Blogbook
In Japan, manhole cover lids are quite often feats of urban design: intricate and beautiful.
For more photographs, check out photographer S. Morita’s flickr page.
Why are the lids so intricate and beautiful? Amusing Planet explains:
The trend started in the 1980s when Japan wanted to standardize their sewer system. Until then, Japan used regular geometric shaped manhole covers similar to those used in other countries. As communities outside of Japan’s major cities were slated to receive new sewer systems these public works projects were met with resistance. One dedicated bureaucrat solved the problem by allowing the town folk to choose their own design. Today nearly 95 percent of the 1,780 municipalities in Japan sport their own specially designed manhole covers.
The art of manhole covers has now reached the point of a national obsession in Japan with numerous municipal departments competing against each other in the pursuit of the perfect manhole cover. The designs are manufactured by a municipal foundry where they are cast and created. The city or council will submit ideas and the symbol of choice to the foundry and their in-house designers will then create a design based on these specifications, going back and forth until the design is approved. The foundry will then cast a prototype before doing the final cast. These manhole covers are made of metal, as opposed to European manhole covers, which are typically constructed of pre-cast concrete. After the covers have been cast the carved wooden masters are saved in an enormous central library.
Not convinced about drones? Check out these winning photographs from the 2015 Drone Aerial Photography Contest. Sponsored by heavy-hitters like National Geographic, Adobe and GoPro, the contest received over 5,000 entries from drone photography enthusiasts. Some of our favourites:
A well deserved 1st Prize Winner – Above the Mist (Category: Places) by Ricardo Matiello:
This 2nd Prize Winner – Mont Saint Michel (Category: Places) by Wanaiifilms made us want to head straight over to France:
See more winning photographs on the contest site here.
With more than 30,000 users, Dronestagram is riding the growing wave of aerial photography. Via psfk:
Dronestagram really is the Instagram for drone photography and video. According to Eric Dupin, the founder of Dronestagram, “everybody who has a drone or can take stunning aerial pictures” is invited to post their work on the platform. Dronestagram has more than 30,000 registered users.
“We aim to build a community gathered around drone photography and video so as to show the beauty of the world with a new way of seeing it: from an aerial point of view,” said Dupin.
As for the future of drone photography, it seems like the sky’s the limit. Drones are disrupting aerial photography. Dupin calls it “a new photographic language.”
Last week, US inventors Megabots Inc challenged Suidobashi Heavy Industries to a giant robot duel, in a dramatically patriotic video with helpful Japanese subtitles. Because:
“[Y]ou have a giant robot, we have a giant robot. Let’s fight.”
Yesterday, Suidobashi Heavy Industries accepted their challenge, raising the ante by suggesting that the fight be melee combat, and also managing to get a dig in.
“Come on guys, make it cooler. Just building something huge and sticking guns on it. It’s … Super American.”
They may have a point. But huge blocky robots with guns on them are faithfully American – culturally speaking. After all:
Robot culture is rich in Japan, as the CEO of Suidobashi Heavy Industries notes in his acceptance video. But it’s strong in the US as well – just not as prevalent in everyday life. After all, the USA produced Isaac Asimov. Remember him? Positronic Man? Three Laws of Robotics? I, Robot?
As to Japan, the New York Times recently featured the Aibo, in a great article/video A Robotic Dog’s Mortality, and other than the massively successful Gundam series, there are a great number of other fictional mecha series as well. And a giant Gundam replica. And robot restaurants. And… all right, Japan. You get this one.
Who are Megabots and Suidobashi anyway? Megabots Inc is a US-based startup that tried a Kickstarter in 2014 that underperformed, falling short at $65,000 of its $1.8mil funding goal: they were trying to kick off a new global sport in – you guessed it – giant robot arena duels. It was since sponsored, at least in part, by AutoCAD. Suidobashi, on the other hand, has been selling their 4,500 kg piloted robots since 2013 for US$1,353,500 apiece.
Personally, we feel that the Japanese at least seem ahead, aesthetics wise (Left: Megabot. Right: Suidobashi’s Kuratas):
And we do love Suidobashi’s minimal branding:
But then again, aesthetics and branding won’t matter in a straight up giant robot fight. While the strategy of building something big and sticking guns on it is at least tried and true. Either way, we’re looking forward to the battle… one year from now. Fight!
