Land Rover Defender X-Tech

Land Rover is re-releasing the classic Defender as the X-Tech Limited Edition.

Simple, timeless design starting in the mid $30k's. Not bad. Hopefully some other manufacturers follow suit.

Album Review: The Dodos' No Color

What do you look for an a band's third major album? I'm going to go with refinement. All bands have those first random little records that you discover after the fact. It's typically their first label album that piques our interest. It's their second big album that hopefully takes their style, expands it and melts our faces. Now it's the third that we expect a certain level of cleanliness, polish and yes, refinement.

The Dodos' latest major album No Color is the perfect third installment. It takes the band's energetic, experimental sound and applies a degree of tightness that still manages to capture their driving, frenetic sound. The real power and pleasure of the the album comes in the form of grace notes supplied by none other than Ms. Neko Case. There's wisdom and pose there that's a perfect juxtaposition to Meric Long's pseudo naivety.

The track that proves this theory the most is without a doubt Don't Try and Hide It. This song, like many others on the album, gets stuck in your head in a good way. You enjoy waking up in the morning with this song still ringing in your ears. Bottom line: Go try it, don't fight it.

The 5-Series GT Never Looked So Good

The Italian fashion house Trussardi gave the at times awkward-looking BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo a much-needed make-over for their 100th year anniversary. Complete with designer luggage, custom leather driving gloves and tad-too-serious driver, this Hot Chocolate grand tourer is actually looking like quite the canyon carver. See additional pics here.

Color Scheming: In Practice

Last year, I did a little blog project throughout the year that I called called Color Scheming. The concept was to match cool objects of desire with MINI Cooper factory colors. It was way fun to put together the compositions and yesterday my co-worker g.lock turned me on to this fantastic example of color scheming in practice. It comes to us from high-end golf glove manufacturer G/FORE. Check out some of their colorful collections. Feel free to click the pics to enlarge.

TRON: Uprising Trailer

Digging the trailer for the new Disney animated series TRON: Uprising starring voice talents of Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore and none other than Paul Rubens! Looks like a great combo CGI and some traditional character animation.

MINI Rocketman Concept

This just in... sketches and renderings of MINI's forthcoming Rocketman microcar concept:

The King of Cool Commercial

Even the King of Cool did commercials. Awesome music by the way.
(via Monoscope)

May the Force Vee-Dub You.

Thanks to @darthvader I was lucky enough to catch this vid just as it hit triple digit views. The Kyality Kids have probably watched this a dozen times already. I just can't get over how well this little actor nailed the emotions—I can't not envision my little Kyality Kid under that helmet.

UPDATE: Not does this kid act like my boy—he totally LOOKS like him when unmasked.

Sundancing 2011

Thanks to an amazing selection of documentaries this year, Mrs. Kyality and I had an excellent Sundance 2011. No, we didn't manage catch Hobo with a Shotgun… or any other narratives for that matter.

Senna
We were way lucky to catch Senna—the story of Ayrton Senna, perhaps the greatest race car driver who ever lived. This doc was told solely through archival footage and had the perfect cast of characters, the ultimate hero, the ideal villain and an ensemble that you couldn't even begin to write. It played out as though it was unfolding before your eyes. This is definitely a must-Netflix-kind-of-movie.

New Frontier
StruckAxiom was the main sponsor for Sundance's New Frontier interactive installation exhibit at the Salt Lake Art Center. There were some pretty amazing installation pieces including Arcade Fire's The Wilderness Downtown, James Franco's Three's Company: The Drama (complete with your very own can of Tab) and StruckAxiom had an installation of our own—a touchscreen display that aggregates Tweets and Gowalla check-ins from all the Sundance venues.

These Amazing Shadows
We wrapped up our 2011 Sundancing with another doc called These Amazing Shadows—the history of the National Film Registry. Since 1989 the Library of Congress has been archiving 25 films a year. They range from award-winning features to music videos, experimental films to home movies. Each registry selection reflects a truth of its time or a standout artistic vision. Definitely a movie-lovers movie. The great news is that you can vote here for your favorite films each and every year!

Moto Music Vid

So now that I've got a Twitter account for random musings and a Tumblr blog for a pic of the day, it seems that more and more videos are surfacing on this particular blog. And I think that's good thing. This is a way cool moto music vid by French production company HUSH for the track "Frankie's Gun!" by The Felice Brothers. More videos of this caliber or better will be coming as I discover them—enjoy!

I'm a Sucker for a Hot Hatch

My dad Normality turned me onto this a couple of days ago. Rarely am I that into supercars, let alone a Ferrari. But I'm always down with a hot hatch and this certainly qualifies. The Ferrari FF has four seats, four-wheel drive and a roof-line only a mother (and me) could love. Definitely reminiscent of my beloved Z3-based ///M Coupe. Check out the vid of this thing in action through a variety of conditions and terrain:

How'd I Miss This?

Loving this official music video for Daft Punk's Derezzed. Sure, I'd seen the TRON: Legacy mash-up set to this tune, but this original music vid perfectly bridges the first flick with the second. Enjoy.

