Layer Tennis: Game, Set, Match!

Layer Tennis sounds like playing tennis on several courts at once, right? Sounds difficult and nearly impossible, but that's not what it is at all. Layer Tennis is actually a competition, a live design project if you will, between two artists each week with each artist (usually working with Photoshop, hence the play on layers) vying for a spot in the final round. Two seasons have completed, and the third season just beginning.

Layer Tennis was started by Coudal Partners. What, or who, is Coudal Partners you ask? Well, in their own words, Coudal Partners is "a design, advertising and interactive studio in Chicago, as an ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce."

If you'd like to see all of the past matches, which I highly recommend (they're amazing!), then
check out the Layer Tennis Archives.

Below are a few samples from the current season's matchups.

Hamid vs. Javanrouh: A Photographic Exhibition Match


Vinh vs. Felton: An Exhibition Match


And my favorite so far, Bruhn vs. Simonson: A Typographic Exhibition Match


(From Coudal)

Cheese or Font

Cheese or Font is a self-explanatory game where you get to guess if the word is a cheese or font.

(From MT, who got it from Serious Eats)

Idsgn

Idsgn is a blog about design. In their own words:

"We like to talk about graphic design, branding, typography, and sometimes we might post a video or two...

We love to hear from you. Please send submissions, links, and news tips to blog@idsgn.org. If you are sending images, please make them at least 980 pixels wide (where possible)"

Recent posts discuss the IKEA change from tailored Futura to Verdana (!), the Kayak.com logo facelift, and redesigning Craigslit.

Solid.

(From M.A., MD )

Personas

Personas is an MIT website that shows your footprint on the web. According to the authors, it's how the interwebs sees you. You type in your name (kind of like googling yourself) and pretty colors flash showing what the interwebs can piece together about you.

For me, nothing came up, but it pegged several of my more accomplished friends rather well. You can also try it with famous people.
(From Justin)

40 Useful and Creative Infographics

40 Useful and Creative Infographics is an article on six revisions.com about pretty and informative infographics.

As an extremly infrequent coffee drinker, the coffee one clarified a lot for me.


(From Dan S.)

Diagram of a Blog

Diagram of a Blog is an op-art piece by Paula Scher. You may know Paula as the lady who desgined the Citibank logo, or the lady who gave a so-so talk about design at TED. Meh.

(From Guy)

David Carson: Design, discovery and humor

David Carson: Design, discovery and humor is a good-humored TED talk about fonts and design.

David is a "grunge typographer" whose magazine Ray Gun helped, "explode the possibilities of text on a page... Squishing, smashing, slanting and enchanting the words on a layout, Carson made the point, over and over, that letters on a page are art."

He is single-handedly responsible for thousands of crappy illegible rock-and-roll scribbles that you've seen countless skateboards and T-shirts.

The talk itself is extremely jumpy and jumbled, but high on laughs if you can keep up.  David shows some examples of his work, and his mind seems to work much like his typography.  He talks about design principles, his book: The End of Print, and what makes a job or career worth pursuing. 

(From TED. Good luck Justin!)

50 Strange Buildings of the World

50 Strange Buildings of the World is an article on the site Village of Joy, which features 50 oddly-shaped or interesting buildings around the world. Village of Joy features "Amazing, Interesting, Wonderful, Weird, Odd and Funny things about our World." Simply stunning.






(From Stefanie!)

Glennz

Glennz is an online T-shirt shop and website by Glenn Jones, a graphic designer and illustrator from Auckland, New Zealand. He's worked in the design industry for over 15 years, concentrating on packaging and corporate identity but did so well with creative shirts that he's decided to focusing on just that.

Glenn got his T-shirt start on Threadless.com. (Threadless is a perpetual T-shirt design contest website and store.) His designs sold extremely well, and he decided to branch off and create his own site. As he explains,

"Since then I've become one of the most successful designers on Threadless with 21 shirts printed for sale. So I decided it was time to focus a bit more on designing tees and I've teamed up with some friends in the US to start this range of T-Shirts. I also use my designs on greeting cards and artprints."

The site's name is taken from Glenn's Threadless username, which was conceived as a combination of his first name,'GLENN,' and where he is from, 'NZ.' I try not to post too many commercial sites, but... I just couldn't not not not post it.


(Ugh, I know. A sponsored link from Kottke)

Flatshare Fridge

Flatshare Fridge is a Design Lab 2008 contest finalist that makes it easy to divvy up the space in a shared apartment. 

"For creator Stefan Buchberger, a design student at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, the idea grew out of a semester-long theme about keeping personal space clean and tidy. “I decided to create Flatshare fridge because there is nothing more disgusting than a dirty fridge in a shared flat,” he says. 'At the time, I was living in such a flat!'

The fridge consists of a base station and up to four stackable modules. The modules allow each individual user to have his or her own refrigerator space and can be customized with various colorful skins as well as with add-ons like a bottle opener or a
whiteboard.

