Oliver Franklin Anderson Presents The Night Country: Stories of Sleep Paralysis

Oliver Franklin Anderson is a local Los Angeles filmmaker and purveyor of digitized motion. Oliver's last film, Hollow, earned himself entry into notable film festivals, such as the Slamdance Film Festival, and additional accolades.

Oliver's latest project consists of a web based collective of horror shorts titled The Night Country: Stories of Sleep Paralysis. The series as a whole is inspired by hallucinations experienced during sleep paralysis. In Oliver's words: "While The Night Country is a series as a whole, the individual episodes are designed to stand alone as highly unique, short horror films". Additionally, he describes sleep paralysis as, "a glitch in the natural flow between sleep stages, causing dreams to blur into reality. Sleep paralysis is never a pleasant experience, causing terror in those experiencing it and vividly unsettling, if not terrifying hallucinations."

The first film in the series is named A Study In Blue and debuts Shelby Slayton as the actress. Shelby Slayton happens to be one of the "Slay" elements in Slayzinger Creative.  Along with Oliver Franklin Anderson directing, the creative team consists of Robert Allaire composing music and Frank L. Anderson as sound designer. The film consists of the creative nature inspired eeriness and dark, high contrast filtering that is synonymous with Oliver's film styling.  Below is A Study In Blue.

In order to create and produce the subsequent episodes of the The Night Country series, Oliver has put together a Kickstarter campaign for funding assistance. Consider donating to the production of a visually stunning and truly unique web series.

Patternity: All Things Pattern

 

Based in London, Patternity is a creative firm with an all encompassing passion for pattern. The consultancy really stood out to me because of a personal fascination with the universal element of geometry. As well as how it can be integrated into, and inspire, different aspects of design. Patternity's philosophy states: a shared awareness of pattern can positively engage us with our environment and each other.

Patternity works on a wide range of projects from fashion to product design and publishing. The geometric, Bauhaus inspired tights below are hand screen printed and made to order on their site. Moreover, their furniture projects have earned them a 2011 Wallpaper design award and are featured in an array of magazines.

 

 

Aside from their work samples and products, another focal point of the Patternity website is a daily journal of curated pattern inspired images. From fashion and architecture to particle accelerators and nature, the images discover artful patterns in just about every aspect of daily life. The archive provides excellent inspiration for artists and designers. Below is a sampling of the Patternity's images. Visit their gallery resource for constantly updated images.

 

Nightsprout Interview: Web Concept Creators

I first met Jason Bishop in design school when we studied Industrial Design together at Georgia Tech. We went on to both work as student interns for the campus research center CATEA (the Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access). CATEA focuses their efforts on developing assistive products and technologies for individuals with functional limitations.

Although Jason freelanced in web work beforehand, he began working in professional front end web development during his time at CATEA. This interest led him to pursue a career in web design and development after graduation. Recently, Jason has teamed up with his business partner, Mitchell Lane, and they decided to take their knowledge and experience to the next level to launch their own web concept firm. The new company is called Nightsprout and below documents my conversation with Jason about it.

 

Jason Bishop's Personal Site

 

?: We know each other from studying Industrial Design together at Georgia Tech, what factors brought you to a career in web development?

Jason: My education is in Industrial Design, so I've had a long-standing interest in design. I got interested in web design because it is a similar field (research, usability considerations, etc) but doesn't require you to jump through hoops designing a physical product often requires.

My first jobs out of college were with web development companies and I was exposed to the startup scene in Atlanta. Haven't looked back since. I really enjoy working for new operations where I have a lot of control over my work.


Jason's Sample Project 1

Jason's Sample Project 2

Jason's Sample Project 3

 

?: How did you and your business partner meet up and could you describe the resulting creation of Nightsprout?

Jason: We met working at the same company together. For some pieces of software, I served as the design lead with him functioning as developer. We worked really well together and our projects were really well received. We decided to take the relationship beyond that project and see what we would be capable of making.

Our first project was an experimental zombie game that integrated with FourSquare. It was a lot of fun and we thought the natural progression would be to form a business and see where that takes us. 

