Creatives

Illustrator Emrich Co.

An extensive excerpt from Creativity Inc, inside The Pixar Braintrust

 Pieter Hugo's strikingly 'pushed' photographic series There's a Place in Hell for Me and my Friends

U.K. Studio Grafiky

And a call out to all those who, like me, banded together to waste literally years of our lives playing the first great MMORPG, driving work mates mad with the tales of our exploits the night before and watching my fellow players out level me... Happy 15th Anniversary Everquest! (I played an 'Iksar' lizard man and insisted on writing all my 'S's' with a rolling hiss- Joy!)

As the in-house graphic artist at THQ, I worked on a video game called Deepak Chopra's Leela... I remember thinking (quietly) at the time it was a stupid idea and as we were all redundant within 6 months I guess I was right... So was this guy who featured it on The Internet's most horrible items. A daily blog  (see the pillow slip above available on Amazon, which would actually make a pretty hilarious 'ironic' gift'). Worth a read for Drew's comments alone!

Articles

3 Paths Toward A More Creative Life

1. Be mindful--disconnect
2. To create meaningful things, delve into the past
3. Be masterful

 Comic Master Warren Ellis on Boiling Spacetime: How Time Works In The Graphic Novel

Comics boil spacetime.
This is metatextual gibberish intended to prime your brain for what is next.
Time in comics is completely elastic.

Vintage Books

Lot's of great illustrations via three vintage publications on Brain Pickings.

...Walt Disney's Our Friend The ATOM

...The Art of Kissing 

...A Cat-Hater’s Handbook

Dying man finds support on World of Warcraft

Not exactly a 'feel good story' but a surprisingly supportive article on the usually much maligned video game experience and the positive effect it can have for people... All the more surprisingly on NineMSN.

In the game of World of Warcraft, Patrice Anseline is a level 85 Blood Elf Death Knight called Sackmagraph, of the Dath'Remar Horde’s Hydra guild. In reality, he is a Victorian father-of-three who is facing the painful truth that he may soon die from prostate cancer, which has reached the lining of the brain and is inoperable.

3 Ways To Design Toys That Boost Kids’ Creativity

As a parent and designer (and toy lover), I found this article very interesting: 3 Ways To Design Toys That Boost Kids’ Creativity on Co.Design

The answer, quite simply, is to take back creative play by reimagining it for the modern era. Kids create, learn, and share their ideas through imaginative play. With pirate costumes, dolls, saucepan drum sets, and refrigerator-box moon bases kids aren’t just practicing for “real life,” they’re training their brains to see new possibilities--building the “what if” skills that will be critical to their creative success in later years.

The Lego Gender Gap

A very interesting article on Sociological Images by David Pickett about the historical perspective on the Lego gender gap.
Part 1
Part 2

Jack and the Marketing Giant

A great article on Co.Design making the analogy between the fable Jack and the Beanstalk and Marketing opportunities.

Sketchbook Advice

Some great sketchbook advice from Austin Kleon

...fill a page every day, even if it’s with grocery lists or scribbles or collages. At the end lf the year your sketchbook will be full.
Also: carry it everywhere, and instead of long at your phone or the computer when you’re bored, start making marks.
Also: remember that a sketchbook is a tool for thinking, a place to work your thoughts out on the page. It ain’t precious.

Great advice!

Orwell's Rules for Writers

After an enforced, brief and incomplete flirtation during High School, I recently returned to and read George Orwell's 1984 (as part of my 'Classics' catch up campaign)... Wow, I was pretty much blown away by this book; it is still timely, chilling and fascinating... If you've ever said 'I should read that' (and you trust me) then I recommend you get on with it... In the mean time check out:

 Orwell's Rules for Writers 

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

From this essay.

And amazingly, by coincidence, AFTER I posted this I discovered that there's a new big screen adaptation in the works! 

Badass of the Week!

Written in the style of Maddox: Ben Thompson's Badass of the Week!

‘Judge Dredd’ creator: Three reasons I’m excited about new film

‘Judge Dredd’ creator: Three reasons I’m excited about new film

Dungeon Bastard: Edition Wars

Do not click this link unless you have played more than 25 hours of Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeon Bastard: Edition Wars

15 things I learned from the 101 greatest screenplays list.

Article:  15 things I learned from watching and writing about the writer's guild of America's 101 greatest screenplays list.

How Many Stephen Colberts Are There?

How Many Stephen Colberts Are There? By CHARLES McGRATH

I say not enough...

"There used to be just two Stephen Colberts, and they were hard enough to distinguish. The main difference was that one thought the other was an idiot. The idiot Colbert was the one who made a nice paycheck by appearing four times a week on “The Colbert Report” (pronounced in the French fashion, with both t’s silent), the extremely popular fake news show on Comedy Central. The other Colbert, the non-idiot, was the 47-year-old South Carolinian, a practicing Catholic, who lives with his wife and three children in suburban Montclair, N.J., where, according to one of his neighbors, he is “extremely normal.” One of the pleasures of attending a live taping of “The Colbert Report” is watching this Colbert transform himself into a Republican superhero."















And his testimony before the House immigration subcommittee.

Raiders of the Lost Ark vs. 30 Other Films

Tropes Wiki

Tropes Wiki

IMFDb: The Internet Movie Firearms Database

IMFDb The Internet Movie Firearms Database

Article: Don't give up the day job!

An article from the Guardian: Don't give up the day job! - how artists make a living

How To Last in a Tough Business Filled with Rejection.

A thoughtful article on How To Last in a Tough Business Filled with Rejection.
 
“A man of knowledge knows that his life will be over altogether too soon. He knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows that nothing is more important than anything else. … Under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus a man of knowledge endeavors and sweats and puffs and, if one looks at him, he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn’t. So when he fulfills his acts, he retreats in peace and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, it is in no way part of his concern.”

Article: Why Kids can’t Search

An article on ‘Why Kids can’t Search’

"We’re often told that young people tend to be the most tech-savvy among us. But just how savvy are they? A group of researchers led by College of Charleston business professor Bing Pan tried to find out. Specifically, Pan wanted to know how skillful young folks are at online search. His team gathered a group of college students and asked them to look up the answers to a handful of questions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the students generally relied on the web pages at the top of Google’s results list."