2010: A Year in Review

Top 3 Favorite Albums

3. The National - High Violet Who would have ever thought that an album about spiders, ghosts and zombies would make for such great make-out music? Standout track: Conversation 16

2. Beach House - Teen Dream One cup of Nico, a teaspoon of Cowboy Junkies and a dash of The Beach Boys. Tasty. Standout track: Walk In The Park

1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs Face it, if this had been The Fire's first album, it'd be No. 1 on your list too. Standout track: Rococo

Top 3 Favorite Movies

3. How to Train Your Dragon Sure, Toy Story 3 and Tangled are fantastic, but do they have Toothless? That is the question. Standout scene: Hiccup and Toothless learning to fly together

2. The Social Network Apparently the answer to the question, "Can a movie about coding and IP lawsuits be compelling?" is hell yes. Standout scene: The tilt-shift rowing sequence set to In the Hall of the Mountain King

1. Inception Indie-thriller vibe meets ensemble-cast blockbuster in Christopher Nolan's super cinematic dream-sequence within a dream-sequence (within a dream-sequence). Standout scene: Joseph Gordon-Levitt's flying/falling fight scene

Top 3 Favorite TV Shows

3. Better Off Ted This award will have to be accepted posthumously. Better Off Ted is already dead, but it went out with a flawless record. Standout episode: The insult algorithm in The Impertence of Communicationizing

2. Friday Night Lights Who would have guessed you could go from loving the Dillon Panthers to absolutely despising them within a single episode? Standout episode: Henry Saracen's funeral in The Son

1. LOST Thanks to LOST's final season, the term "flash-sideways" is now and forever part of our collective consciousness. Standout episode: Richard's backstory in Ab Aeterno

Top 3 Favorite Cars

3. Toyota Sienna This Swagger Wagon is out to make minivans just as cool as MINIs. Standout feature: Hot Hatch-like lines

2. VW GTI I mentally cheat on my MINI with this car more than any other. Standout feature: Those gorgeous 18-inch alloys

1. MINI Countryman Bringing MINI back to the rallying world with 4 doors, 4 full seats and 4 wheel drive. Standout feature: MINI Connected Infotainment System

Top 3 Favorite Designs

3. The Wilderness Downtown HTML5 meets the mates from Montreal in a Google Chrome Experiment gone gangbusters. Standout feature: Geolocation personalization

2. Naked Bikes Fixie shmixie. Derailleurs can be cool too. Standout feature: Repurposed inner tube fender

1. TRON: Legacy It's stylish, digital, classic and progressive all at once. The looks, sounds and motion of TRON: Legacy set the tone for this year's design community/geekdom in general. Standout feature: Flynn's mid-century modern bach pad

Kyality-Style Christmas

Well, we just had ourselves another Kyality-Style Christmas that included everything from reading material to musk. Mrs. Kyality added to my Design Museum set with Fifty Chairs That Changed the World and even though I love the packaging of Kenneth Cole's Vintage Black, the original Black is a far tamer scent. And apparently she's cool with me learning how to mix the perfect Old Fashion thanks to Mad Men: The Illustrated World. I'd just prefer to mix a Root Nog instead. Merry Christmas everyone and thanks for reading.

The New ///M Coupe

As a former Z3-based ///M Coupe driver and former 2002 driver—for me, this is easily the most exciting vehicle for 2011. Click on the pics to enlarge.

Love the re-imagining of the front and rear, especially the wide-body, flared wheel-wells.

Nearly the same proportions of the original E30 ///M3. Niiice.

Geometric Inspiration

I recently saw Sufjan Stevens on his eye-popping Age of Adz tour, an ode to an illustrator named Royal Robertson. In the midst a 15-minute monologue, which I generally can't stand, I thought of some illustrations that I grew up with on the wall of our family room. They were these very geometric pieces of old cars and hippies. And though I was kind of annoyed at the length of The Soof's rambling, I was inspired to learn more about the person behind these illustrations from my childhood. (Feel free to click on any of the images to enlarge.)

Turns out they were drafted by my mom's uncle, Donald E. Anderson. Don was a heavily-decorated officer, serving in both WWII and Korea. He also was a hard-working man at Mountain Fuel, a community activist and interestingly enough, a partner in the war bonds business with actor Jason 'Fatman' McCabe. But more than anything else, Don was a caring uncle who loved to draw.

Don implemented a geometric illustration style, using a ruler and a T-square, as well as architectural stencils and a wide variety of pens and markers. His subjects were characters of the time, folk singers, soldiers, hippies and often himself. But he also created geometric abstract art as well. Nearly everything was drawn with straight lines, other than the perfect circles that pepper his pieces and the occasional unaided, hand-drawn textures.

Don had a unique strength at capturing the personality of each of his characters. He defined those personalities through expressions and details in fun, unexpected ways. He was able to geometrically represent the wrinkles, disheveled clothes and patchwork hair that comes along with characters with character.

Don passed away February 6, 1976 of a sudden heart attack at the age of 49, just 7 months before I was born. Yet I was inspired by him every day growing up through his delightfully quirky illustration-style. I spent much of my youth sketching my own characters, while sitting directly under his. There's no doubt he was one of the many influences that led me to a career in the creative field.

Thanks, Uncle Don.

Against Dumb

Smart Car, with the help of the stellar mograph shop Buck, recently launched this vibrant campaign, simply called: Against Dumb. To put it plainly… it's smart. Using detailed design and dialed dialog, they've perfectly captured the essence of micro-car driving as well as a bit of mid-century modest mentality.