The 2015 Cannes Lions is over, and here are the Film and Film Craft winners: effectively the best ads of 2014 and 2015. Which are your favourites?
Our favourites of the set are Geico’s brilliant ‘unskippable’ ads. Congratulations on a Grand Prix in Film!
About the Cannes Lions
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is an international, highly renowned festival of creativity and a global event for those working in the creative communications, advertising and related fields, very much like the Oscars of advertising. Founded in 1954, the festival features an eight-day programme of creative inspiration, celebration, education and networking, with over 15,000 delegates from around 100 countries:
The most coveted creative accolades, The Lions, are also judged and presented at the Festival. Over 40,000 submissions from 23 categories are put through rigorous, impartial assessment by respected industry representatives, showcased in onsite exhibitions and screenings before being awarded during a number of ceremonies.
[…]
We believe passionately in the power of creativity because we know it’s a driving force for business, for change and for good. But, if we accept that originality is at the heart of creativity, then it can also be a risk – people refer to “creative bravery” because it can take courage to try something new. Doing things differently to how they’ve been done before is often a leap of faith, and that is why great ideas still have to be fought for.
Sadly no, it’s not Yoda, but a great illustration from a 14th Century medieval manuscript, the Smithfield Decretals. See more medieval monsters at the British Library’s blog. (Also, that beautiful blackletter calligraphy!) From the Telegraph:
Stuart Freeman, the British make-up artist who first created the look of the character Yoda for the 1980 Star Wars’ film The Empire Strikes Back, always said he based the puppet’s face on his own, and modelled the eyes on Albert Einstein to give him a kindly but wise look. But a younger version of the fictional Jedi master, who was already 900 years old in the early films, may have been uncovered in a medieval manuscript dating from the 14th century.
British Library curator Julian Harrison spotted the likeness to the Star War’s character in the medieval manuscript known as the Smithfield Decretals. The image, posted on Harrison’s blog Medieval Manuscripts, shows a crouching green figure with large pointed ears and spiky hands, similar to the look of Yoda in George Lucas’s films.
The French manuscripts actually depict the biblical story of Samson and Harrison says it is not clear who the green figure represents. Yoda first appeared in the second film in the original Star Wars trilogy as mentor to the young Luke Skywalker.
Ralph Mirebs, an urban explorer and photographer in Russia, has revealed extraordinary photos of Soviet space shuttle prototypes gathering dust in an abandoned hangar in Kazakhstan.
The abandoned hangar is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is still in operation today (with the close of NASA’s shuttle program, Russian Soyuz shuttles are the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station). The Buran prototype shuttles found by Mirebs, however, are from an earlier era – they are the last remnants of a space program that began in 1974 and was finally shuttered in 1993. The only operational Buran shuttle, Orbiter 1K1, completed one unmanned orbital flight before it was grounded. Unfortunately, this shuttle was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002.
Mirebs’ photos show this forgotten space program derelict and frozen in time. Hopefully, his photos will inspire the Russian government to put these shuttles in a museum where they belong.
View the whole article and photo shoot here. CNN also interviewed Mirebs about his find. Reportedly, Mirebs already knew about the existence of the hangar:
“Yes, seeing the shuttles and rocket was the main purpose of my trip to Baikonur. I had read about it in books on the history of Soviet space exploration.
“However, I did not know what state they would be in, and didn’t know about the other equipment inside the hangar.”
Oz Comic Con was held this weekend in Melbourne at MCEC, on Saturday and Sunday, an event that typically attracts tens of thousands of people who love comics, pop culture, films and dressing up. Although nowhere on the scale as the USA’s San Diego Comic Con, guests this year included Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo: Game of Thrones) and Billy Boyd (Pippin Took: Lord of the Rings). It was a day of Darth Vaders rubbing shoulders with Deadpools, Daleks facing off Hulkbusters, and as many prop weaponry on sale as anyone could want. Some highlights:
This Ghostbuster looked 100% ready for action: his kit lighted up and everything. A+ for effort!
Impressive makeup work from the Sharp FX guys.
This towering Predator is a sculpture, not a costume – love all that detail!
