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.
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.
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.
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!
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:
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
One cup of Nico, a teaspoon of Cowboy Junkies and a dash of The Beach Boys. Tasty. Standout track: Walk In The Park 
Face it, if this had been The Fire's first album, it'd be No. 1 on your list too. Standout track: Rococo 
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
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 
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
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
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
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 
This Swagger Wagon is out to make minivans just as cool as MINIs. Standout feature: Hot Hatch-like lines 
I mentally cheat on my MINI with this car more than any other. Standout feature: Those gorgeous 18-inch alloys 
Bringing MINI back to the rallying world with 4 doors, 4 full seats and 4 wheel drive. Standout feature: MINI Connected Infotainment System 
HTML5 meets the mates from Montreal in a Google Chrome Experiment gone gangbusters. Standout feature: Geolocation personalization 
Fixie shmixie. Derailleurs can be cool too. Standout feature: Repurposed inner tube fender 
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
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.
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.
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.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.
This matte black MINI Countryman was designed for the 2010 Life Ball by Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa. Click on any pic to enlarge.
Very aggressive looking, despite it not being an S.
Loving the simplified grille and blacked-out Xenon headlamps.
Looks like Francisco's stoked on them too.
As many of you know, Mrs. Kyality and I have forfeited cable for a sweet combo of Hulu and Netflix and based on some key recommendations, we started watching Better Off Ted on Netflix Instant. After two short seasons, ABC pulled what was easily one of the smartest, funniest sitcoms on TV. But in a massive marketing blunder, barely anyone had ever even heard of Ted prior to it being cancelled.
I'll be the first to admit that the whole fixie movement is bit unbearable at times, but photographers like Brenton Salo still manage to get a casual observer like me pretty pumped.
That's a serious jump for a fixed gear.
Loving the tones here.
Cross-processed 35mm double exposure.
It's a lesser known fact but MINI's weren't my first British vehicle infatuation. I was actually introduced to the flick The Gods Must Be Crazy at a fairly young age and from that moment on, I loved the classic Land Rover. Throughout high school, I couldn't envision myself driving anything else in life.
Rovers are the ultimate combination of safari and sophistication. I was never really into Range Rovers or Discovery's/LR3's. I was into their trucks, not their SUV's. There's a big difference. Rovers are simply the never-say-die torque monsters that still manage to ooze this amazing notion of refinement.
The classic Rover saw a couple Series of incarnations with loads of configurations until it gave up its leaf-sprung suspension for coils and became known as the Defender. The only Defender I ever really dug was the super-crew Defender 130 (as seen above). But my true love was the Series III with the spare tire on the bonnet (as seen below).
Back in the day, I remember Normality and I taking the BMW 2002 across the Hudson River in NY to this Land Rover restoration shop called Roverworks. A couple of guys and their dog imported/smuggled rundown versions from around the world and brought them back to life. I'll give you one guess what the dog's name was.
It was Rover, duh.
