Thursday, May 13, 2010

Joshua Davis is Infinitely Interesting Part #2

Joshua Davis is happy he was the selected Pokemon.

To explain, I recently posted a blog entry about deciding which designer to write about for my New Media Web Design course as part of a final project. Based on the initial web layout of the site, I selected Joshua Davis. His portfolio was laid out similarly to Evan Roth’s in a grid-like pattern. Davis had actually commented on the post, saying he was glad he won, but HE was the first to use the grid pattern for his portfolio. He said he greatly admires Evan Roth and even though he used the layout first, “we won’t have to kill him.” Davis then offered an invite to his studio in Mineola, NY, where I could possibly score some print freebies.

Even more reason why he is the selected Pokemon. (I choose you!)

Bio:

Joshua Davis is an American web designer and new media artist. He is most recognized for being an early pioneer of Macromedia Flash and wrote Flash to the Core in 2002. Joshua Davis’ work “brought an entirely new dimension to art. Utilizing randomization in controlled environments, or Chaos Theory, Davis established a new and unique perspective on visual communication and creative expression, pioneering an area previously unexplored in graphic design.” (via good ole’ Wikipedia)

Chaos Theory = Butterfly Effect

“"In my work I derive huge satisfaction from creating discrete shape and color palettes and then writing algorithms that assemble the pieces into randomized, whole compositions. Chance is not always pretty, but it is fun.”

-Joshua Davis

After being a part of the New York art/club scene in the early 90’s and battling with drug addiction, Davis elected to pursue his dream of being a full-time artist. Working under Thomas Noller in 1995, he learned to write HTML, experiment with Macromedia Flash, and ActionScript programming.Davis became a major influence in graphic and web design during the “Y2K” era of the “Dot-Com” explosion.

Timeline:

1998 - 2001

worked at Kioken Design, a web production company who made JLo’s first site, until it folded in 2001. became an independent web designer and artist, speaking at graphic design conferences including SIGGRAPH, Flash Forward, FITC, BD4D, OFFF, & Graphika Manila.

2002

teamed up with developer Branden Hall to form The Department of Notation Studios,
a media development studio

2003

took over the band Tool’s websites - designed info page

2006

The Department of Notation Studios disbanded. Davis & Hall continue collaborating on projects.

2007

professor at New York’s School of the Visual Arts, runs own design studio, & leads workshops at design conferences.

Influences:

Jackson Pollack – abstract expressionist prominent in the 1940’s and 50’s.

“Among modern artists, I conceptually identify with Jackson Pollock — not that I'm a particular fan of his visual style, but because he always identified himself as a painter, even though a lot of the time his brush never hit the canvas. There's something in that disconnect — not using a brush or tool in traditional methods.”

- Joshua Davis, from his studio website

Classic video games – used “sprite” of an alien from Space Invaders as logo for Praystation.

Apple iPhone Art App “Reflect”:


REFLECT is an Apple iPhone Art App that uses multi-touch gestures to randomly generate a composition which gets reflected into a kaleidoscopic pattern.

You can then save your reflection as a background wallpaper, or send to a friend.

For more info, visit Sideways Mobile.

Independent Projects:

Praystation.com was a website used by Joshua Davis’ website display new design work and experiments and one of the first to offer open source Flash files. It was regarded as an “icon of web design.” (Design Museum )In 2001he won the Priz Ars Electronia Award, a prestigious prize for digital art.

Joshua Davis also hosted Dreamless.org, the site of a popular Internet forum, hosted by Joshua Davis. Its minimal design, understated Web presence and hidden registration page all added to its intrigue, and for a period of time it served as an online community for many graphic and web designers and programmers. "Photoshop Battles" were a popular activity among forum members, leading into the internet phenomenon now referred to as Photoshop tennis. “Photoshop tennis” is a graphics related game conducted in internet forums where one member “serves” a photo to another member to make their own alteration. Each member makes one alteration and then passes on the photo. The community of Dreamless traveled past the boundaries of the Internet with impromptu local meetings, or “riots” according to Davis, that were arranged for Dreamless users to meet face-to-face and exchange ideas.

One notorious forum on Dreamless was "08 - Meaningless and Shallow", a topical free-for-all which lead to numerous flame wars, post floods and user-led XSS vandalism. After several "meltdowns" and member disputes, Davis closed Dreamless in July 2001.

Commercial Clients:

Barneys Department Stores, Lucent Technologies, BMW, Kanye West, Motorola, Amp'd Mobile, Nike, Volkswagen, Umbra, Miquelrius, Sony, Motown Records, Puff Daddy, Bad Boy Entertainment, TOOL, Universal Records, Atlantic Records, HBO, Canon, Nokia, Charles Schwab, New Riders Publishers and others.

