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Back when I was a wee nipper the future promised me many things. I look around now and see no hover-boards, sentient robots or tactile virtual worlds. However, conversing remotely with hologramatic people may not be far away it seems.

Queue this amazing example of art informing life. A “autostereoscopic light field display able to present interactive 3D graphics to multiple simultaneous viewers 360 degrees around the display”. In english… a magic projector.

Created by a collabration of people from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, Fakespace Labs, Inc., Sony Corporation and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, this little gem has renewed my faith in the portents of the 80’s.

In their own words:

“The display consists of a high-speed video projector, a spinning mirror covered by a holographic diffuser, and FPGA circuitry to decode specially rendered DVI video signals. The display uses a standard programmable graphics card to render over 5,000 images per second of interactive 3D graphics, projecting 360-degree views with 1.25 degree separation up to 20 updates per second. We describe the system’s projection geometry and its calibration process, and we present a multiple-center-of-projection rendering technique for creating perspective-correct images from arbitrary viewpoints around the display. Our projection technique allows correct vertical perspective and parallax to be rendered for any height and distance when these parameters are known, and we demonstrate this effect with interactive raster graphics using a tracking system to measure the viewer’s height and distance. We further apply our projection technique to the display of photographed light fields with accurate horizontal and vertical parallax.”

Coming soon… A giant space station with the fire power of a thousand battle cruisers.

[Posted by: Anthony Jones]     

Filed under: Things We Like on September 21st, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Our second website for Redrow supports their Debut range of homes for first-time buyers.

The site retains the same powerful search functionality from Redrow.co.uk, but creatively it’s integrated with the offline comms for Debut, so looks much fresher and more colourful.

Great work by Rob, Steve and Chris.

[Posted by: Neal Andrews]     

Filed under: Our Work on September 17th, 2007 | No Comments »

Need a new job?

TEQUILA\Manchester have produced a rather nice guide book for Best Companies that lists the best companies in the UK to work for, aptly called The Best Companies Guide, so we’ve created a rather nice website to go with it.

It takes all the good design elements from the book, but adds some really nice search and compare functionality, most notably the ‘Best Match’ feature which allows users to find companies based on their attitude to eight key factors.

Great work by Marcus, Gareth, Fred and Chris.

[Posted by: Neal Andrews]     

Filed under: Our Work on September 6th, 2007 | No Comments »

Work from artist Yayoi Kusama using infinity mirror walls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u_4aLNQRpU

…and the ladder to heaven
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teYbSiabnmE

[Posted by: Gareth Ormerod]     

Filed under: Photography, Things We Like on August 30th, 2007 | No Comments »

In order to raise awareness for global warming, Greenpeace and the photographer Spencer Tunick got hundreds of naked people to pose for photos on a melting glacier.

Spencer Tunick was on a ladder with a mega phone as he directed the massive crowd of nearly 600 people from all over Europe who were concerned for the environment.

Spencer Tunick then photographed them on a rocky outcrop overlooking the glacier, which is the largest in the Alps.

The volunteers also had to pose for photographs by Spencer Tunick on the ice as he took photos of them lying down.

Read more on the Greenpeace Blog

[Posted by: Gareth Ormerod]     

Filed under: Photography, Things We Like on August 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

Life moves pretty fast.
If you don’t stop and look at my bits and bobs every once in a while, you could miss it.

TECHNOLOGY
Bugsy Malone wishes he had one of these.
He’d be bullet proof and he could wipe cream cakes off his face.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Pictures with impact. Wowoweewow.

INTERVIEW
Give a man a fish and he’ll feed his family for a day.
Give this designer an apple and he’ll never go hungry again.

BRAIN FOOD
Nobody likes change, especially us Brits. But why?

RAW TALENT
I couldn’t even get an audition on humdrum idol. I suck.

Here’s a little guy who’s been starved of inspiration.

It could happen to you too.

Ooot.

[Posted by: Ben Phillips]     

Filed under: Things We Like, Bits & Bobs on August 17th, 2007 | No Comments »

Fifty designers, architects and thinkers have their say in the 50th issue of Icon magazine.

This is Peter Saville’s view…

MANIFESTO #01
PETER SAVILLE Designer, LONDON

Being a designer used to be like being on a crusade – we were fighters, evangelists. But in the last ten years, since the recession of the early Nineties, the situation has changed. Our establishment has suddenly “got it” and they want “creatives”. Creativity has become part of the business of social manipulation. The problem is that everybody got what they wanted.

Morals
The cultural adventure has been consumed by business. Making things better is a moral issue, but morality and business don’t go together – business is, if not immoral, then amoral. We know we should be keeping people out of stores but we all have to work with business. It can’t really be all about idealism and altruism.

Meaningless design
Much of the work being done now lacks meaning and the designers know it. There’s a reasonable chair design once every five years and that’s usually the result of a new manufacturing or material innovation. We all see what’s happening at Milan – there are countless new chairs and they’re nearly all a waste of space.

Where are the NGOs?
Everyone does their best but you have to pay the rent. Even hospitals have to run to profit. You can’t avoid the issue merely by working for an NGO – even Amnesty and Greenpeace have to be “business facing”. The only bastion of free speech could be the art world, but even that is a preciously engineered marketplace with its own complexities.

Value finding
Creative people have to believe in the value of their work. If you don’t have any belief then you can’t give anything – designing is an act of giving, and a belief in the value of the work fuels the desire to express something. It’s important to know what your values are and to take care of them.

Post-war socio-cultural democratisation
It’s a long term, but broken down it’s simple. Over the last 50 years culture has been disseminated to the wider public rather than being the domain of the privileged. There is an inevitable loss of substance in the process of becoming a culture of entertainment. If it’s not popular, it’s not happening.

Design as drugs
Pop culture used to be like LSD – different, eye-opening and reasonably dangerous. It’s now like crack – isolating, wasteful and with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Dystopia
In the early 20th century designers envisaged utopia, they were optimistic and visionary people. We now acknowledge the dystopian reality.

The new cause
I was part of a system that wanted to change the look of the everyday world. That ideal, manifest through consumerism, doesn’t sit well with me now. I am not wealthy and completely understand how we all have to pay our way.

49 further Manifestos here.

[Posted by: Gareth Ormerod]     

Filed under: Industry Comment on August 16th, 2007 | No Comments »

Being a long-standing fan of Vision Streetwear I was positively wetting myself with excitement when I checked out Vision’s new website.

The whole website is seamlessly integrated using video content, including the product section which is also based on video rather than traditional photography. Sections load quickly and the sound tracks, featuring the likes of The Herbaliser and The Gants, play continuously in the background resulting in an immersive user experience, which has made me want to down tools and go play outside…

[Posted by: Robin Barton]     

Filed under: Things We Like on August 15th, 2007 | No Comments »

Here’s an amazing new piece of technology from Microsoft called Photosynth created by Microsoft Live Labs.

If you watch the clip you can see it offers loads of potential functionality from creating 3D image galleries, easier-to-navigate e-books to changing the way newspaper content can be delivered digitally.

Personally, I’d like it to be used in the future as a navigation feature using a touch screen monitor. All your computers files would be displayed on your desktop and you’d touch to zoom into a section until you zoomed into your required document/program, just like in the film Minority Report.

[Posted by: Simon Cruise]     

Filed under: Things We Like on August 14th, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Generate random faces using an array of facial features and expressions in this amusing and slightly addictive website from mono.

[Posted by: Neal Andrews]     

Filed under: Things We Like, Funny on August 14th, 2007 | No Comments »