The presence of one of the most enduring entertainment brands in the world was everywhere. Here, Marvel’s Hulkbuster poses with a Dalek, in front of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron installation. We were a little surprised to see that Marvel was capitalising on its wildly popular Avengers brand, rather than promoting its less-well-known upcoming Antman film… or… maybe not. Marvel’s overlords, Disney, had a decent showing as well, with various Frozen Elsas and Annas, a Maleficent, and various classic Princesses. Not to be outdone, the BBC had a large stall as well, mostly selling Dr Who merchandise and some Sherlock.
The Prince of Asgard, in the indie artists’ alley.
Now for some shop talk. Anyone found it interesting how McDonald’s Create Your Taste stall in Comic Con had no McDonalds branding? Not even the ubiquitous red uniforms? It was doing a roaring trade, synthetic turf, black shipping container shell, hipster cafe wood boards and all. It was a curious direction for McDonalds to take, and maybe one that they might explore further in the future. Create Your Taste’s campaign positioning (by OMD Fuse) is ‘very “un-McDonalds”‘, and compared to some of McDonald’s earlier attempts at hashtag campaigns, #createyourtaste has been largely positively received.
Will this save the McDonalds brand? Only time will tell. But Maccas? Please roll out your all day breakfast in Melbourne. We can’t wait to eat hash browns at ungodly hours in the evenings.
Scientists have created synthetic fossils, which can store data by encoding it in DNA:
DNA has huge potential as a data storage medium, with just one gram able to hold nearly half a zettabyte (almost 500 billion gigabytes) of data. Given that DNA fragments recovered from fossilized boneshave been used to reconstruct the genome of animals that died hundreds of thousands of years ago, the molecule also shows promise for long-term data archiving. By contrast, traditional optical and magnetic storage devices are generally only reliable for storing data up to around half a century.
Despite this promise, there are still drawbacks to using DNA as a long-term storage medium. DNA decays over time,with DNA in bone having a typical half-life of around 500 years. However, this is strongly affected by factors such as temperature and moisture, as well as exposure to light and oxygen.
Now, researchers in Switzerland have taken inspiration from fossils to discover how DNA could be used to reliably store data for over two million years. They stored 83 kilobytes of data — containing the text fromthe Swiss Federal Charter of 1291 and the English translation of the Method of Archimedes — on DNA, which was subsequently encapsulated in silica to mimic the protective shell provided by fossilized bone.
The research is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
Our latest campaign for Barry Plant provides a new take on the established strength of the brands “red carpet” positioning. Selling a home is a big decision, and the new campaign highlights how their process and superior service will take sellers on a stress free ride to a great result.
About the new Barry Plant campaign
The latest in a series of Starship’s work for Barry Plant, we chose a distinctive, quirky animation style overlaid over the company’s brand colours to create a striking visual style for their 2015 campaign, working from storyboards to animatic to art directing the final animation, which was created in collaboration with the Oh Yeah Wow studio. The result of several months of development in collaboration with the client, the campaign began as several different directional ideas which were refined and narrowed down eventually to the ‘red carpet’ animation. The campaign also rolled out across print, including magazine ads, outdoor billboard advertising and in drop cards. Clips of the ads were also rolled out online in digital ads. The tv ad was broadcast in cinemas, pre-rolls and on mainstream tv. It was also accompanied by a ‘Barry Plant Stories’ live action interview, where satisfied customers were filmed discussing their experiences selling their properties with Barry Plant.
The brief was to create a modern, online presence for Tintern that aligned with their new branding and ethos of the school. We needed to maintain the balance between providing insightful information to prospective parents while also encouraging them to learn more by contacting the school directly. This website was designed to act as a marketing tool to predominately appeal to new members of the community as existing students, parents and staff have their own user login portals for up-to-date, personalised information from the school. Whilst it’s encouraging to already receive positive feedback on the design from members of staff and parents, additional enrolments will be the KPI that measures this site’s success.
About Tintern
Based in Melbourne, the school has been providing children of all ages with an expansive level of education for over 135 years. Their unique ‘parallel learning’ education model blends separated and gender-mixed schooling, and students are prepared at the end for a transition into tertiary schooling. Their vision:
At the heart of Tintern is our vision to ensure the long-term success of our school and the recommitment to our successful Parallel Learning model that enables students to achieve a perfect balance between gender-specific learning and social integration.