Just a quick follow up on the last blog I actually found an article with Richard Garfield describing his experience with the first set, Arabian Nights.  I think it's interesting he decided to base the set off of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, a collection of tales from the Middle East from around 800- 1300.  He checked out books from the library to connect the set as much as possible to the events. I hope you all enjoy the article as much as I did!

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/78

Hope you guys had a good week!  I've been talking about the card game Magic the Gathering and how awesome along with the application of graphic design so I present to you, the creator.  He has a wacky sense of humor and he actually ended up making a card of himself!  It's very amazing how he was able to take his idea of a nerdy card game and turn it into a huge success!  It's interesting to look the first expansion set, which he designed by himself without a design team, Arabian Nights.  It's definitely come a long way.  It's very cool to look back at the older cards and compare them to the more recent sets

With the release of the Apple iWatch, after it's anticipated release for months, here is some information you might want to know about it.  I do not personally own one so here are some basic facts pertaining to it.  It connects with your iPhone to send the user notifications from their device which is only a slight tap on the wrist.  It's very customizable with many different colors, and materials for the watch itself and the armband.  Overall I from what I read it seemed to be a device with promise and it seems to be successful.  I'll give you guys links to some articles discussing what people like, and what some didn't like about Apple's new device.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/9-of-the-biggest-complaints-about-the-apple-watch-so-far/ar-BBjeRfg?srcref=rss

 http://goo.gl/MhlKyn

Happy Monday everyone... or is it?  There are so many ways one can express themselves in photography and the photographer must not let what people may think what is and isn't "normal" limit their creativity.  To show this I found some bizarre (but cool) photos.

http://awesomestuff4all.blogspot.com/2012/11/unique-photography-pictures.html

 

 

http://weddbook.com/media/818870/professional-wedding-photography-unique-creative-wedding-photography-profesyonel-dugun-fotograflari

 

 

http://grandefratello.forumfree.it/?t=49799068&st=210

 

 

 

Silhouettes are very awesome photos.  They withhold information from the subject in the way it's mysterious and interesting but not infuriating.  I love this photo because it has a feeling of movement and it's subject is martial arts.

I wanted to talk a little about Minecraft; we've all heard of it (hopefully) and those who have no clue what it is, there is the trailer for it!  It's widely considered the most successful game of all time due to it's popularity and it's total sale to 19,435,297 people.  At first glance it may seem a little underwhelming but it's success comes from a number of contributing factors.  First off is the public demand for different styles of games and how it has evolved over time.  Originally 8 or 16 bit games were the first type of games due to early technology which faded with the rise of 3D graphics but in the last couple of years, 16 bit games, such as Minecraft, caught the attention of many viewers.  What makes it appealing to such a wide audience of people is its versatility.  With many player made plugins and mods, people can do anything from advanced fighting to exciting pvp.  I've had Minecraft for about 2 years and I would recommend it to anyone.

The natural tool for digital manipulation always seems to be Photoshop (or Adobe Photoshop to be more specific).  I had to do a photo project, taking pictures of an event and doing simple modifications to 30 photos turned out to be very meticulous!  Instead of using Photoshop, I decided to use something I was much less familiar with, yet perfect for the job at hand.  I used Lightroom because it gave me the opportunity to modify one picture and copy the effects onto each picture with similar lighting and contrast.  It was very successful at creating the changes I needed!

I love this picture; it's very beautiful and holds a calm and peaceful tone.  The picture seems very symbolic, saying we, as humans hold the Earth in our hands.  It's our decision to make, whether to hold it securely protectively, or to carelessly drop it.  The focus is on the globe and the hands making them stand out against a blurred background.  Flickr is a great place to find beautiful pieces of art by the way!


Check the photographer out on Flickr for more of her work! https://www.flickr.com/photos/laurazalenga/7839542138/

Just something else also I thought was cool!  This is an awesome abstract background I found and I love how vibrant it is from the deep dark blue to the bright yellows and reds!  What makes this picture great is the person sitting on the wave, giving the image emphasis by isolation.  With the tiny person on the wave the picture has depth, drawing the viewers eye into the background

The very cool thing about the card game Magic the Gathering is that with every set they release, they animate a video to market the set.  They incorporate some of the cards from the set, animated.  They also include a story line to encourage new players to give the game a start and to immerse the existing players.  Here is a video with the trailer from the sets Theeros, Born of the Gods, and Journey into Nyx.  As always, enjoy!

Wanted to show some creative and unique types of typography.  They are exciting, fun, and whimsical and I hope you enjoy!



