Results tagged “illustration”

If you don't follow me on Twitter, you've been missing out. But fear not! I take care of my loyal blog readers as well, by offering you the highlights of the interesting links I've been sharing there:

• "I find it bonkers, by the way!" That's Rick Astley in his tribute to moot, as part of the Time 100 package. He's specifically referring to the the Obama rickroll video, but I think it applies in general.
• "If you love something, charge for it. ... People will pay for things they value." My esteemed colleague Andrew Anker makes the case for being unashamed of your value. (Semi-related: Four years later, my post on how freelancers should price their work remains one of the most popular things I've ever written.)
• Focus on the Family reviewed Prince's tepid new release and decided that even reactionary late-career Prince isn't tame enough for them. I would pay to see them review Dirty Mind.
• "In the U.S. people view names & identities as absolute things ... but in China, identities are more amorphous." It's a bit of an over-generality, but overall this Slate piece on names and identity was terrific. I tend to like Slate articles, though.
• Arsenio looks askance at his own Wikipedia article. I wish they would air classic episodes of the Arsenio Hall Show or screen them on Hulu or something; I'd watch them.
• I pimped the MP3 of James Brown's "Talking Loud and Saying Nothing" because it's a shame that so many people have never heard the whole thing.
• Nate Silver's TED talk about race and heterogeneity is pretty strong throughout (though the reach of some of the conclusions exceeds the grasp of the data), but I most enjoyed the point about 8 minutes into the clip where he talks about the implications of cul de sacs in (sub)urban planning.
• There are photos of lots of people wearing Aretha Franklin's big grey bow from the Obama inauguration. Most are photoshopped, but the best are not.
• Joel Spolsky gets to the heart of why B&H is a New York institution: "The whole operation is a crazy Willy Wonka factory."
• The organizers of the National Day of Prayer (you missed it last week!) have one of their key campaigns focused on praying for the media. It seems to be working as well as prayer usually does.
• I liked the new Star Trek movie, though it felt a little bit like when the eye doctor looks at my retinas. Just as enjoyable was this excellent look at Trek food, which has as its only shortcoming the regrettable omission of "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."
• Genius illustrator Christoph Niemann's venerable Periodic Table of Metaphors is always worth another look. It's funny because it's true!

This world wide web thing, i think it's going to work out. I think it's gonna be good for the both of us. As always, "HAHA LOL" is courtesy of Alaina Browne.

Tom Patterson, of the U.S. National Park Service, wrote a great paper five years ago on improved realism in NPS maps. There's some very insightful analysis that was useful even to a layman like me. He covers a variety of techniques that increase realism, such as aquafication, texture substitution, illuminated relief, outside land muting, and more. Plus, the illustrations are fantastic -- this terrific example from Crater Lake shows how technique at the Park Service has evolved in just a few years:

Also featured on his site is a great physical map of the lower 48 U.S. states.

Back in 2001, I got laid off from a job right around the same time as Sam Brown, the creator of Exploding Dog. Over the course of that year, as I looked for work and worked to remake a lot of my life, Sam spent much of his time creating illustrations based on captions submitted from his audience. I took a lot of inspiration from the work that Sam did on the site.

We met for the first time later that year at a meet-up for his fans (He insists that I was proclaiming adamantly at the time that I wasn’t into blogging) and have run into each other a number of times along the way, especially at Mark Hurst’s Gel Conference. In some ways, as the popularity of his site has grown, I’ve felt a bit like someone watching a favorite local band start to become a well-known name. Except without the feeling that the artist has sold out.

Back then, I used to check in on the Exploding Dog every few days; It was a nice, simple respite during a time when I didn’t have a lot of them. So I was thrilled to hear that Exploding Dog 2001 has been published, a single book collecting all of the pictures from that year. The illustrations from 2001 were fun and affecting as I’d remembered, and though Sam’s sent me a copy since I started working on this post, I’d have gotten a copy of the book regardless. You should too.

The title of this post is from the image shown above. If you’re looking for more, be sure to check out the first chapter of Beware of the Seamonsters, a brand-new animation from Exploding Dog.