick your color schemes from are the works of great painters, particularly those who excel in the use of color such as Kandinsky or Picasso.
[Colorful Ensemble by Wassily Kandinsky]
Find how color was employed by these artists or just use your Photoshop picker in some of the paintings and build your next Mona Lisa color scheme. If the natural way is still not enough you have a lot of resources on the web:
Tools
- Color Schemer Online v2
- Color Scheme Generator on WellStyled
- Color Palette
- Color Schemer
- Color Match redux
- Color Jack
Sharing:
Other Resources:
- ColorWorqx
- Colorsontheweb.com
- HTML Colors
- Munsell Palette
- Color Lab (color blind simulation)
If you have some other great resources you want to share, feel free to post a comment.
Update: Veerle has an awesome article on the same subject
The Art of Playing Scrabble
Armando Alves @ October 30th, 2006
When a set of conditions is present - such as an enormous amount of luck - you can beat the highest score ever on Scrabble. And you don’t have to be a genius: a carpenter and a deli counter were able to score 830 points, breaking the 13 year old record of 770 points.
