Daftscrawl - Blog

Stuff I find, Stuff I like, Stuff I do.

[daftscrawl]

Getting back into drawing again, made this card for my dad's birthday. The arms are off annoyingly but otherwise quite happy with it, haven't really found the time to get creative recently with my job.

Bought some Faber-Castell pencils, never owned posh pencils before, quite fun.

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I know I haven't posted in a while, especially not anything that I've actually made. This is mainly down to the time frames I've been operating in whilst commuting Newbury-London and then Swindon-Bristol. Unfortunately management reshuffles meant that Bristol couldn't afford me, more of an indepth update about my lovely time at Dare Digital to come when everything has been sorted out. As it stands have a stupid comic I made for my brother's birthday card, probably only funny to us. One of the rare moment we really bonded as vindictive human beings.

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Roller Derby: New Minimum Skills testing from a Newbie Perspective.

I passed my minimum skills two weeks ago by finally managing to do 25 laps in 5 minutes, with the help of one of our main league skaters the wonderful Little Miss Mischevil who paced me beautifully. I would've in fact got 27 in 5 if I hadn't been too busy turning around to the player behind congratulating her on her 25 as well at the 26 mark.

And now, technically I'm not minimum skills passed anymore, I should be annoyed, right? I should be down-heartened that I had finally managed to hit that target just to have someone pull it a little further away from me? Well actually no, I'm quite happy about it. After going through the new min. skills sheet I feel that the WFTDA has taken into account a few things highlighted in a recent derby life article about teaching knee falls. They're not great on our knees, and since the knee is one of the most complex pieces of kit we've got we should probably look after it. Also, for better derby, wouldn't it be good to see more hitting and less falling? Wouldn't it be better to have skaters who didn't instantly react to a bit of imbalance by falling down? I'm terrible for falling down, I've got better over the months but I'm still far from being a super stable main league skater. In a practice scrimmage on Friday during a power jam I was repeatedly swept, the skill I need to work on is obviously my balance. The new Min.Skills support balance, they're more about learning to feel more natural on skates as well as how to deal with getting past fallen skaters through tight gaps and taking a beating. I'm looking forward to spending more time getting to know this.

Two Tuesdays ago I passed my minimum skills, two Tuesdays ago I was nervous of skating my first bout and being completely useless and getting in everyone's way because I hadn't sorted out my balance yet. Today I'm not technically minimum skills passed anymore and I'm quite looking forward to the opportunity to get better

I can only transition one way, I've only just began to manage backward cross overs and whenever we do the London wall drill I try my hardest not to be the one skating backwards. The prospect of becoming a better skater should be one of the main focuses of derby, each time a new Min Skills sheet comes out it'll reflect the current state of roller derby today and the improvements in coaching and techniques being taught. Every new sheet should be celebrated as a sign that we're all getting better, even the Fresh Meat who haven't passed any form of min skills yet.

Brawl Bearings (No. 22)

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Found this video thanks to a re-blog from Glitterpix which was gifs. Since I'm not a fan of a bunch of animated gifs that try to sum up a situation past their length, so I went on a hunt for the video. Marina Abramovic is a Serbian born artists based in New York, in 1976 she moved to Amsterdam with Ulay performing out of a bus (which is feature in the video). Twelve years later they decided their relationship was coming to an end finishing off with one last performance. The pair walked the Great Wall of China from opposite ends, meeting in the middle and finishing with an embrace vowing never to see each other ever again. In 2010 she held a retrospective at MoMA where she performed The Artist is In, for 736 hours and 30 minutes she sat static in silence whilst members of the public took it in turns to sit opposite her. Enter a surprise from Ulay bringing out the rawest of human emotion and hi-jacking her performance piece elevating it to something much more interesting and deep.

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A Question to the Future

Just now on my lunch break I was walking back to the office when I encountered a small van at a pelican crossing, now this in itself is not an unusual or blog worthy experience but there was something strange about the van. I didn't quite realise what it was until the van went past me.