 

 

?: How would you describe the unique services offered by Nightsprout?

Jason: We are a boutique app development firm for clients and our own concepts. We do the entire app development process from start to finish, with specific foci in design and code. Some of the projects we handle include: creating custom web apps, creative (branding/collateral/etc), user interface/user experience/information architecture, etc.

 

?: So Nightsprout handles both the design and the coding areas of web development, correct?

Jason: Yes, we can do Ruby/Java/PHP and other stuff (of course HTML/CSS). We like to use rails if the need is a web app but we are flexible.

 

 

?: Are your ideal projects in the realm of corporate identity or conceptual and pushing the limits of technology?

Jason: We are somewhere in between the two. We are definitely not doing a corporate brochure sites at the moment, but we aren’t doing something purely conceptual either. Right now we are building web apps positioned in the SAAS space.

 

 

?: Could you expand on building web apps positioned in the SAAS space?

Jason: For people who don't know, SAAS stands for "software as a service". To simplify, this typically entails an up-front licensing fee to use the software, typically hosted in the cloud. One example of a company with a SAAS model is SalesForce.

With respect to Nightsprout, we basically do two things. First, we will help people or businesses interested in setting up a web property achieve their goals. This might include developing an app for them (and launching it), branding and social media campaigns, or other things. We can do it all.

The second part of Nightsprout, which we do in parallel, is to work on our SAAS projects. We're both familiar with how SAAS products are made and marketed so it is a natural thing for us to work on. Plus, it's really fun work. We get to "be our own clients" to determine what to build, and hopefully make some money as well.

 

 

?: Does nightsprout have plans to venture into other peripheral web design areas such as iPhone/iPad or Android apps?

Jason: We don't have anything specifically on the road map, but we have many ideas for different web apps we'd like to tackle though. Web apps could mean expanding into a lot of different areas, but technology wise we don't have a set path. We have an interest in working on iPhone/iPad and Android apps in the future.

 

Take a look at the Nightsprout website and contact them for any web development needs. The founders of the company Jason Bishop and Mitchell Lane's personal work can also be viewed online.

Library of Congress' WPA Poster Archive 2

 

Earlier on I did a posting displaying a few of the items in the Library of Congress' WPA poster archives (they have made these posters images public record). These recent times of discontent, anger towards the establishment, and the horrifying unemployment rate made me think back to the depression era and the public works projects created by the government through the New Deal. This is an example of an iconic time period of American History that is not wildly far off from what is going on now.

The WPA stands for the Works Progress Administration and created almost eight million jobs between the years of 1935 and 1943. A great deal of the jobs established for the WPA (along side the ones that were aimed towards improving the country's infrastructure) were related to the arts, drama, and literacy. These programs birthed an immense amount of awesomely designed poster art that became very important to the history of graphic design. Although mostly due to printing constraints of the time, these minimal and powerful layouts get the message across in a simple way without being cluttered or unnecessary. These compositions are widely used for design inspiration purposes in current times.

I understand that there are current programs along these lines, but perhaps more aggressive Works Progress Administration programs like these from the past could help the people of today and spread creativity. Displayed are a few more examples of the WPA posters.

 

Denzinger Design ad on Kevin Smith's Smodcast Internet Radio

Kevin Smith, writer/director turned podcasting internet personality, recently launched his own internet based radio network called SIR (Smodcast Internet Radio). The architect of the cult films Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Zach and Miri Make a Porno; my personal Kevin Smith favorites; started the original Smodcast podcast several years ago with his film producer Scott Mosier. Because of the Smodcast's success, Kevin added several more podcasts to his empire, most notably Jay and Silent Bob Get Old with Kevin's Jay to his Silent Bob (Jason Mewes) co-hosting.

In May of 2011, Kevin Smith segwayed his efficacious podcasting into opening the 24 hour a day online stream for SIR. To celebrate the launch of SIR, the neophyte network was offering two minute live reads on one of their new shows for an incredible introductory price.