Handles on the sides of the modules make them easy to transport. 'If you move to new flat, you can just transport your module like a suitcase and hook it up to the base station in your new flat,' Buchberger explains. "

I have totally moved in to a summer sublease where the fridge contained things from people that had moved out before the previous tenants had moved out.  I honestly opened the freezer and there were frozen ants.  The ants were trying to go for the frosted flakes that were stuck on the door rubber.

Whenever I remember that summer, I try to pretend it was all a bad, bad dream. I digress. Cool fridge.

(From Kottke, Cribcandy)

How to create a super shiny pencil icon in Photoshop

How to create a super shiny pencil icon in Photoshop

It's simple and pretty, that's why. 

(From Boing Boing)

The Green Microgym

The Green Microgym is a gym that runs on its own power. I often think about the wasted workout energy while working out at the gym, and am glad to see someone made it come true. Go Oregon!

"By generating electricity and conserving space and energy, The Green Microgym will be one of the only fitness facilities in the world running on its own power. We're starting a gym in Portland, Oregon that uses a combination of solar and human power and is just as comfortable and effective as any other gym."

It claims to have Sirius Satellite Radio, flatscreen LCD High Definition televisions, and wireless Internet(!). It's owner and designer is Adam Boesel. The website is clunky, but I think they're doing enough net good in the world to be forgiven that.

(From Buzzfeed )

You Walk Wrong by Adam Sternbergh

Fun article, a little long:

Adam Sternbergh of the New York Magazine tells it like it is: You Walk Wrong. Except for the people making shoes who can't afford shoes, you walk correctly. And Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila who ran the Olympic marathon in Rome in 1960 in bare feet—and won. Neat story, neat pictures.

(From Boing Boing, and everyone and their mom a really long time ago.)

Apartment Therapy

Apartment Therapy (AT) is an apartment design and decoration website. Its aim is to save the world one apartment at a time. Co-founder Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan says he aims to "connect people to the resources they need to improve their homes, while reducing their reliance on stuff." He's successfully parlayed the site into a book.

Want to know the best places to get vintage furniture in Chicago? They've got you covered. Wish that MTV did a celebrity cribs with Sarah Jessica Parker? Wish no more. Need someone to tell you what the top ten best new Ikea pieces are? Okay.

The best part about AT are the DIY ideas, fueled by community commenters.

They have a few spin-off sites:

1. Ohdeedoh for desigb related to children.
2. Thekitchn for kitchen design, recipes, and food-related posts.
3. Unplggd for tech gadgets and electronics (this post includes the previously featured washing-machine toilet!)
4. Re-nest for eco-friendly and green/blue living ideas. (I like this post on how to stop junk mail.)
   

(From my friend Colin)

If Modern Advertisers Created the Stop Sign?

What If Modern Advertisers Created the Stop Sign? is a break.com video parodying the corporate design process. It's awesome.



(From my friend Justin, and AdFreak)

Cake Wrecks

Cake Wrecks is a blog about when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.  It covers everything from unnecessary quotes on farewell cakes to uncanny-valley plagued baby-shower cakes.  My favorite by far is the Good Luck in China cake. If you can only read one thing this week, read this.  (Trust me, you can shop this week without a grocery list.)

The bakery has an online form that apparently prints directly onto the cake. 

Will they? Will they miss Anber?

From the post titled, "You know your mom is cheap when..."

Baby for dessert. Deserted baby for dessert?

And finally the Good Luck in China cake. The story is by Scott of Basic Instructions, which was reposted in Cake Wrecks, and now is reposted here: 

"I had a day job as an office manager for the Seattle office of an international firm. We found out that one of our employees was transferring to one of our offices in China. When one of our people would leave, we usually had a little wing-ding with drinks and cake on the departing employee's last Thursday in the office, so on Tuesday it fell to me to fax a cake order into our nearest Costco Bakery.

I should point out that on that day I had a headache so bad that it hurt to move my eyes. Ordering the cake was the last thing I did before I went home sick for the afternoon. As I filled out the order form, I realized that in addition to the personalized message ("Good Luck in China," in this case) we could also get a large decoration for no extra charge. I looked at the options and none of them were appropriate. They were all things like teddy bears, balloons, or race cars. Crap, in other words. I figured if none of them were appropriate, I might as well get something that made no sense whatsoever.

I put a check mark next to the word 'Fireman.'

The next morning (Wednesday), lying in bed just before getting up, my mind wandered over the previous day and all the things I had accomplished. My eyes snapped open as I thought, 'What did I do!? Why did I order a fireman? That makes no sense!!! I'm going to look like an idiot!'

I went to work, intent on calling the Costco as soon as they opened and stopping the cake before it started. I still had a day before I was supposed to pick it up. I figured that should be plenty of time. After some effort, I got hold of the bakery manager, only to be told that the cake had already been made. It was too late. I figured I'd just have to stand up straight and take it like a man.

My wife and I went to Costco to pick up the cake. When I got to the bakery, this is what was waiting for me.

(see above picture)

Making the hose flesh-toned had been a very bad move.