It was completely silent. This van was obviously a new greener vehicle, which is a big positive, but it's complete lack of sound threw me off guard. It was only doing somewhere between 15 and 20 miles per hour so I couldn't work out if it was slowing down to let me cross or not, the hesitation in this decision proved wise - they weren't.

But it did make me wonder, did the people who designed this van take other people into account? As a pedestrian with all my senses I avoided any injury but say a blind person who is not used to this area of London? Could there have been different results? Even though the driver could've stopped in time they probably would've registered their annoyance and startled someone who couldn't see them.

It's just an honest question and a thought really, you'd think that people would possible take this sort of thing into account. Considering that apple gave the iPod a fake clicker noise on the wheel to improve user experience you'd expect maybe a major vehicle manufacturer to add some sort of noise to this van.

(Saying that I only recently found out the US doesn't have any measures for the blind to be able to tell the difference between their bank notes thanks to Tommy Edison which just strikes me as bizarre in this day and age. Canada has braille, the UK has different sizes... it isn't too difficult.)

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You Are the Droid I've been looking for! I'm not really a big fan of Valentines day, not in the whole "Blah Blah it's a hallmark holiday" I just don't feel the need to go all out and crazy about it really.

Recently as a member of a couple we've started making each other pisstake cards, me being the 'Creative' one I feel a lot of pressure to produce something that looks like maybe 3 years at an Art School wasn't a total waste of government money. I'm actually quite proud, in the last few months Dare has unlocked my ability to draw which is really quite exhilarating.

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Not really hideous, in fact quite beautiful. A wonderful take on how to deal with areas for illegal immigrants in captivity, where they are not on the same line as criminals but instead a hazy blob somewhere around that area.

Wonderful consideration for their space and well being as well as their anonymity.

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Re-blog from my building obsession blog.

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So the Diet Coke hunk is back after being absent from our screens for a couple of years, possessing ovaries and being obsessive about my hair you'd expect the advert to directly target me and make me want a cool refreshing Diet Coke.

Well no, Diet Coke has the most revolting after taste, it's like something bitter has been delicately plonked into thinned down normal "full fat" coke.

But my main question is this, does anyone else think that there's a lot of sexism in adverts nowadays geared against men? You can't say anything sexist about women so lets just target the boys? I'm really beginning to feel like because men still get paid more in most professions and have always been top dog that they're now open to be mocked in advertising to make women buy the product.

Boots, Glade, both adverts gear towards how stupid men are, how they can't look after themselves and need a women to sort out everything in their lives. The truth is probably more that if the room stinks a guy would just open a window instead of spending £5 to make the room smell like Dark Orchid, Jojoba and Sea views. A man would probably just buy their deodorant and paracetamol when they've definitely ran out and whilst buying their weekly food shop instead of making a specialist trip to an emporium of fine fragrances and branded painkillers.

I'm just wondering why it's acceptable, as someone who doesn't really consider themselves much of a feminist, to treat men like dumb idiots that are only worth oggling when you can't do the same to women? Equality is a two way street.

Anyone else think it looks like he's being attacked by Tubgirl? (Don't know it? Don't google it.)

Way to lower the tone... I'll get my coat.

(also what happened to the whole "Just for the taste of it.... Diet Coke" I liked those adverts.)

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An amazing montage of 80s video footage from SmashTV haven't made it through the whole 50 minutes but am planning too. Absolutely beautiful, really shows the bright hopefulness that 1980s advertising monopolised on along with the fast progression into computer generated graphics.

Absolutely gorgeous, the graphics for some reason make me want to go and play on Quartz Composer again - which I shall do this afternoon if none of my current briefs progress. No down time, got nothing to do? How about learn something new.

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I know I haven't posted in a long time but this video deserves airing.

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It’s been a few days into November now; I think this could be my favourite time of the year. There are clear blue skies encircling the glistening sun, not dissimilar to a mirage, for the conspicuous chill that is enough to justify pulling out the faux fur, that hasn’t seen action in months....

