Design Flash Mob

A flashmob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

One of the Flashmobs I witnessed took place at the National Mall, couple hundred gathered and carried out a massive pillow fight. Good thing AOLers caught on this tradition and used it to create designs in a quick fashion. Also, its a great deviation from your regular routine and lets you think outside the screen.

Last Friday, Oct 9, PBS Design team had their first flash mob with four participants and four different topics: Photography, Type, Pattern and Colors.

Erin Lassahn

My concept was based around a popular trend in photography right now - a trend that crosses many genres - of using techniques in post processing as well as added textures and layers to 'weather' a photo and give it the feel of an era a long time ago, whether its a 60's style polaroid effect, or more of a sepia vintage early 1900's effect. I really like the idea of making something that may or may not already have a sense of nostalgia (after all photos exist for this purpose) and adding that much more of a nostalgic feel.

There's a great group on Flickr for obtaining free textures for overlays: http://www.flickr.com/groups/textures4layers/

And 2 resources for awesome Photoshop actions both including various Vintage Processes are:

Totally Rad Actions: http://www.gettotallyrad.com/#photoshop-actions-for-rockin-digital-photography-7a1d9

Kevin Kubota Tools: http://www.kubotaimagetools.com/

Valli Ravindran

I was inspired to showcase some of my recent font downloads that was sitting in my font book eagerly waiting to be on a project..

All of the letters here are from Lorem Ipsum dolor amet. (even the dingbats)

The eleven free fonts that I used are:

The Quiet Scream - http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=the+quiet+scream

Tireshop - http://www.bittbox.com/freebies/bb-free-font-tire-shop-demo-verison

Nevis - http://www.tenbytwenty.com/products/typefaces/nevis

Osaka - http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/Osaka.htm

Blackout & Midnight - http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Blackout

Makimango - http://www.dafont.com/makimango.font

Chunkfive - http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/ChunkFive

Sniglet - http://www.dafont.com/sniglet.font

Dingbats: Seeing Stars - http://www.urbanfonts.com/dingbats/Seeing_Stars.htm

Dingbats: The Freaky Face - http://jokke-svin.dk/?page_id=3476

Additional Resources:
Flipping Typical - A Site to compare and explore the typefaces you have on your computer.

Some great flickr pools for inspiration -
http://www.flickr.com/groups/86989277@N00/pool/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/typophile/pool/

Jen Huls

Nature as inspiration may not consciously be used by all but sub-consciously we use them all the time. My inspiration came from patterns I see on my daily Metro commute. I then combined these patterns with their corresponding brethren found in nature.

By Nature's Design
http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Design-Exploratorium-Book/dp/0811803295/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255701686&sr=8-1
"Writer Pat Murphy and photographer William Neill appeal to our quest for patterns with this book, based on a major exhibit at San Francisco's Exploratorium. Together they puzzle out how pebbles form clusters on the beach, how an ear of corn grows, how mountains and clouds form and how spiders make their webs: how, in short, nature sees to it that things happen in much the same way again and again."

Flickr Group - Nature's Abstracts
http://www.flickr.com/groups/natural_abstracts/

17 Techniques for Creating Designs Inspired by Nature
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/08/17-techniques-for-creating-designs-inspired-by-nature/
"Many great designers derive their inspiration from nature, and we can find tons of examples showcasing this type of inspiration online.... Here are 17 great techniques for creating original, beautiful, nature-inspired design."

25 Nature-Inspired Website Designs
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/nature-inspired-website-designs/
"Inspiration or web design can come from anywhere. An increasing number of websites are including elements from nature in the design. Background images, photos, illustrations... nature can be used a number of different ways in web design. In this post we'll look at 25 excellent examples."

CSS Nature | Eco Green Organic Website Design Inspiration Showcase Gallery
http://www.cssnature.org/
"CSS NATURE is a showcase of well designed nature based web design"

Tanya Netayavichitr

There's something about the transition from summer to winter, the divine display of autumn leaves, crisp cool clear skies, enticing aromas of deliciousness, the essential layering of clothes and of course, certain change. My inspiration draws from the rich colors of fall, nature, texture, city life, fashion and feeling.

I created this color palette through Color Scheme Designer. Here is my actual color palette: http://colorschemedesigner.com/#0u61Tw0w0w0w0

A great resource for autumn color palettes: http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/09/23/seasonal-color-inspiration-autumn/

This Flickr group has many inspiration boards to spark some creativity: http://www.flickr.com/groups/inspirationboards/

Thanks everyone for such eye-candy! Cant wait until the next one with probably a bigger pool of designers!

2 Comments

Joaquim Marquès Nielsen | November 4, 2010 4:42 AM | Reply

Hey thanks for using my Freaky Face font. Would you mind updating the link though? It's dead. You can use this one: http://jokke-svin.dk/folio/the-freaky-face-1/

Thanks

anonymous | May 27, 2011 9:22 AM | Reply

official said , the Jinan Military Region in the theater -level joint operational training in the accept joint training of the analysis approved our military absenceion , they will be abjectd on approaching bounded wars beneath avant-garde altitude, the capital claims of joint opearmament To further backboneen the theory that more joint training point ,football mercurial vapor, chase the law , absorption the addition. Meanwhile,adidas Copa Mundial, the joint opearrangementnal training will account from joint to joint military armed armament for added addendum.

One is to establish a added reaccountable , able administration to run the tboiler collective taqueous Mechanisms to finer advance joint training; the additional is to establish and advance a joint abstraction of approach and abilities training apparatus for administering joint alternationing laid a solid begination ; third is to eachelish a joint planning mechanisms,Nike Mercurial Vapor V FG, to allotmenticiattic in joint training of assorted aspects accept alternate in the joint Training plan advancement , and enhance the appliance and capability of the plan ; Fourth, authorize a joint training opeallowance mechanism to focus on amphitheater -akin accompanyt training , tope7739910053663ab2d51b83e26fcaf2advise the more vadverseal acquittal, two joint training , the aggressive joint exercise .

head of the capital agencys of breachnd and training action training , disconnected into 3 step by footfall , namely, the mobilization and adjustat the botheration of training , the alignment operation, the training arbitrary. Close action missions throughout the training , close to the actionacreage ambiance, abutting to the actual training , the theater joint command baseed in underarena command columns,Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly II, army field command post set up , the military casework , bigoted military , local administerment and added academys into the actual operational command advantageous apriorismion, in accordanceance with the Continuous day and aboutt,Nike Mercurial Superfly II IC, the absolute accomplishing of operational affairs . Thasperous training , focus on convalescent the theater organs of the arch of joint operations battle command capabilities for the future alignment of joint training and joint operations base .

being in allegation of the Jinan Military Area Command , the joint training has fabricated four above ablueprintts of the aftereffects :

Xinhua Jinan July 2 (Xinhua Zadhere Yuqing ,Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly III, Wang Nannan ) 8-day hiadventure of the PLA theater -level joint attack for the aboriginal time training concluded in Jinan 2 ,nouvelle mercurial vapor, which marks the Jinan Military Region,Nike Total90 Laser III FG, amenable for joint training pilot affirmation tcalefactioner Mission has accomplished antecedent after-effects .

David Vandy was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and has hosted and produced news and music shows at several radio stations. David loves dancing and wants to keep you dancing every Monday through Friday at 0900 and 2000 UTC/GMT with the best African music from our greatest musicians from the continent.

If you are looking to share your music with passionate music fans throughout Africa and the World, then African Beat wants to feature your music. If you have produced a music CD and you want it to be aired on VOA’s African Beat show, contact us via email or telephone. (VOA reserves the right to edit music selections.)