DESIGNLAX

Media. Design. News. Found images, art works, news stories, design work, brand updates, videos, music and more! For those who like their news regular.

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Spotlight on Artist: Lucian Stanculescu from Romania Lucian is a talented painter/illustrator who paints grim portraits with hevy emotion and almost surreal narrative about human beings. His work is not unlike the paintings of H.R. Geiger and Japanese Manga-ka Tsutomu Nihei. For more of Lucian's work check out his web portfolio: http://resonance-one.com/

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Spotlight on Peter Diamond Canadian Illustrator http://www.peterdiamond.ca/

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Spotlight on artist Butcher Billy Brazillian Illustrator and Pop Artist http://www.behance.net/gallery/Come-Play-my-Game-Ill-Test-Ya-by-Butcher-Billy/9144359

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Spotlight On John Holcroft UK based Illustrator

http://www.johnholcroft.com/

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Microsoft announced today the upcoming release of their all new, XBOX, or Xbox One, if you follow the "because I said so" rule of video game titles and apparently now, console titles as well. Microsoft really is bridging the gap here. They are rebooting a franchise that isn't even a trilogy yet, well done. I'm going to come right out and say it, I am not an Xbox gamer, I have always aired on the Nintendo or Sony half of the video game equation, my family was never rich enough to own every console and honestly, when the PS2 and Xbox(the first Xbox not this xbox, confusing isn't it?) first hit shelves, the Sony PS2 had much more to offer by way of actual video games to play, and isn't that why we buy gaming consoles in the first place? For the games? Well as the nextgen war rages it seems that video game consoles are becoming less about video games and more about technology, specifically as of late, the infamous and faceless idea that is, "The Cloud." If I have to hear one more company explain to me how much better my life would be if it was infact in the cloud, I may just hit the ceiling. While I understand the benefit of being able to access my information anywhere I am, I will never deny the usefulness of exclusive hard drives for my devices that keep my information with me and not floating around in some astral-form about star systems and other planets, waging war with intergalactic space data and... I'm getting off base. My point tho, is that the cloud is great and all, but I love knowing that my files are still in my suitcase away from prying eyes, ya feel me? That being said, the 500GB hard drive in the Xbox(one?) is something that makes me very cheery, until I remember that I will probably never own one of these devises because the PS4 is coming out soon too and I just prefer sticking with what I've got, even that will be a maybe so, probly no, based on the price. But let's suppose that for a minute I were to buy the new Xbox(best All New thing since the brand new trilogy revealing of Halo 4) and that I would be so inclined as to consider adorning my living room with this mythical cloud guardian, here are some of the things I like about it, based purely on what is available off the Microsoft website(http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xboxone/what-it-is?xr=shellnav) information wise, words are great and all but until I got my hands on one, I would never really know, but here's what I think so far, about the Xbox. One. Or, whatever. Things I Like: - The Looks. Honestly, the best designed platform I have seen in a long time. Tho borrowing heavily from the aesthetic of the (Original) NES from Nintendo, what with it's sharp corners and absence of numeric value to determine just how old or new this thing really is. I love the blackness of it, the sharp angles and the reflective surface. I also love that it is a box, again, because the 360 seemed to have a bit of an identity crisis about what shape it was exactly, it was told it was a box, but probably because the Microsoft Oblong didn't roll off the tongue quite so well. Tho Oblong Arcade sounds amazing, clearly, the naming department at Microsoft had a difficult decision to make regarding the branding, this time around they must have fired the entire staff and brought in a new crew who had no prior knowledge of the former two Xbox incarnations, plopped a box down in front of them and said, "Name it!" Well let's see, it's a box, and X makes things sound more interesting(via the Godzilla villain and anime guidebook to interesting names) let's call it the Xbox, done. Next subject! - The powerrrrrrrrrr!!! More importantly the HD space and Ram will make this a very powerful computing device for sure, but you can throw as many "core"s and "x"s in front of the number 8 you want, but both the Xbox and the PS4 have the same computing power, so they don't win any contests in this department, it's just nice to see this trend picking up. - I am interested to see how the Kinnect will work into the over all controls of the console. Microsoft has made it clear that they want this device to be central to your day to day life as far as entertainment and connectivity is concerned, which is admirable, to replace the Television in terms of most common house hold device is a steep goal at that; and really every next gen console is seeking to do this, including the WiiU that launched late last year. It will be interesting to see which console platform is king in 20 years, Nintendo may be a thing of the past by then or perhaps it will be the only console available. Only time will tell. Onto the things I don't like about this new Xbox. - The Gimmicks. We live in an oversaturated environment as far as information and communication are concerned. For one console to try and dominate every aspect of that, as stated above, admirable, but I long for the days when video game consoles played video games and that's why we bought them. Do I need to be able to Skype with a friend while I'm pummeling alien life forms on Xbox? Will my life be empty if I have to go off the grid for one hour of playtime or god forbid, two? Maybe I'm the only one but I play video games these days to get away from the day to day, emerse myself in a world that isn't my own. The video game market is shrinking as far as quality in story telling goes for sure, but there are still a choice few I prefer to focus some time on to breathe while the world turns around me for a few hours a week. I understand the need/want to domineer the world as we know it, but when was the last time a video game developer/publisher focused on what really matters in this industry... the games? Nintendo is hailed as being the only company still invested in the games, but even they cling to new technology and gimmicks to distract us from the fact we are playing a video game, and if you ask me they also dip into a 40 year old pot all too often as far as original content is concerned; but Microsoft is a household name in the world of internet and computing, so it does make sense that they are finally bridging that gap between PCs and Xbox, I just don't like the fact. When I turn on a game console I want to play a game, if I want to Skype, blog or waste hours on end on Facebook I can do that on my computer, I don't need an Xbox to do that.