Websites:

Once Upon A Forest

Joshua Davis Studios

Credits:

Good Ole’ Wikipedia

Gadgetopia “Whatever Happened to Kioken Design?”

Joshua Davis Studios

Design Museum

Sideways Mobile

Manhattan Mall Logo - Unexpected Example of Good Design


I've had my fair share of an education about logo design this past year. One thing I learned is that it is a great skill to identify good design vs. bad design. I was taking the F train from Herald Square when I noticed the Manhattan Mall logo. To an untrained eye, it looks like a meaningless "squiggle". However, that "squiggle" incorporates the two "M"'s for Manhattan Mall. For me, it also evokes the image of the bridges that connect Manhattan to the other boroughs.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Taking It Out of Context

After recently subscribing to Evolve Happy, a blog by Roberto C. Madruga, an artist and photographer from Washington, D.C., I saw he posted a few designs of modern Websites as vintage books. I wrote a comment asking where he got the images from, but now we should just look and reflect on our love for both social media and vintage design.



Click on image to get a more detailed look at all of them.

Summertime - the perfect photo op

Designers, get ready to drool. Summertime is known as prime photo op season, so why not outfit yourself with the latest cameras that definitely make a statement. Here are some new models from pretty Polaroids and wacky Lomography cams to homemade pinhole models and DIY designs you can assemble yourself. via Flavorwire.

[via Core77]

Special-edition Pentax K-x: The camera that matches your old-school sneakers [via Wired]

Peekfreak: The one-of-a-kind art camera made from household objects [via Designboom]

[via Core 77]

Sony NEX: The smallest camera in the world [via Wired]

Rubikon 2: A DIY paper camera that’s free to download in PDF form [via Designspotter]

Polaroid 300: Instant photography’s 21st-century makeover [via Designboom]

Polaroid 600: Instant photography’s high-concept 21st-century makeover [via Gizmodo]

Aerial Capture: The camera that flies [via Wired]

Fisheye No. 2: Pretty in hot pink [via Lostinasupermarket]

Bleak Street Art




Anonymous tagger(s?) Trustocorp has “rebranded” the streets of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, and New York City with cheeky, hand-painted upgrades to classic traffic signs. Trustocorp is a New York based artist (or artists) dedicated to highlighting the hypocrisy and hilarity of human behavior through sarcasm and satire.The work is dark and clever; shock-and-awe at its finest. (We’re also fans of Trustocorp’s “product redesigns,” which landed in random NYC grocery stores over the weekend.) Courtesy of Flavorwire.

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Importance of Your Web Layout: Joshua Davis is Infinitely Interesting

As part of the final project for New Media Web Design for the semester, I have to write an essay profiling the background, work, and creative perspective of a recognized design studio creating award-winning web or interactive design work. The list we could choose from was Funny Garbage, Robert Greenberg Associates (RGA), Antenna Design, and Joshua Davis.

The following is proof about how the layout of your website can make or break whether you are offered certain opportunities, or whether a graduating senior will write an essay about you as a final project.

Funny Garbage -big text – REALLY big text – and crazy animations going everywhere. It may be the Red Bull I drank at 1 am, but I’m growing anxious at the rapid movement.

R/GA – Oh, I see you are opening a Singapore Office. Everyone is doing work in Singapore nowadays. I see you like to use Helvetica. Everyone likes to use Helvetica Nowadays. Oh, wow, you’ve won a whole mess of awards. You are also black, white, and red all over.

Antenna Design – You demand for me to get Flash 6. My 4-year-old IBM can’t handle it. Yes, I know, I’m not a full-fledged Mac user yet. Why do you have to take such a low blow considering we just met? I’m done with you.

Joshua Davis – At first glance, I see you laid out your site in a grid patter similar to Evan Roth. Great minds think alike? Oh, and your studio is based in Mineola? You show images of your work right away, which I see mostly involve pleasant looking designs, some of which are in soothing kaleidoscope-like patterns.

Joshua Davis, in the spirit of Pokemon, I choose you for my paper topic.

The New Yorker Portrays Chatroulette Founder As A Juvenile Delinquent

"Like many young Russians with programming skills, Ternovskiy turned to hacking. When he was eleven, he came upon zloy.org (which translates as angry.org), a hacker forum led by a young man named Sergey (a.k.a. Terminator), who trained his followers in cyber warfare. Using the handle Flashboy, Ternovskiy soon mastered the art of the denial-of-service attack, wherein a target system is paralyzed by a mass of incoming communication requests. Next came Web-site and e-mail hacking, a service he gladly performed for girls who asked nicely. By 2007, at the age of fifteen, Ternovskiy had learned about what hackers call “social engineering”—getting what one wants through deceit or manipulation. Posing as a teacher, Ternovskiy got access to some practice tests before they were delivered to his school."