Graphic Euphoria» Art and Design

Did you notice it’s the 1st April – a round up of some of the best hoaxes

Si — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:51:26 +0000

What is April Fools?

Every year on the 1st of April it is traditional to try to April fool somebody before the clock strikes midday. To do this you simply have to convince your gullible friend or colleague about a fictional or misleading non-truth. Basically you feed them the most unbelievable hoax, laugh at them when they fall hook, line and sinker and finally give them a pinch and a punch (for the first of the month) for their troubles. The day itself is a bit of a mystery even Wikipedia doesn’t give a definite answer. The best guesses include the name given to fools who plant their crops too early or people who kept to the old calendar where the year started in April not January. Either way it makes a great excuse for some fun.

Ok so what happened today?

It seems every year the web design community get more and more involved with April Fools day hoaxes. Today was no exception; Gmail announced an Autopilot feature to auto-respond to those annoying messages. It is ran by CADIE google’s Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity who has it’s/his/hers one blogger homepage and favorite places! Google Chrome release their new 3D plugin Smashing Magazine introduced IE8 Eagle Eye the all conquering update (they got in their nice and early too) Youtube went all Ozzie on us Mootools announced a new name Opera announced a new feature called face gestures! Sitepoint announce the impending reboot of the internet at 11:59am The Guardian switches to a twitter only news feed Silktidestudios announced the second National Naked Developer Day! Expedia sell flights to mars! Dial a Phone sell a coin and card operated phone Thinkgeek announce an array of amazing products including a unicorn chaser and squeez bacon! The Uk government plan to give out free Wii Consoles Kodak launch the genius eyeCamera Microsoft launches a Alpine Legend game controller? Some people have far too much time on their hands! Brilliant none the less! Roll on next year!

Goon City – A pixel art world

Si — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:45:22 +0000

Ryan Allen is a member of the something aweful forums and together with the forum members has produced a pixel art world. It instantly brings back memories of the original simcity games and is very similar to the works of eboy. Using a few photoshop brushes you can create a plot of land for this map in no time at all. You can tell some of the artists have spent a long time of theirs. I especially love the sense of humour in some of the creations.

The site was originally created with a google maps platform but suffered from a huge hit rate and was taken down. I’m very glad to say it is now back up and surprisingly it is now built using the Microsoft silverlight platform. This is one of the first times i have seen a practical use of the silverlight over adobe flash. A hint of things to come perhaps?

Hows to draw a PSP in MS Paint – the good and the bad!

Si — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:58:41 +0000

TechEBlog posted another great video where a skilled digital artist draws a Sony PSP by hand in MS Paint. Yes, MS Paint, that well known digital creative tool. It rivals an etch-o-sketch in advanced technology! Surprisingly it turns out quite well. The artist is obviously very talented and spent a long time on it. Then i did a quick search on youtube and found a whole host of copycat videos. These ones are no way near as good but they have a certain charm about them. If you watch them you will soon see what i mean. This is why i love youtube! Ascii art rocks! and of course.. the best til last!

Awesome old school downloading rug!

Si — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:48:52 +0000

Do you remember the days of 56k modems and surfing the net with images ‘turned off’ so the page didn’t take a year to load? This really cool rug by Richard Hutton is inspired by old school browsers which would download a picture one line at a time. I like the rug but i love the idea! Shame it’s a one off.. found at Ouno Design.

Cool sculptures made with pencils

Si — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:01:42 +0000

I came across this fantastic portfolio site, Jennifer Maestre.com, where the gallery displays an array of creatures and scupltures made entirely out of coloured pencils!

Body Painting for the foot fanciers!

Si — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:55:53 +0000

New York magazine recently had an article about how we are all walking badly and it’s affecting out feet. The article makes for an interesting read but what caught my eye was the amazing painted feet. Someone has took a great deal of time and effort to create realistic shoes on naked feet. I can only admire the skill it must have taken. They really are a work of art!