WORM’s medialab Moddr_lab has developed a great online application that allows you to delete your MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn account. The Suicide Machine gives you back* the option to really delete yourself (’cause whose information was it in the first place, right?). With the guys at Moddr_lab we came up with the design for the website, showcasing all the Web 2.0 design-cliche’s (drop shadows, rounded corners, liquid buttons… etc).

The website got into a whirlwind of media attention when MySpace send WORM a Cease and Desist letter, demanding to cease the 2.0 Suicide activities, or face legal actions. Ironically they state in their letter: ‘reserve the right to take whatever measure it believes necessary to (…) protect its users privacy’. Recently, the site got media attention from NOS journaal, TIME Magazine and CNN (amongst others).

visit the site:
www.suicidemachine.org

NOS (Dutch national news) news item with Walter:
check

* These Web 2.0 services feature ways to switch off your account, but your personal information and network is still stored on their servers. Supposedly for customers that regret deleting themselves, and would like to revive their account.

Op zoek naar originele kadootjes? Of een shirtje voor uzelf?

I recently made a 3D flashgame for Paturain together with Subpix (Mopix & Subpost) together . You can play it at the Paturain site, and even win a Citroen 2CV! click here to play

We had this Flickr account with old muck sitting there online. The idea was one time to integrate this blog with flickr… making flickr sort of our portfolio image space. That didn’t work, or at least not as good as we wanted it to work.
So I deleted the old stuff, and uploaded some new. I have this habit of taking foto’s of type wherever I go, I know, I know it’s a typical graphic designers defect. But some are quite nice, so I put them on there. Check em out boys and girls, type is fly.
go to the duplex flickr page
Arjen

Since a couple of months our studio at the Pootstraat has some new residants, one of which is Olivier Otten. Olivier has been active under the alias Selfcontrolfreak, making witty interactive flash/video projects featuring himself. (check out www.selfcontrolfreak.com and do interact with the movies!).

His current project is a cooperation with artist Baschz, called Masterpiece 2.0. You can order Baschz to create a T-shirt, encorporate an image or even yourself (cameo appearance) into the artwork, if you pay a small fee. The result is a multilayered artwork, made visible as an animation. Go to Masterpiece20.com to join in the fun!


Masterpiece 2.0, a social media art project by Baschz and Selfcontrolfreak.

Synth Eastwood (great name!) is a Dublin based independent publishing project. It was brought to my attention by my good friend Taco, who also made some brilliant poster works for them. This issue their theme was ‘Homemade’, and I made a full color re-design of the meccanoo inspired poster that I did for WORM. Thankfully the guys at Synth Eastwood printed it to be exhibited as an A1 size poster. Next to illustration and graphic art they also accept music for their issues… their collaborative spirit is inspiring and they stand out for the high quality of the participants works. Go see their show if you are in the neighbourhood, and buy a poster!
check out Synths website
check out Taco’s work

We’re on to the next big thing baby, get Fluttering.

After having worked my a*! off (for the last couple of years basically). I have decided to take it easy for the next couple of months. Untill the end of summer I will be very reserved about taking on any new work (If you’re a potential customer you can always try though. I really won’t say no to something very cool . Instead I will be focussing on research and development. I plan to do a bunch of Arduino projects, develop some new web-techniques, maybe write some objective C for an Iphone app, catch up on media-design-related-reading and of course enjoy the summer! The idea is to come out of this sabbatical all refreshed and inspired.

Two weekends back I visited the Colophon festival in Luxembourg. Colophon is an independent magazine festival that was first organized in 2007. In a way it is a continuation of the CMYK fest in Barcelona, which I visited too, when I brought our magazine Stereo publication no. 3 -then just freshly printed. With these good memories in my mind I invited Joris* to come along for this fest, expecting it to be just as good.

Indeed it was inspirational to see the independent publishing scene still going strong. Some nice lectures (pity the speaker about digital publishing didn’t show up), meeting friendly people, and the Stereo publication was part of the main exhibition of Colophon (and the book). We also enjoyed strolling through Luxemburg visiting the smaller exhibitions spread throughout the city.

I was particularly taken by the magazine Karen from the UK. Her magazine and exhibition is about the ‘normal’ stuff in life. It’s a really witty, funny little mag about extremely British daily-life stuff (think shopping-lists, potato’s, pets etc). I think it was her mum who apologized to us for Karen not being there at the exhibition when we dropped by, offering us to have some tea and bisquits. Brilliant. (the ‘advertisement’ picture above is from the Karen magazine exhibition.) The ‘greyscale’ bar was good too. When we walked in we were asked what we like to drink; ‘black or white’? ‘White’ turned out to be Vodka… we opted for ‘black’ (coffee), cause the previous night proved that Colophon can serve up a pretty good party as well. In 2011 Colophon will organize another event. Visit Colophon site here.

* I initiated the Stereo publication together with Joris van Ballegooijen in 2004.

While scavenging across the blog-o-sphere I read this age old wisdom. I post it here so I can refer future clients to this post when neccesary.

The old maxim about Cheap, Good and Fast design goes like this:

You can only have 2. If you want it cheap and fast, it won’t be good. If you want it fast and good, it won’t be cheap. And if you want it good and cheap, it won’t be fast.

This one is true, believe me I tried.

cheers,
Arjen