- Which brings me to my other dislike about this new console. You can never just play a game anymore, back in the 90s thru early 00s if we wanted to play a video game we could plop in a cartridge or disc and within 30 seconds we would be connected to our adventure in waiting. These days, you have to boot up your system and wait for it to grand stand before you can select the game to play, then you have to wait for it to load then load your save then 5 minutes later you are in the game, and while time is not that big of a complaint of mine, usability is. I have seen games that didn't sell well become unplayable after 2 years because of their interconnectivity to the internet. Games are becoming too reliant on the internet as a whole and I don't like it. This among others is one of the many reasons I'm opposed to the "Cloud" as a platform for gaming. Teams can spend 3 years developing a videogame just for it to fail, and a year later the servers will be shut down to save funds and before long the game is no longer playable. Certainly Nintendo 64, Genesis, PS1 & 2 and other "ancient" consoles didn't have this problem, to this day I can buy a 30 year old Sega title and plug it into my Genesis and in under 5 seconds I'm playing, this is not the same for our current generation of gaming. To me, we have lost something, by relying on the internet as a crutch. Not only because it gives developers an opportunity to release incomplete games and patch them over later, but also because of the aforementioned issue of playability cut offs. Games are no longer timeless and this console doesn't seem to be doing anything to change that. On a related note however, there is one thing about it that I love and I will cover that below in a later stanza.

- Back in the day, the reason why we had to choose what console we asked for from our parents was because each console(barring very few exceptions) had exclusive experiences we could not get anywhere else. In a flooded consumer based environment these days 85% of all titles span across the trifecta of gaming consoles, with Nintendo holding almost 30% more all inclusive titles compared to MSoft and Sony, of course 15% of those are cake decorating simulators and other "utility specific" games designed to showcase the unique controls that Nintendo provides, with games that haven't been timely since arcades and consoles of 95-02 when simulators like pool and game hunting were a mainstay, tho granted, Sony is equally guilty of this with their half assed release of their "Playstation Move" a few years ago. That all being said, Xbox is notorious for having a pour catalog of games available, and the tiny original content available is just a small fraction of the available games that you can play on Xbox, more than half of which are cross platform. Microsoft tries to make bank by offering special content for games such as Call of Duty or certain block buster titles, but when was the last time that developers cared about exclusivity? Sure Xbox is the only console with Halo, and Nintendo has Mario, but even classics like those cannot be the only original content in your arsenal. I would love for a gaming company to give me a real reason as to why I should switch my loyalty, perhaps an experience I can't get anywhere else, which MS can claim as much as they please, but with two out of three advertised launch titles already confirmed on PS3 and 4, and with the renewed processor, WiiU will be supporting the next Call of Duty title, so these supposed one of a kind experiences, just simply, aren't.

