Great Brands And Sci-Fi
/A great brand is like a great sci-fi movie. It consistently follows an invented set of rules without ever revealing them to the audience.
— Ben Pieratt (@pieratt) February 8, 2013
Maira Kalman On The Power Of Lists, Maps And Organizing
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Author and illustrator Maira Kalman on The Paul Holdengraber Show.
Jad Abumrad: How Did Radiolab Happen? Gut Churn
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What's gut churn? At the 99U Conference, Radiolab creator and host Jad Abumrad describes it as the radical uncertainty that's a core part of any creative process that really pushes the envelope. You're entering unknown territory, and working without a map.
Using examples from Radiolab's own evolution, Jad shares the benefits of negative feedback and how we can look out for "pointing arrows" that can help guide our work (even when it hurts).
Jad Abumrad is the host and creator of Radiolab, which reaches roughly 2 million people per month. He's been called a "master of the radio craft" for his unique ability to combine cutting edge sound-design, cinematic storytelling and a personal approach to explaining complex topics, from the stochasticity of tumor cells to musical languages to the mathematics of morality. Jad studied creative writing and music composition at Oberlin College in Ohio. He composes much of the music for Radiolab, and in the past has composed music for film, theater and dance.
In 2011, Radiolab received a Peabody Award, the highest honor in broadcasting, and Jad received the prestigious MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.
The Making Of A Groundbreaking Animation: Paperman
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Meet Meg and George, the two leads of Disney/Pixar's Paperman. Introducing a groundbreaking technique that seamlessly merges computer-generated and hand-drawn animation techniques, first-time director John Kahrs takes the art of animation in a bold new direction with this Oscar®-nominated short. Using a minimalist black-and-white style, the short follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City, whose destiny takes an unexpected turn after a chance meeting with a beautiful woman on his morning commute. Convinced the girl of his dreams is gone forever, he gets a second chance when he spots her in a skyscraper window across the avenue from his office. With only his heart, imagination and a stack of papers to get her attention, his efforts are no match for what the fates have in store for him. Created by a small, innovative team working at Walt Disney Animation Studios, Paperman pushes the animation medium in an exciting new direction.
The end of history and the last website→
/And so the rhythm of web work, the not-unpleasant repetition of edit-refresh, has changed. Now it’s edit-refresh-refresh-refresh. And with all those refreshes, you’re not just making sure your one single glorious layout looks right; no, that would still be tractable on a rainy day. Instead, you’re making sure the bizarro variant layouts you’ve cooked up for phones and tablets all look right, all unfurl themselves properly from within the same source somehow, the source that started out so simple, so elegant, but now it’s mutated, it’s full of special cases, because if the sidebar moves up to the top of the phone’s little screen, the buttons are going to have to line up in a row, but there isn’t room for all of them, and it’s not really even a sidebar anymore, is it…
Great observations about the web and web development by the fantastic Robin Sloan maker of Fish and writer of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.