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Category Archives: Contemporary Issues

Derek Melander: Sculpting With Discarded Clothing

Amongst other media, artist Derick Melander creates meticulous sculptures out of carefully folded second hand clothes. His work brings attention to the large amount of  textile waste that is generated daily. The piles of folded clothing typically weigh between five hundred pounds and two tons, and provide a striking impact of the disposable society we live in…in an artistic way. Link.

Human Oxymorons

If truth is beauty, these people are ugly. Although a horrible thing to say, the inverse idea is that falsity is ugly and the subjects of photographer Phillip Toledano have denied the natural truth of their birth by re-creating themselves through plastic surgery. They have created now false selves in order, I assume, to be [...]

Hilarious, Fabulous Animation on Preventing AIDS

Thanks to my friend, Sandy!

Liquid Glass: New Conservation Agent

It sounds too good to be true: a non-toxic spray invisible to the human eye that protects almost any surface against dirt and bacteria, whether it is hospital equipment and medical bandages or ancient stone monuments and expensive fabrics.

But true it is. The spray is a form of “liquid glass” and is harmless to living things and [...]

GENIUS use of YouTube!

Watch this. I have NEVER seen YouTube used this way and it is amazing. One of the most depressing things about the Web is the comments people leave in response to news items. It is painful to read how  stupid and hateful people can be in their responses. This video on Youtube is not at [...]

The Power of Charts

An excellent video on the power of charts to inform and misinform and about the future of visual language. Link. Thanks to Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish.

Climate Dress

This dress lights up according to the level of CO2 in the air. From the DIFFUS website, they say:
The Climate Dress is made of conductive embroidery, over hundred of tiny LED lights inserted into the embroidey, a CO2 sensor and an Arduino Lilypad microprocessor. The LEDs visualize the level of CO2 in the nearby surroundings [...]

A Humorous Rant on Language (with Great Typography)

All I know about this, is that the poem is by Taylor Mali (www.taylormali.com). His homepage is as brilliant as this video on Vimeo. When you click on the various index sections on his homepage, you see an anagram of the listing title you have chosen that is apt and funny.
This video combines pithy and [...]

NBC Sued Over Use of Fonts

NBC’s legal team has one more headache on its hands. On Tuesday afternoon, the company was served with a lawsuit by the Font Bureau, one of the country’s leading typographic design firms and the company responsible for crafting typefaces for the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and the New York Times Co. What would prompt a [...]

Misperception

Scientific American has been running articles on the neuroscience behind visual illusions. This article, makes you realize how hard accurate unfettered perception is—how much we need context, how little information we need; how distance can change perception. Thanks to Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish and Scientific American.
Regarding the illustraion above:
The Illusion of Sex by Harvard psychologist Richard [...]