I took advantage of this opportunity and a Denzinger Design ad was read on Friday morning, May 27th. The ad aired during the show Plus One Per Diem and was read by Kevin Smith and his wife, Jennifer Schwalbach. The episode containing the ad can be downloaded on iTunes and streamed from the Plus One Per Diem website. Below is the sound bite for the ad. Have a listen.

 

DenzingerDesign SIR Ad by Denzinger Design

IDEO's c60 Redux

I revisited IDEO's Vimeo page after an earlier post about IDEO's Vision for the Future of Self-Service Banking to see what they are working on. I came across an intriguing video that was posted a few months ago, but the content really sparked my interest.

It is a concept from IDEO that aims to restore a physical aspect to digital music enjoyment. The c60 Redux is a platter that users place individual cards onto to play music. Each paper or cardboard card contains two RFID chips that activate the platter to play the track that is associated with it. The track stops playing when the card is removed from the platter. Users can create a playlist by placing several cards on the platter at a time and the tracks are read and played in a clockwise order. The unit is connected to a computer for power and sound output.

This re-establishes the focus on album graphics and tangible artifacts associated with music.

 

Take a look:

c60 Redux from IDEO on Vimeo.

Core77 Design Awards

The product design powerhouse Core77 is hosting their first annual Design Awards. With this venture, Core77 has re-imagined the entire design competition process and judging platform.

The initial registration process is completely free and noncommittal. Core77 will even send you a limited-edition poster, while supplies last and designed by Studio Lin, for registering early.

The design competition is subdivided into several different categories and each category has a Jury Captain from 13 different cities in 8 countries. Each jury captain is an expert in their category and will assemble a team of four local jurists. This will ensure fair and non-bureaucratic judging.

Another way the Core77 Design Awards goes against the grain is the fact that each entrant is urged submit a video testimonial about the design. This spin on Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes of Fame is not required but strongly recommended.

The competition categories include:

Sign up for the Design Awards here. I've already registered Denzinger Design for the competition and can't wait to get started. Design on.

 

The Album Cover Art of Shepard Fairey Opening

 

Over the years, Shepard Fairey has been involved with the design of a wide variety of album cover art. Additionally, the Obey frontman often uses music as a theme for his artwork. To celebrate all of this, the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica is currently featuring a show called Revolutions - The Album Cover Art of Shepard Fairey.

The show opening was March 12th, and I had the chance to attend. The focal point of the show was a large cluster of small framed screen prints, featuring the album covers Shepard created, on the back wall of the gallery. The show also boasted DJ sets by Dan the Automator and Shepard Fairey himself. The show runs until April 23rd and below are a few pictures from the event.

 

The Inspiration Pad

Being a fan of electronic music, Ghostly International is a name that I am familiar with. One of the Ghostly founders Matthew Dear, as well as other Ghostly artists, are well known for their smooth beats and melodic melodies. Several years ago, Ghostly did a successful collaboration with Adult Swim by releasing the Ghostly Swim album.

In addition to producing polished sounds, Ghostly is dabbling in art and design with the Ghostly Store. This online design center features Dieter Rams style office accessories, audio equipment, and limited addition art prints.

The item in the store that stands out the most is the Inspiration Pad. This comes to us from Belgium Designer Marc Thomasset. The Inspiration pad re-imagines the age old sketch pad notebook by offering a variety of angles, curves, and perspective lines. I had a studio professor in design school that would start a product sketch by laying down a series of random lines and arcs. He would then begin to sculpt the form of a product out of the jumble.

The Inspiration Pad is an excellent tool for laying down the foundation of inspired sketches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Take a look at the other well designed products and the limited art prints in the Ghostly Store.

WPA Poster Archive

I've always been a fan of the graphic design styles related to wartime propaganda posters, WPA posters, and World's Fair posters. While conducting graphic research for work, I stumbled upon an archive of WPA posters in the Library of Congress' website. Despite the fact that a lot of them have to do with syphilis, the posters are very iconic and historically essential. It's very common to see modern designers drwaing inspiration from this graphic era.

 

Below is a sample collage of posters:

 

The website contains downloadable high and low resolution versions of hundreds of WPA posters and important historical data about them. Most of the posters have no known rights restrictions.