LOOKING THROUGH

Space should be part of the design. Some think filling space is the way to decorate. I disagree. I think space as part of the decorative space. As the saying goes, those that live in glass houses should not throw stones. I say those that have glass stairs, rule. Making your way up or down those things after a few too many drinks might prove to be a challenge, but at least when they find your body at the bottom of the stairs they will comment on how cool you were for having them.

LET ME SELL THAT MOTHER*%#&@!

If you enjoy the challenge of being sold to, or don't understand the art of it, check out Art & Copy. Most of the general public when it comes to marketing, advertising, and branding have no idea what those terms mean, much less the creative brain power that goes in to it. Art & Copy showcases the best in the business, and what sort of creative soul you need to have to do it right. Yes, I used the word soul in describing advertising. Even if you don't care for advertising it will put things in to perspective the next time you see something you want, and why. Trust me.

SONY BRAVIA AD: BOUNCING RUBBER BALLS, BLOWING UP BUILDINGS WITH PAINT, AND STRINGING UP A PYRAMID. JUAN HAD A SOME FUN.

Some commercials suck. Well, lets be honest, actually most commercials suck. We mute them, we change the channel when they come on, we laugh AT them, not with them, and in turn bad ads don't do any brand justice. People hate certain commercials for various reasons. Sometimes its an actor we despise, a song that is overplayed, the product is overhyped, or it was scripted like your 14 year old daughter was the copywriter. 
That isn't the case with Juan Cabral, Creative Director behind the amazing, genius, brilliant, inspiring, advertising spots for Sony Bravia. Yeah the ads came out a few years ago, and Vincent van Gogh painted Sunflowers in 1888. When something stands the test of time, it doesn't get old. Dig me?  
He has talent. He has taste. His ads should be the 101 course study in advertising school. Does it sell more Sony's? Who gives a fuck. It makes Sony look like top dog when it comes's down to how they see their own product. They treat it with patience. They aren't afraid to take chances. They push limits. They do what nobody else dares to do. Thanks to Juan Cabral I like Sony more. Nice work dude. Drinks are on me if I ever get to tell you that in person. And for the record, I don't have a Sony Bravia. 

UNDERWATER SCULPTURES BY JASON de CAIRES TAYLOR

I had heard about this artist from a friend some years ago and forgot to ever look it up. Since starting this blog his name came up again, and after seeing what I was missing, I was blown away! I'm logical and of sound-mind, and know that these sculptures are not human so they feel nothing. But seeing them you almost feel sorry for them. At the same time they look like they are at peace being under 12 - 16 feet of under water off the coast of Mexico and West Indies. All alone, watching the fish swim by, sharks brushing up against them. It's almost as if they were frozen in time, like a weird episode of the Twilight Zone or Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back. To be a certified diver and come upon one of these sculptures has to be an amazing sight. To know that you are one of the lucky few to ever see it, and will ever see it right in front of you. 
In a world where we're used to seeing plants, crabs, tropical fish, starfish, and sharks we now have human-like sculptures playing together. I mean we have fish sculptures and art in our world. I think in some strange way Jason has found a way to let the underworld know that not all humans are bad people.

More on Jason de Caires Taylor

HISTORY OF THE SLINKY AND IT'S INVENTOR RICHARD JAMES

In 1943, Richard James wasn't trying to invent the Slinky. It invented itself when he dropped a tension spring and it kept moving. Below is the story of the Slinky, and it's inventor Richard James taken from About.com and Wikipedia.com

Richard James told his wife Betty, "I think I can make a toy out of this" and then spent the next two years figuring out the best steel gauge and coil to use for the toy. Betty James found a name for the new toy after discovering in the dictionary that the word "Slinky" is a Swedish word meaning traespiral - sleek or sinuous.

Slinky debuted at Gimbel's Department Store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the 1945 Christmas season and then at the 1946 American Toy Fair. Richard nervous at the first demonstration of his toy convinced a friend to attend and buy the first Slinky. However, this turned out to be unnecessary as 400 were sold during the 90 minute Gimbel demonstration.

Richard James and Betty James founded James Spring & Wire Company (renamed James Industries) with $500 dollars and began production. Today, all Slinkys are made in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania using the original equipment designed and engineered by Richard James. Each one is made from 80 feet of wire and over a quarter billion Slinkys have been sold worldwide.

Richard James opened shop in Philadelphia after developing a machine that could produce a Slinky within seconds. The toy was packaged in a red-lettered box, and advertising saturated America. James often appeared on television shows to promote Slinky. In 1952, the Slinky Dog debuted. Other Slinky toys introduced in the 1950s included the Slinky train Loco, the Slinky worm Suzie, and the Slinky Crazy Eyes, a pair of glasses that uses Slinkys over the eyeholes attached to plastic eyeballs. James Industries' main competitor was Wilkening Mfg. Co. of Philadelphia and Toronto which produced spring-centered toys such as Mr. Wiggle's Leap Frog and Mr. Wiggle's Cowboy. In its first 2 years, James Industries sold 100 million Slinkys.

In 1960, Richard James left the company after his wife filed for divorce and he became an evangelical missionary in Bolivia. Betty James managed the company, juggled creditors, and moved the company to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania in 1964. Richard James died in 1974. The company he founded and its product line expanded under Betty James' leadership. In 1995, she explained the toy's success to the Associated Press by saying, "It's the simplicity of it."

Betty James died of congestive heart failure in November 2008, aged 90, after having served as president of James Industries from 1960 to 1998. Over 300 million Slinkys have been sold between 1945 and 2005, and the original Slinky is still a bestseller. 