- The last thing I dislike is that the price is not yet revealed on this piece of hardware. Certainly, they are waiting until E3 in June to reveal this information to the public, but I like knowing what I'm getting into. Having to rebuild an OS from the ground up and reinvest in an all new infrastructure I can only imagine the Xbox One did not come cheap to MS, and that price will most likely come back on us. I personally believe that the previous gen, PS3 and 360 consoles were too expensive for the limited worth while games available on either platform. So my spine tingles at the thought of what this all new gen will suggest for a price point, is $1000 not unreasonable for these power houses? Nintendo has always gotten ahead in the market by charging reasonably low prices for their hardware, confident in their following and tried and true fanbase, but if Sony and subsequently Microsoft think they can charge us a month's rent for a gaming platform, not including download costs, adequate displays and not to mention the games, I have to say for myself, they are sadly mistaken.

Amidst all of these unknowns, there are some things I do love about the reports on the Xbox One.

- In regards to what I covered earlier about pick up and play being a thing of the past, both the PS4 and Xbox claim to have a faster processor allowing for easy pick up and play, with faster loading and boot times than ever before in any of these past Gen consoles, I have played the WiiU and though much better than the Wii or PS3, the loading times are still a lot longer than one would expect for such a powerful system, I just hope that these two upcoming platforms actually live up to my expectations in this regard. Again, talk is cheap, how many times have I been told that my DSL connection is lightning fast but still find myself needing more speed. I need to see it to believe it.

- I am in love with the Windows 8 aesthetic. I like that the Xbox is not hiding from it's Microsoft namesake and incorporating a brand sensitive correlation between the Xbox OS and the Windows 8 OS. That being said, I do not think Windows 8 is usable on a PC computer, only on tablets and smart phones mainly, but I think it will work well on a gaming platform, everything is set out before you with no scrolling necessary, easy access will vastly improve this console when compared to the cluttered and unfriendly navigation of the past gen.

- There has been mention made about the application of the Kinnect camera in terms of user interfaces. With suggestions that the Xbox will be able to sign you into Xbox Live just by seeing your face, regardless of who's Xbox you are on. Just how seamless or intuitive this feature will be is still speculative, but the concept as a whole shows promise.

- I have to again mention the exterior design again. I made plenty of fun over the name of this device, but I appreciate the mentality of starting over. This console is truly an Xbox for this generation, as a whole, the country and certainly most the world is more design sensitive than ever before, if something as trivial as a neck tie or pair of glasses must be cautiously designed and carefully executed than a device like this should be even more so, and in my generous opinion Microsoft hit this one on the head. The dimensions of this device still remain a mystery to me, for now, but the housing is intuitively designed and "pretty" enough that it wouldn't be an eyesore among the rest of a well designed interior, which is important. Easily much better than the George Forman Grill-esque look of the PS3. The WiiU also captured this ideal, though Nintendo has always been sensitive to good design, with such consoles as the Wii, Gamecube and original NES being hallmark and friendly to the eyes. No mention being made of the abstract and "hippo" looking N64, which more than made up for it with an unforgettable catalog of outstanding games. From the housing to the controller to the Kinnect camera, every inch of this new Xbox is dripping with good design sense, it makes me want to set coffee table books on top of it, or design a space around it, this is rare for a device of this nature.

Overall, in summary, there is a lot more I want to know about the Xbox(still feels like time travel saying that) but it shows a lot of promise. I'm also looking forward to what Sony releases in the next few weeks about the Xbox competitor the Playstation 4. I am inclined to air on the side of the Playstation family, but I am also open to trying new things seeing as I don't own my own PS3, I am not completely connected to Sony anymore, especially since they are on the record that PS3 games will not be playable on the PS4. So, again, I am remaining open minded. Only E3 will tell for sure. And time, time too. - JH

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Check out this amazing video compilation of the films of 2012 by Gen IP. It captures so many emotions over such a scale and expansion of so many different films made this year and yet it all flows beautifully and hits just as hard as the films that it is sampling. One more reason to remember how much I love the films. 

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Tim's Corolla. New 8 Bit video from Toyota.

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Life Is Born by All.I.Can This is probably the nicest video I've seen in a minute. I like the editing a lot and it isn't even a full length film. Def gonna keep my eyes open for the full length feature.

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Typography Spotlight: Sony London Studio Mural. 125 Years of Sony Music. Brilliant.

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Product Spotlight: Upcoming Mosaic Photo Book. 

