Archive for the 'fun' category.
Jul 9 | Posted by Sharon | 5 comments
While strolling through Noho the other day, I was stopped in my tracks by the recent Batman: The Dark Knight movie poster. The image of Heath Ledger as The Joker, with his shoulders hunched, dark coat and white face paint immediately called to mind one of my favorite movie characters — The Crow.
The similarities in the graphics and toys from the two movies are striking.
Besides the obvious visual examples, there are notable common elements regarding the characters and actors. Although the characters are on opposite ends of the “good vs. evil” spectrum, they were both profoundly affected by losing someone they loved, resulting in the need to transform their appearances and seek revenge. The most startling similarity, of course, is the shocking deaths of both movies’ stars. Neither Brandon Lee nor Heath Ledger lived to see their films released. Both died tragically at age 28.
So what do you think? Did Batman’s marketing department intentionally mirror the graphics with the goal of subliminally tapping into the cult phenomenon of Brandon Lee’s Crow? Or is it just an eerie coincidence?
Sharon Terry is a marketing and public relations consultant at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. She’s partial to Batman even though she married a joker.
Jun 17 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | 3 comments
Help the Firefox community set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours by downloading Firefox 3 on Download Day (some time in June).
You can pledge and get buttons and banners at the Download Day Headquarters.
Update 2008-06-12: The date of the download day has been set: Tuesday, 17 June 2008. While you wait, check out Deb Richardson's Field Guide to Firefox 3 to get an overview of all the new features and improvements.
Update 2008-06-17: Today is the day, but Firefox 3 won't be available until 10 am PDT.
Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.
Jun 12 | Posted by Christy Gurga | 3 comments
In pursuit of finding some free fonts to load onto the new iMac, I stumbled across The Rather Difficult Font Game, which proved not to be toooo difficult, but there were some challenging ones in there. If you think you know your typefaces and are in need of some validation that you’re as awesome as you think you are, give it a go!
After being slightly bitter about my score of 29/34, I decided to search through the rest of the I Love Typography website, and it really has a lot to offer. The blog posts are thorough, and they’ve compiled a significant amount of typography resources that are worth checking out. But for now, I’m going to go study some fonts so I can get my score into the Hall of Fame!
Jun 10 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | 3 comments
Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a comedy sketch show broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Little did they know how ahead of their time they were with their homage to SPAM, a canned & precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation.
Revisiting this sketch this morning made me further appreciate the sketch’s melodious repetition as I deleted another 1575 Spam posts from my email box. If you get a lot of Spam, I highly recommend watching this video. It will ease the pain of dealing with this unruly menace. If you’re on a Mac, I recommend SpamArrest, which does a pretty good job of learning (with your assistance) what to keep and what to mark as Spam. Finally, if you’re eating dinner, I recommend feasting on anything other than SPAM…
Dave Fletcher is a Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. He admits to having tasted SPAM as a youngster, but cannot recall how sick it made him.
Apr 2 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | Add a Comment
It's old, true, but this amazing Steve Ballmer mashup just came to my attention…
Source: YouTube