Other Uses:

- High school teachers and college professors have used Slinkys to simulate the properties of waves, United States troops in the Vietnam War used them as mobile radio antennas, and NASA has used them in zero-gravity physics experiments in the Space Shuttle.

- In 1959, John Cage composed an avant garde work called Sounds of Venice scored for (among other things) a piano, a slab of marble and Venetian broom, a birdcage of canaries, and an amplified Slinky.

- In 1985 in conjunction with the Johnson Space Center and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Discovery astronauts created a video demonstrating how familiar toys behave in space. "It won't slink at all," Dr. M. Rhea Seddon said of Slinky, "It sort of droops." The video was prepared to stimulate interest in school children about the basic principles of physics and the phenomenon of weightlessness.

Commercials:
Slinky 1
Slinky 2
Slinky 3

A PERFECT SHAPE: THE CIRCLE

Because of its symmetry the circle is considered as the perfect shape. It is the symbol for the total symmetry of the divine. The Greek scholar Proclus (500 AC) wrote: "the circle is the first, the simplest and most perfect form".
Interested in knowing how to get the area of a circle? Here is a Youtube tutorial on how. 

Fun With Circles...

THERE IS ONLY ONE CORRECT ANSWER AND 43 QUINTILLION WRONG ONES. THE STORY OF THE INVENTOR OF THE RUBIKS CUBE.

Little Did Erno Rubik ever imagine but in the late 70's he had invented what was to become the worlds most popular selling puzzle game in history. A cube of colors you can twist and turn and maybe, or maybe not ever solve it. Solve it or not, almost everyone in the 80's gave it a try. Still to this to day, generations later, people are still trying to beat world records for the best time. 

It was wonderful to see how, after only a few turns, the colors became mixed, apparently in random fashion. It was tremendously satisfying to watch this color parade. Like after a nice walk when you have seen many lovely sights you decide to go home, after a while I decided it was time to go home, let us put the cubes back in order. And it was at that moment that I came face to face with the Big Challenge: What is the way home?" - Erno Rubik


To know this man is to listen to him, in his own words...

I was born in 1944 in Budapest, Hungary. My father was a mechanic-engineer, glider builder, a renowned specialist, creator of more than twenty six types of gliders. My mother was woman of letters, poetess and artist. The combined presence of these impulses, the technical one and the arts one, haw been for me, I'm sure of it, a determining factor. At first, I tended towards the visual arts : I drew a lot and I have painted a lot. I made my secondary education in a school which was dependent upon the "Beaux- Arts", as a sculptor. From that time, my taste for technical applications awakened. So the next step in my studies naturally became the University of Technical Education of Budapest, and, in 1967, I obtained there my architect diploma.

I still have a passion for architecture, as one have the more complex activities which combines the more characteristic features of science, technical science and arts. With my diploma, I didn't feel yet like a completely well-trained man and I continued my studies at the Decorative Arts High School in the interior architecture section. My second diploma gave me the title of designer; it was given to me in 1970. These studies made me sensitive to the artistic factors. Since 1970 I have stayed constantly in the High School, teaching plans and constructions, interior architecture drawings, furniture plans and projects, study of form and descriptive geometry. Teaching is the best way to learn, I'm still convinced of that; by passing on our knowledge we continue to discover and learn. Moreover, this activity force us each time to a new formulation of what we want to express, force us to new tries, constant search of new methods. The constant links with youth help us to always have a youthful outlook, make us able to surprise ourselves constantly. I got married in 1977; my wife is an interior architect. Our little daughter, born in 1978, is called Anne.

Space always intrigued me, with its incredibly rich possibilities, space alteration by (architectural) objects, objects transformation in space (sculpture, design), movement in space and in time, their correlation, their repercussion on mankind, the relation between man and space, the object and time. I think the CUBE arose from this interest, from this search for expression and for this always more increased acuteness of these thoughts.(...) I love playing, I admit it, I particularly games where the partner, the real opponent is nature itself, with its really particular but decipherable mysteries. The most exciting game for me is the space game, the search of possible space shapes, that is to say the logical and concrete building of various layouts.

Of course you can't give the exact time of an idea's birth, it seems impossible to me, to me particularly, for who time, from this point of view, has very little interest. It can have been in spring, 1974 that the idea came to me, as a noteworthy possibility. I have a nature attached to experiences, so, since the beginning, I studied variations of a 2x2x2 cube. I was immediately struck by the wealth that could be sensed only from this start. The final technical solution, which is the simplest form 3x3x3, the most easily workable in models, after a few tries, came to me toward the end of autumn, 1974. Several models ready to work were made for me and my friends, it has been exciting to play with them for the first time. We were all surprised to discover gradually that we had made something original, new.
The question of the patent of the invention was immediately raised, so I began the necessary process the 30 January, 1975. Almost at the same, sensing something of the importance of the invented game, of its possibilities and of its real value, I began searching for a partner for the manufacturing and by an extraordinary chance, I indeed found one. The following is rather simple : after its launch on the market (1977) the game became, rapidly and as if by magic, very popular in Hungary, then, from 1980 in the whole world. I feel like the story only begins, and that we can't predict the end, as well as nobody, I think, could have guessed its future.


Rubiks Cube Commercial from the 80's 1
Rubik's Cube Commercial from the 80's 2
Official Rubik Cube Website
Rare Interview With Inventor Erno Rubik
      
Now it's available in Braille