Something new is in the works for all those iPhone photographers. I admit that at first I wasn't a huge advocate of using the iPhone/iPod touch for a primary camera, but the cameras have gotten so elite on these devices lately that it seems silly to carry two things around when you can have both at the same time in one device. I'm ashamed to say that my Sony Powershot collects dust lately since I purchased my iPod Touch because I can take decent photos on the go with my Pod, and while they are certainly not poster quality photos that I would use in design, I can use them for memory or that damn addicting Instagram app (damn). To the point however, I have always been a fan of things you can hold, I like my posters best when they are printed and well, photos these days it seems have been lost to the Facebook albums and aforementioned Instagram feeds of tomorrow and rarely ever do they make contact with paper or even our finger tips outside of a touch screen. No longer. There's a new company on the rise and ready to launch called HeyMosaic which created an app/service that allows you to create lovely little photo books from your iOS device photos. I would like to add emphasis to my use of the word lovely, because from the package design that it shows up in to the paper quality and binding of the actual book, the Mosaic photo book is a thing of simple beauty, another example of how design conscious the public is getting these days. The thing that stands out about this book the most however is the $20 charge, for such an elegant item and prompt delivery(boasted at 4 day arrival after creation) $20 is more than reasonable, it's almost criminal. What an excellent idea for parties(as illustrated in the video above), family get togethers, Christmas, even college semesters. Not since the Instant Lab photo printer for iPhone project launched on Kickstarter has a project involving photo on the iPhone truly made me say, "Wow." But I am looking forward to the doors opening on this tiny wonder. Hopefully it lives up to it's presentation.

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Volkswagon and Shark Week team up and bring us the "Mobile Shark Cage" VW Beatle. If you ask me it's missing a few cross bars to make it perfectly safe against sharks, hell the moon roof opening is big enough for a shark to reach down and relieve the driver of some valuable head room. But overall it's a pretty funny and ingenious concept. Props go out to those involved.

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The new Phillips Mini Hi-Fi System, great for parties, but not for Deadmau5. If you have a few iphones laying around and want to try your hand at amateur DJing then it's actually not a bad investment for roughly $500. You will spend about that on any M-Audio or market DJ Console. Not bad for the iGeneration. Plus the speakers are built in with ample volume included. Beat that. For more info check out the page on Phillips' home site http://www.philips.co.uk/c/audio-system/300-w-fwp3200d_05/prd/

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An excellent video about typography from GestaltenTV.

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The National Brazilian Yoyo competition. Who knew? Cool as heck tho. And I am pretty sure the song is by Drapht, I recognize his Aussie Hip-hop sound.

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A little while ago I posted a commercial for a flower company that used DubStep as an element of impact in the spot. Well the other day I was watching the tv when this commercial came on for the new season of Taboo on National Geographic. Again, using DubStep elements to emphasize the sequence. I asked this question back then, is DubStep the future of music in advertising? It seems to be taking over controlling interest of popular music on the radio? How long until Coca-Cola has an ad with Skrillex playing? I don't know, not sure I want to know.

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Coca-Cola is one of my favorite brands and they always seem to have something fun and unique up their sleeve in terms of marketing. Well here's something new from the guys at http://www.changinglines.com/ and http://www.work-play-work.com/. The Happiness Is Behind You campaign. Personally I love it. It get's the audience involved and draws them in off the street without being invasive. It's fun and original. Something I would have come up with during my college years in advertising. Check out the video and the sites. This one is going on my wall.

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It took a lot of willpower to make myself watch another Kanye West X Jay-Z music video after the intensely retarded Ni**as in Paris video. But I spotted this one the other day and my inner anarchist couldn't really hold me back any longer, this has got to be one of the best videos I've seen in a while. The music is here or there, I feel like it works well with the video, but so could almost any song under the right circumstances. What I love most about this video is number one, not knowing if it was orchestrated and filmed as a recreation or if it is documented footage. It is all very well done. Secondly, the almost medievil angle of this whole scene. From the horseback riders to the fire bombs, it is all set in a modern arena but treated almost like the war in ancient rome some 2000 years ago. I am sure that was the intention of the director Romain-Gavras. Even if you don't like rap music or these artists I recommend you watch this video. The music is tame by comparison to some of the tracks these two produce. If you have to you can throw something else on in the background while you watch.