The architect-artists Trinh Buscher will be talking about The Urban Topography Collection, an ongoing effort and the first stage to the Metropolitan Cityscapes platform. 

The series explores the concept of space re-imagined through spatial memory and comparison.

www.metropolitan-cityscapes.com

Further speakers will be announced soon.

Roger Ibars will be presenting his new project titled "HWD corporation", a new collection of hard-wired devices, featuring 100 different joysticks from the last 30 years of computer and video games culture.

www.rogeribars.com

Susanna Hertrich,  artist and designer living in Berlin will be presenting a selection of her works dealing with »poetics of the uncanny«.

www.susannahertrich.com

Why not visit our stand in Tempelhof airport /Hangar 5 between the 9th and 13th this month?!  Public opening is on wednesday, the 9th at 20.00pm. We are looking forward to meeting you in one of the greatest airports in this world.

Further information about DMY here: DMY Website

All information about our "Table Berlin" here:

Gerüst

German artist Philipp Hennevogl talks about his linocut prints, that baffle with their insanely intricate details.

Tokyo Clash

Tokyo is famous for its apparently chaotic mix of old and new, tradition and trash, stillness and shrillness. An exciting and inspirational place for any designer, that Ralf Bähren walks you through in his brand new book, Tokyo Clash. The book will be on sale on the evening, and is available on Amazon.

Hirschblüte

German-Japanese designer Akari Luig tells the story of her Deer Vase, developed from initial sketches to finished product in 6 month, together with porcellaine artist Maria Volokhova. The Deer Vase is available on CharlesAndMarie.com.

Curtain up for Figaro!
A website built with Figaro channels the voices of many and integrates their feeds and media from popular social networks into one harmonic orchestra.

Curious? Download the Figaro-Manual.pdf here!

  read more.

Following the recent nominations we are now competing for a Webby as well, in the coveted category Interactive Advertising / Game or Application. And again, we need you! Please vote for the Red Bull Soapbox Racer at the People's Voice Award for a chance to win a Good Deed of the Day-Medal.

Update: Soapbox Racer wins the People's Voice Award. Thank you, people!

The Red Bull Soapbox Racer has been officially nominated at The One Show, and today also at Flash in the Can, in the categories 3D Flash and Flash Game.

Soapbox predecessor Flight Lab won at both events in 2008: bronze at The One Show, and winner of the 3D category and a Best in Show award at FITC.

Update: You can now vote for the Red Bull Soapbox Racer at the FITC Peoples Choice Award - Look for the box that says Flash Game or 3D Flash.

Update 2: We won! Red Bull Soapbox Racer came first in the category 3D Flash. Many thanks to all of you at FITC!

Our experimental short film about OUBEY was shown publicly for the first time on 23 March 2010 at the Opening Event of Oubey’s web site.

This film is a portrait of a German artist who voluntarily isolated himself from the public for ten years to create more than 1200 paintings. When Oubey finally began considering the possibility of a new exhibition, he was killed in a traffic accident in August, 2004, at the age of 46.

The project.

The project MINDKISS posthumously realises his plan. Dagmar Woyde-Köhler, initiator and head of the Mindkiss project, commissioned Stefan Sagmeister / New York to design a book about the project and as:if Film Matters and Less Rain / Berlin to create an experimental cinematic portrait of Oubey.

Our aim was to explore not only the complexity of Oubey’s world, but also the material potential of his work and, not least of all, himself in the artistic process. In a first stage we selected private super 8 and video clips from Oubey’s legacy as well as HD material we shot in his studio to edit an 11 min long cut of the final version.

For the final piece up to 100,000 particles are animated simultaneously in 3D, each one corresponding to a pixel of the movie. They align, dissolve, mimic the motion within the movie itself and react to the user. All of this is precisely timed to fit the story arc and the music. Everything happens in real-time, nothing is prerendered. The software is running in Adobe Flash.

Oubey’s interactive portrait is accompanied by a mesmerizing soundscape of french composer Kangding Ray.

The movie has a running time of 11 min and can be downloaded only until April, 4th at http://www.oubey.com/en/loft/welcome

(Links to PC and MAC versions are on top of the page, the link under the image is just a short trailer.)

Less Rain is looking for a versatile Flash developer for full-time employment in our Berlin office with a solid background in object oriented web development and in-depth experience in AS3. We are seeking a motivated and confident problem solver with an eye for interaction design and a passion for web technologies.