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Beautifully put and very well written, I wish I could put my mind to to writing things like this.

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Met Chris from SuperGoober yesterday showing off their current show reel, was a really amazing array of work from very different directors. Made me curious about production companies and interested in film again - one day I'll come to a proper career choice! Everyone should definitely check them out http://www.supergoober.co.uk/goober-directors especially Nuit Blanche!

SuperGoober are currently holding a skateboard design competition so without much of an idea I just ran with it - opinions? It didn't really take me too long, probably an hour and a half if you forget After Effects rendering times to create the swirly thing. Not sure where the idea even came from to be honest.

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Hyper-Matrix by J o n p a s a n g for the Hyundai Motor Group.

I haven't blogged much lately but I haven't had a whole lot to blog about, nothing I've seen at the moment has really been all that awe-inspiring to me. I've also been on a 8 week placement at FOAM which has kept me busy and is sadly coming to an end, I've really enjoyed the time I've spent here and would love to come back someday. Their client base always allows a lot of room for creativity in different fields and the staff are genuinely top notch decent people.

Anyway, Hyper-Matrix, a pretty simple idea brilliantly executed on a large scale. Just foam blocks moving in an out in a sequence at the right time to create 3D imagery. In my head it works similar to a dot matrix screen, either on or off which probably means binary would be an easy way to code it. It looks great and can be used to create multiple different installations which you can guarantee will always amaze and engage people around it. I'd love to see it to get an idea of it on scale but the video does a pretty good job of showing it by including the audience.

Obviously in this instance it's being used for corporate reasons which doesn't become to apparent until the end, the car is a little bit cheap but I don't think it sullies the work too much with it's presence. 

I first encountered this in The Fox is Black where it is stated that is uses projectors (which is more obvious in the making of video attached below) but I personally can't see them being used to their full potential in the promo video, I feel the projectors could be used to create a more sensory experience though it is hard to strike a balance between too much and not enough and at the moment it has a more natural feel to it.

Would definitely love to try my hands at making this kind of thing!

Making of

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Great day, sore feet!

So I went of to the Capital yesterday to tart my wares! Decided that some ripped up B-movie Porn T-shirt and a pair of shorts with some leggings probably wasn't a good impression, so I went girly.

Aaaand now I can't walk! I take this as a sign that I should continue to dress like an absolute weirdo because at least that doesn't ruin my big toes. Even my Doc Martens haven't rendered my feet this useless. Yesterday I counted 30 popped blisters on my feet so will now use this as the perfect excuse to be lazy.

Anyway, rant aside I think I had a pretty successful day yesterday, a Portfolio Crit with Foam Agency (the design team for Sony Music) turned out less to be a crit and more to be an offer to take up on of their 8 week internships expenses paid - Woheee!

The Sunday Times wanted me for... eerr... something. They weren't quite that specific, something about reshuffling their digital department, generating content for their iPad app. Possibly free lance, possibly not, possibly part time, possibly not, possibly working Saturdays, possibly not, possibly working late into the evening, possibly not, wear sunscreen. It was quite vague, but an avenue I hadn't really thought about.

And finally I caught up with Dare, who were embarking on a summer treasure hunt when I left (after sampling some slow gin and lemonade, I think), hopefully Dare will take me on for 6 months if all things go ahead as planned, which would be pretty sheeweeeet! Just got to see how that rolls out.

Talk about lucky though, no idea what I did right since I've always been a bit of a middler out of my course at uni, but I've done something it appears. Was a great day, albeit sticky and hard on the ol' feet, but now I've got some serious decisions!

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My Typographic Keyboard finally has the video it deserves!

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Poster for my Spotify video to try and tempt over some punters.

Hopefully will be less dull due to the actual printed file not being this cruddy PNG and having a lot higher dpi.

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Ladles and Jellyspoons, I introduce to you the Typographic keyboard. An investigation into communication through other artistic means. Original concept derived from the communication through music by composers Tallis and Byrd.