At first all I could do was blink at it and wonder, 'Am I the only one who sees a giant wang?' I looked at my wife. She was blinking at the cake. An awkward silence and a few stammered sentences later we established that we both saw the same thing. A fireman holding an immense, dripping wang.

I could not serve this cake to my coworkers.

My first thought was that I would just absorb the cost of a second cake and pretend this never happened. Then I thought, 'Wait a minute! This is not an erotic bakery! This is Costco! I should be able to order any stupid cake I want and be confident that it will not be sexually charged.'

While at the checkout line I found a Costco employee to complain to, and showed him the cake. He blinked at it. I told him I was uncomfortable serving this cake at a place of business, and he started laughing and looking relieved.

Here’s what I came to realize about the cake. The obscene image was just obvious enough that you can't help but recognize it, but also obviously innocent enough that you don't want to say anything for fear that you're the only one who sees it.

Soon I was surrounded by several Costco employees who were looking at the cake and laughing. They explained that they had a new cake decorator who was a deeply religious woman from a foreign country, as if that explained everything. At one point while we were hammering out a settlement a woman happened by, caught a glimpse of the cake, covered her mouth and gasped. Good stuff."

(From Cynical-C, Metafilter)

Planning Wiz

Planning Wiz is an online room and space planner for your house. You choose the room size and put in furniture, floor textures, and labels.  Better than that, when you're done you can save, print, or email the floor plan.  There's a button that is labeled "request quote" though I'm not sure where that quote would come from.  It could be from a secret cabal of contractors, it could be from the punctuation storehouse. Who knows? 

Planning Wiz is mainly advertised as a commercial tool to support,

"consumer decisions in retail and real estate... Prospective buyers launch PlanningWiz from your website to quickly furnish and visualize themselves the space in real-time."

The late 1990's feel of cloying sales desperation is annoying, but the overall tool is fun to play with.  Information about the site is not very forthcoming, other than the site was built by Arxia & TYPO3.  They sport a +40 international phone number, making them possibly Romanian. 

I love the different objects you can place (anything from rocking chairs to small lakes and shrubbery.) Overall: Solid B. (From PopURLs)

Chris Glass

Chris Glass is a 36 year-old photographer, web aficionado, web designer, industrial designer, designer-designer, and bearded nuzzler living in New Richmond, Ohio. He keeps an entertaining personal website, and in his spare time, he devises schemes to create more spare time.

A sample blog entry goes something like this:
How to catch a mouse without a mousetrap. It's cute, it's humane, it's Chris. You can see his industrial design roots in his sketching. The illustration reminds me that I love architect/designer off-the-cuff sketches and handwriting. They have a pointy, hatchy quality to them, as if the entire thing were made out of hay.

He's involved in making T-shirts, some of which take off and some of which fizzle. I particularly like this failed idea, "He-Man and the Masters of the Univers," because it's about fonts:

"So I had this t-shirt concept (above) that's been brewing for a long while... It's a humorous take on the font Univers (which makes up the background grid with its family of font weights). The design seemed too limited in appeal so it never came to be, but I still have a deep love for it."

At age 25 Chris Glass was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It's kind of interesting to see his timeline. Overall, it's a very well designed site about an interesting person. A for awesome.

I'll leave you with a few latest photos from Chris:

(From mefi )

ColourLovers

Delightfully British, ColourLovers lets you know what's new in the color world. They cover color trends, combinations, patterns, and palettes. They also cover color-related articles and interviews. Moreover, according to TIME magazine, it is #41 out of 50 best websites in 2008.

Why would anyone need a whole site about colors? According to ColourLovers, people who work on "ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification" do. They pretend to be doing work while drinking coffee and spinning color wheels. And people who love the Interwebs and have way too much time on their hands need sites like this to waste time. Also, reporters with nothing else to write about use it. Case-in-point, TIME's Anita Hamilton especially liked the do-it-yourself tips:

"Browse through the various swatches, palettes and patterns to help inspire your next creative project — or your next clothes-shopping trip. The site's excellent blog doles out tips, like how to dye yarn with Kool-Aid, and will teach you something new about color every day."

Also, that's it. Check it out already.

2008 Design Trends

2008 Design Trends is an article on designer Nick La's site Webdesignerwall. (Nick also runs N.Design Studio and Best Web Gallery.) The 2008 Design Trends article very appropriately showcases current trends for webdesigns. (Duh.) If this had been filled with photography instead of screenshots, this piece would have been a photojournalism piece. So that makes it a screenshojournalism piece? I digress. Here are a few of my favorites:

Knox County site website for weddings and events.

Red & Blu, a Belgian clothing company. Neat pictures, takes FOREVER to load. Includes retro and wood texture.

A UK junior middle management recruitment site. Yay paperclips.

Web design and marketing, with that retro look.

Outdoor fitness training site with handwritten notes and faux tape.


A modern personal website including zigzags, collages, and wood pattern!

The lovely zigzag pink Grapefruit Graphics.

Runner up:
Dog vs. Roomba. Just because it's cute. Especially the Maltese and the Norfolk Terrier.

(From PopUrls)