Crazy awesome stop-action block animation video

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This crazy stop-action video was shot completely with painted blocks of wood. Definitely visually inspiring! And those beats are wicked!

Beautiful Tilt-shift Video of NYC

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This really is an amazing video. The tilt-shift lens effect brings such a unique perspective to the Big Apple. The people, cars and construction machines seem so small and almost insignifcant as they race between the buildings.

Oh, and the video's got some great original music to boot!

Carolina Chocolate Drops play some folk-hop and other cross-music goodness

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If you haven't figured out yet I love music. Most any style can be found in my collection—rock, pop, folk, hip-hop, electronica, etc. But I have this certain love for musicians who take traditionally acoustic music styles and mix them up with some modern works. Here's some favorites of mine:

Is this the future of print?

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With the release of Apple's iPad, Wired magazine and Adobe team up to describe what could be a brand new world for 'print' magazines.

Design Portfolio Inspiration: BUILD

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BUILD, a British design studio, has a gorgeous portfolio site I stumbled on today. I love the minimalistic approach to showcasing their work on the main page. Just scrolling through is way fun!

I Love Letterpress

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And apparently so do these guys...


KLUGE from Northern Lights on Vimeo.

Type Tide Blog

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Hear ye, hear ye. All typophiles gather 'round! I've discovered a great type blog called Type Tide. And so far it's great.

Oh, and they actually list the font-face used in the design. Brilliant.

Check it out! Type Tide. Curated by Typographica.

Teux Deux: A Review

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TeuxDeux (pronounced like "to do") is a simple, online, daily task organizer. I first mentioned this application on the Semi-Daily Dose a couple months ago and have been increasingly using it to keep track of my daily tasks ever since. I now use two different accounts (one for work and one for at home) and even convinced my wife to use it. Oh, and did I mention that it's free? I'm hooked!

In light of this I thought I'd share a it about the application and what I really enjoy about it.

Probably the best aspect of TeuxDeux is its utter simplicity. After signing up for a free account you're taken to the main screen which shows you the next seven days, a simple list under each day, and another section at the bottom for "Someday" tasks. Right off the bat there's little room for confusion as to where to put tasks.

Once you start putting tasks in and getting them done you simply click on them again. They get a simple line through them and grey out so you know they're knocked out. Oh so satisfying.

You can also re-order tasks in each days list by simply grabbing them and dragging. You can drag them up or down in a list or even drag them over to another day's list. This is a really handy feature missing from other simple, free, online tasks list organizers—one that I definitely enjoy.

The main window defaults to show only the next seven days but if you want to jump forward or back in time you can always use the arrows at each side to get there. I rarely find myself using these much since planning further out than a week or two for tasks doesn't help me much. I focus much more on the immediate ones and if it's a long-term task or one that's not a high priority I just put it down in the 'Someday' list. I can always grab it and drag it up when I need to assign it to a specific day.

Overall—simply a great task list organizer! I highly recommend it.

The only conceivable downside that I've found is it lacks an iPhone or other smartphone app. I don't have either so it's not a big deal to me however I'm sure that this feature would be extremely helpful for many.

Here's a video produced by the guys who made TeuxDeux that explains more about the interface and features.

David Ogilvy On Management

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Do not summon people to your office - it frightens them. Instead go to see them in their offices. This makes you visible throughout the agency. A Chairman who never wanders about his agency becomes a hermit, out of touch with his staff. —David Ogilvy

Seriously. Every time someone gets called to the bosses office their stomach drops into their shoes. Nobody wants to work where everyone's got acid reflux.

The Third & The Seventh—Beautiful CG Video

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I was blown away with the CG work in this video—the attention to detail is impeccable.

David Ogilvy On Lying in Advertising

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You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine.  —David Ogilvy

Google Buzz: A Privacy Concern

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I am a big Google fan and have loved most (if not all) of their products. I don't know what I would do with out Gmail and their Google Documents and Sites have been organizational life-savers for me in my work and personal life. I also employ social networking quite a bit and so when Google came out with Google Buzz yesterday I was intrigued.