You will be working in an international team of experienced developers in Berlin. Your role involves working closely with our front-end designers and the developer team to implement projects ranging from mini-sites to large scale consumer & corporate websites. You will be working on projects such as:

• http://www.redbullsoapboxracer.com/
• http://www.alfaromeogiulietta.co.uk/
• http://www.passage-experience.com/
• http://www.redbullflightlab.com/

Requirements

• 3+ years experience in Flash development and solid Actionscript 3 skills
• A feel for good interaction design and usability
• Experience in working with frameworks such as PureMVC or Flex
• Experience with Flash integration technologies (XML, Remoting, Webservices)
• Experience in related technologies and APIs is an advantage (i.e. Papervision 3D, Facebook API...)
• English speakers are welcome!

Please send your CV and portfolio to Thomas Meyer.
We can only accept applications via e-mail.

For further information about Less Rain visit:
http://www.lessrain.com
http://blog.lessrain.com
 

Julius Wiedemann and Rob Ford from the FWA teamed up for TASCHEN Verlag to present you with "sixty success stories from clients' briefings to final projects" - and two of them are ours. Both our Red Bull Flugtag Flight Lab and Vandalsquad feature as examples for a successful investment online.

You can flip through the entire book here, or read more at the TASCHEN website. The Internet Case Study Book is out in April 2010.

Here are some recent impressions from inside the studio and our basement bar.

For Meyer, Miller, Smith we reevaluated the functionality of business-cards from scratch. What information does a name card in the digital age actually need?

The MMS card focusses on creating a tangible impression, one which communicates the craftsmanship aspect, love for detail and simplicity of the brand. The carrier is a thick piece of leather with the embossed logo on one side and a flat color printed on the back.

Instead of printing individual cards for each of us, we decided to print just one blank card for everyone and produce individual rubber stamps which contain a name and a link to all other contact information on the website.

Online people can download all relevant information straight away.to their address book and find the address information linked to google maps.

February 2nd, 2010. opening at 20.00pm, first speaker starts 20.30pm

This tuesday, the 2nd of February we'll opening our basement bar for the 2oth "Talk about the Weather."

Speakers this time are cinematographer Tomas Erhart showing cellphone photograpy he has been taking for more than 5 years and THE SOZAILHELDEN, a charity group focussing on internet projects to draw attention to social problems.

more information on:

http://www.talk-about-the-weather.de/

When tasked with creating a new company name, we were looking for something plain and simple, distinct but not artificial.

Looking at names of established advertising agencies like Tragos, Bonnage, Wiesendanger and Ajroldi - better known as TBWA, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO), Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty (BBH), or Doyle, Dane, Bernbach (DDB), we decided to create something similar, but with the most common, everyday names in the English language: Meyer, Miller and Smith, respectively.

Each of them is simple and ordinary on its own, but powerful in combination with the others.

Meyer:

From the Middle High German word "meiger," meaning "higher or superior," often used for stewards of landholders or great farmers or leaseholders - today a Meier is a dairy farmer. Meier and Meyer are used more often in Northern Germany, while Maier and Mayer are found more frequently in Southern Germany.

Miller:

Miller is usually an occupational surname referring to a person who owned or worked in a grain mill.

The popular Miller surname has absorbed many cognate surnames from other European languages, for example the German Mueller; the French Meunier, Dumoulin, Demoulins, and Moulin; the Dutch Molenaar; the Italian Molinaro; the Spanish Molinero, etc.

Smith:

Derived from the Anglo-Saxon "smitan," to smite or strike, Smith and its derivations are an occupational name for a man who works with metal (smith or blacksmith), one of the earliest jobs for which specialist skills were required. It is a craft that was practiced in all countries, making the surname and its derivations the most common of all surnames. Smith still tops the list of most popular surnames in England and America, and is also a very common last name in Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and Australia.

1st approach / guild crests

  read more.

This Tuesday, the 5th of January we'll be gathering with our friends, business partners and members of the Berlin creative community for the 19th Talk about the Weather.

We'll be seeing Werner Kranwetvogel´s latest photographic work on North Korean Mass Games, Celia Czerlinski’s fashion brand CELIACZERLINSKI and Michela Vieser’s richly illustrated roadbook of yet undiscovered places in Germany.

read more on
www.talk-about-the-weather.de