iancul

Last week I wasn’t very laudative about Apple design, and dare I say for some good reasons. But I do like Apple, even if I keep my reserves about some of their features. Great design is still great, even if it’s not perfect.

Technology Review writes about The Secret of Apple Design. Fascinating article, concerning the real process of designing an “apple”, whether it’s a mobile phone, a mp3 player or a large graphic station. The greatest thing is the reason why anything should have great design:

“..when you’re in a bad mood, when you’re tense, you tend to be less creative–and less patient with the tools you’re using. “Someone in a positive mood,” Norman says, “faced with something that doesn’t work, might say, ‘Oh, I’ll get around it.’ But someone in a negative mood will get frustrated and have a ‘Damn it’ moment.” That’s where design comes in. “Studies tie attractive design to positive attitude,” he says.”

How true. By the way, great poster for FaberCastell :)

(via) Thanks Kit for the link. Image taken from Ads of the World.

Eric Elms shows some insanely cool laser-etching decks here.

via Etcetering.

Just as I promised earlier, here are some of the toys made by my former colleague Paul Kerekes. This were part of his diploma project (summer 2005).

And here are some nice details:

All toys are (C) Paul Kerekers. Photos are (C) Iancu Barbarasa.

Superb works from this guy, Stephane Halleux. Incredible skill and level of detail. Reminds me of a former colleague from The Art and Design University in Cluj Napoca. I’ll try to find some fotos with his diploma project and post them.

My favourite is this Jin-Roh look-a-like:

and two other great pieces:

via Etcetering

Last year I came to Bucharest (largest in Romania) because I wanted more than any other large romanian cities could offer for my career. The first thing I remember seeing on my first day was the new iMac on my desk. After admiring it’s design, it’s compactness, it’s coolness, it’s look-at-me-I’ve-got-no-towercase, I started mumbling and cursing, since I had never used a Mac before. It took me a week or so to get used to it, but more than one year after that, even though I’ve learnt to love many of its features, I’m still not convinced Apple is “the way”, contrary to what most of my fellow creatives think.

Funny thing is, while reading this article from Design Observer, I’ve started thinking that Apple is becoming more and more like the Big Brother they pretended to defeat in their 1984-ad. Or like some sort of a Microsoft 2.0 (everything nowadays has to be web 2.0, right ?), one greedy corporation trying to take over the world market, this time in the name of great design and user friendliness.

I’m all for great design, but sometimes only one type of “great design” might be bad design. “Or to put it another way, if you round too many corners, you lose your edge.” (Design Observer)

or maybe “one Apple to rule them all” ?

Later edit: another funny article about macs vs pc on the best page in the universe :P (via studioprimer)

Just a few days ago I was talking about him, and now here is a full article/interview in The New Yorker.

A few weeks ago I was saying that Satoshi Kon’s latest movie seems to be very promising. Well, thanks to the advantages of the free, vast internet :D, I’ve managed to watch it.

First things first: visually stunning. Quite similar to Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, but better, since it’s CG isn’t as obvious. The sheer abundance of colours, characters, sets is overwhelming, just as you’d expect from a depiction of the human limitless imagination. The story, however, is not among Satoshi’s best. It’s quite unimaginative (resembling Jenniffer Lopez’s The Cell), sometimes incoherent, ilogic. But then again, what is logic when talking about the human mind ?

It is not quite an A+ movie, but it’s definitely a great watch, especially for us, visual-dependent ones. If you want a better story check out Millenium Actress and Perfect Blue.

You can see some of the storyboards here.

A few screenshots for the apetizer :)

Some other hi-res images here.

Because the Rock’n Coke festival will be held on the Lacul Morii Island (Mill’s Lake Island), I took my bike today to go and have a look. Well, it’s a small island, so I wonder how they’ll organize everything. Maybe they’ll use the nearby field as well, since the island itself is just too small.

Another problem is that people do drink at these events, right ? I wonder if they’ll bring David Hasselhoff to pick up winos/beeros from the water :P

Here’s a view from the bridge that gets you to the island (click to enlarge):

I love those hills that spread through all Transilvanian landscape. If I miss something from my time living in Cluj it’s definitely the ability to look almost anywhere at the city’s skyline and see the surrounding hills, knowing that at anytime I can get my bike and go riding through the forests and bumpy roads. Nowadays Bucharest’s urban jungle will have to do…

In the meanwhile, Cluj is changing (finally, after 12 years of beeing held back by its previous mayor Funar). The center of the city is mostly ditches, but by the autumn it will have a completly new Eroilor Street. The left side in this following picture will be a huge sidewalk, with statues, fountains and (I hope) lots of trees.

Banksy’s name has clearly grown beyond the real person. I wonder how many copycats he has, or when some big corporation will eventually sell Banksy-related stuff (I bet Banksy himself has been offered this kind of deal already).

This stencil however manages to say it all (I still remember the cover on Adbusters, one of my early contacts with “guerrilla” art):

Original image from here.