Essentially Google Buzz is a paired down version of Facebook, allowing you to post status updates for your followers to see as well as link your activity on a multitude of other sites like Twitter, Picasa, blogs, etc.

At this point I don't see Google Buzz being a Facebook killer but it will definitely take a piece of the Facebook/Twitter market share and get Google a few more ad dollars as they will be able to keep their users on their site for a bit longer.

One concern that I do have is privacy. If you choose to make your Google Buzz profile public, they default your public page to include your username...which is also your Gmail address. For some, who want to keep this address as private as possible, having their email address available for spammers to harvest may not be ideal.

You can change your public profile address to use a numerical sequence but for others trying to find it this may become hard to search for or remember. Not ideal. At this point Google does not have the ability to request your own custom public profile username like Facebook does. It would not surprise me to see Google roll out this feature in the near future.

For now, if you're concerned about the privacy of your Gmail address I recommend either taking your public page down or opting out of Google Buzz.

There are a few more privacy concerns raised with Google Buzz but I don't think many of them matter as much as the privacy of your Gmail address. If you want to read about these check out this article from MSNBC.

For myself, I'm not super concerned about these privacy issues. My email address is out there enough as it is and the advantage of having my public profile searchable and easy to find outweighs the issue. And I'm sure Google will address this fairly soon. I see enough people, used to the detailed privacy controls of Facebook, making enough fuss to cause some changes.

If you want to follow me on Google Buzz feel free to head over to my profile page at www.google.com/profiles/jerrythepunkrat

Weird Al Takes on Bob Dylan With Palindrome Style (video)

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I'm a big fan of palindromes, my dad loves Bob Dylan, and Weird Al Yankovic is probably one of the most creative entertainers ever. So when I saw the video of Weird Al's parody of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," I had to share. Enjoy!

(For those of you who don't know, palindromes are words or phrases that are spelled the same way forwards and backwards, like "Was it a car or a cat I saw?")

Press Kit Design Inspiration

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I posted yesterday some helpful articles on how to create a successful press kit. Today I thought I would post a few inspirational designs of press kits from around the web as a follow up. These designs are not limited to only musician press kits but can serve to inspire just about any press kit/brochure/informational kit you might be working on.

Enjoy!

I hope you are inspired! If you have your own press kit designs or know of some design inspirations please, feel free to post some links in the comments.

How To Make a Musician Press Kit

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My band, Sunday Morning Drive, released our first full-length album a few months ago and we've been working on our press kit to send out to venues, radio stations, magazines and others in the industry to get our CD reviewed and book some gigs.

In working on the press kit I've run across several articles from GetSigned.com that have been very helpful in narrowing in on what content and collateral needs to be included in a press kit to make it successful. I thought I would share for anyone working with musician on their press kit or even promoting your own music.

What Is A Press Kit?
This one a great overview of what a press kit is, why you need one, and the essentials that need to be included.

Press Kit Secrets
There's not really any major secrets revealed in this article but is worth a quick read as they hit all the main points of what needs to be in a press kit. The best point they made was the last one: follow up. This is pretty much sales/marketing 101—you can't hit people blindly, just once and expect money to fall from the sky. You've got to touch them again, call them up, email, whatever, until you get an emphatic yes or no.

Perfect Package, Perfect Timing
There some good tips in this one on what not to do with your press kit and presentation.

I hope you find these helpful. If you have a press kit you've got some of your own tips for creating a successful press kit feel free to post them in the comments. I'd love to hear from you!

Seth Godin on the Difference Between Hiring and Recruiting

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Hiring is what you do when you let the world know that you're accepting applications from people looking for a job.

Recruiting is the act of finding the very best person for a job and persuading them to stop doing what they're doing and come join you.

—Seth Godin

And then Godin asks the question that must be answered:  
Is your job opening so good you could recruit great people for it?

Is it?

(You can read the whole Seth Godin post at his blog here)

David Ogilvy On Responsible Advertising

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While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes. —David Ogilvy

I heartily agree.

Procrastination (video)

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Yep, this is procrastination...

Embrace Life - Brilliant Seat Belt PSA Video

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What a beautiful and brilliant way to promote seatbelt-wearing:

Apple Launches the iPad (video)

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This about sums it up: