OK, this is my new favourite thing on the internet this week: the Shadow Percussion Project [details from Musicthing]. Enterprising young percussion teacher teaches his high-school percussion group to play live arrangements of tracks from DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…; the result is awesome. Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt works better than Changeling IMHO, but that’s only because I like it more as a track; the drummer gets the chopped-drum-break about two minutes in down to a tee. [61mb wmv file at the other end, but well worth it]
Clearleft launches
22 September 2005
Clearleft – a new Brighton-based web design and accessibility consultancy, based in Brighton, and run by Andy, Richard, and Jeremy. None of whom I’ve met personally, you understand, but their writing, presentation and weblogs are all top-notch. Worth checking out if you’re in need of a design or accesibility expert – or three.
Chris Glass
21 September 2005
Chris Glass’ website is really beautiful. He’s also a fine, minimalist, writer. Certainly a site I’ll be going back to in the near future.
Possible signs that you are a) ill b) need a holiday or c) both
21 September 2005
…when you start having nightmares in assembly code
Dilworth
18 September 2005
Dilworth Typographics present: Dilworth. Very, very beautiful typeface; has that whole seriousness-but-futuristic thing going on that reminds me of the late sixties – and, say, the typography in 2001, for instance.
Revolution
16 September 2005
Everyone knows about it. The designers are going nuts, the gamers are going nuts. I’ve been having mental explosions since this morning and that’s been most enjoyable.
The Nintendo Revolution controller has been unveiled. It’s very, very, very important.
I don’t quite have time to articulate the mental explosions right now – and indeed, many people are hitting the same nails on the head as me. Gillen is probably the most succinct:
“If you don’t like the Revolution controller, you are fundamentally part of the problem and killing the fucking art form”
He is fundamentally right.
Katrina: The Gathering
15 September 2005
Katrina: The Gathering. Possibly tasteless. Possibly a little spot-on. It’s funnier if you can play Magic, obviously. [from dan]
Party Conference Blogging
13 September 2005
Over at the New Statesman we’ve just launched our Party Conference Blog, which will run for the duration of the political conference season. The TUC conference is currently in progress, and the Conservatives annual conference ends in the beginning of October, so it’s worth keeping an eye on for a few weeks. It should be good – we’ve got a nice selection of writers lined up.
If the design looks familiar, well, it should; it’s my own adaptation of the WordPress theme (which is entitled IKB) that currently – and temporarily – skins infovore . I’m hopefully going to release the theme publically – it’ll be my first “generic” theme, so I’m trying to cover all bases with it. It works pretty well for the NS, I feel.
EBay to buy Skype
12 September 2005
Woah. Ebay to buy Skype for $2.6bn. That’s a whole lotta cash, and not necessarily coming from who I might have expected. I’m still mulling on the significance of this.
Quark rebrand
12 September 2005
So whilst everyone’s been talking about the Guardian‘s brand new look, a far less significant relaunch almost slipped under the radar. Fortunately, my work email tells me that Quark have rebranded and redesigned their site. All looks a bit shiny to me; quite like the new “Q” logotype, the site’s pretty enough, but I’m not a fan of the pale grass-green at all. Is the whole lot just too futuristic for the slightly cranky product? We’ll see. The preview of Quark 7 essentially suggests it’s playing serious catchup to Indesign CS2 (at long last).