 

 

For more awesome and cool typography go to: http://creativecan.com/2012/03/creative-typography-and-text-effect/

After my last post I found this really neat website which allows anyone to get a high quality custom logo.  The website is called Logo My Way.  It allows people to create contests, prices ranging from a minimum of 200 to 1000.  The website asks you a few questions about your business and then creative people from all around the world compete to create the logo!  I thought this was a very cool application of graphic design!

Here's the website for you guys to check it out! http://www.logomyway.com/

Everyone has seen the Amazon Logo (or at least they should have) and it represents the company pretty well.  It's very simple and it's very easy to identify that Amazon is a web based company.  Nothing else to note here? Wrong!  There are some cleverly included symbols included into the logo.  The arrow is supposed to show a smiley face, representing all of Amazons satisfied customers.  It also represents Amazon's goal of delivering every product from A to Z.  Just a fun interesting fact!

This is an absolutely amazing photo I saw while looking at "Star Trail" photos on Flickr.  I love how the slow shutter speed blurred the lights of the cars and the stars to create the streaking effect seen here.  The vibrance of the light creates a lot of contrast against the dark night sky, adding visual interest.  The photo has a great illusion of depth with both of the beams of light diverging at a vanishing point in the horizon.  Hope you guys enjoy it too!


More of the photographer's work, Matt Molloy, if you want to check it out: https://www.flickr.com/photos/matt_molloy/

Wanted to show you guys something different and cool!  I love this because the text in the bottom has excellent emphasis with leading lines drawing the eye into the graphic in the center.  A lot of it looks like hand drawn art scanned in which has a very cool sharp look to it.  It's very vibrant and it has a lot of movement to it, creating a happy cheery mood for the viewer.  Just looking at this makes me feel excited!

Hey guys, I hope you all had a fabulous day!  I was looking at surreal photography and this one caught my eye!  I love the angle at which this photo was caught, almost seeming as though she is hanging off the world.  It's very bizarre and whimsical; what's not to love about it?  There's emphasis on the subject and there's leading lines directing your eye to her.  The subject is in clear focus and overall, great shot!

As always, here is the link: http://balisticterrorbunny.deviantart.com/art/Dreams-edge-180917027

Monday's can be rough so here is an inspiring photo, taken by Michael Reed, to help you guys through the week.  I love the depth he creates with this photo with the subject in emphasis in the foreground.  The high contrast black and white sepia effect helps connect the photo connect to a larger idea; in this case it's memories.  I hope his defiant gaze into the wide expanse of the ocean will help all of you make it through the week!


To check out more of his work: http://www.thedphoto.com/inspiration-fix/inspiring-photography-of-michael-reed/

It's almost Friday guys and I wanted to show off a logo for a fictional company I created a while back.  I absolutely love drinking tea and with that I gained my inspiration!  When one thinks of tea, it's origin, china, naturally comes to mind!  On both sides I wrote "Tea" in traditional Chinese to reflect this origin and to create a sense of balance.  I picked the color scheme of green and red because they are complimentary colors, creating contrast.

It's hump day again today to all you who aren't frustrated when they see the term "hump day"!  Went out today to take a photo-shoot and I managed to snap this HDR picture which a edited in Photoshop later to create this eerie effect.  What completes this photo for me is the high contrast appearance it has, emphasizing the subject, the old building, and furthering it's creepy appeal.  Let me know what you guys think; any constructive criticism will be appreciated!

Hey guys!  I hope those who got snow enjoyed shoveling, I sure did!  Wanted to show you all this cool thing cooled OzoBot.  It's a robot designed to follow lines on a paper or a screen and depending on the color of the line, it goes different speeds.  I hope you all enjoy the video!

 

 



I was quickly glancing at the photos from USA Today and I found this beautiful picture of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul at night.  The picture is beautiful, especially with the building illuminated, and textured with the raindrops.  What's very neat about this is how the camera would've had to be a slower shutter speed to blur the raindrops but the person at the bottom is in focus, requiring a faster shutter speed!  My guess is two photos were taken and they were combined together.  Lemme know what you guys think this person did.

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2015/02/17/istanbul-snow/23560083/

I've talked before about the card game, Magic the Gathering, and I wanted to show off an interesting card.  This card, Black Lotus, is one of the original cards and it is the most expensive ranging at around $12,000.  This is from when Magic went through it's alpha period in 1993.

This is a picture I took and edited recently.  It's amazing I was able to capture this moment since my dog could not sit still for one second so this silhouette shot was almost pure luck.  A way to take more compelling and moving pictures is to base it on a main idea; in this case I obviously used love.  The connection between my two subjects I managed to capture is amazing.  Hope you all enjoy this as much as I do!

Continuing on with the idea from my last post, paradoxes in photography, I wanted to show a technique called cloning.  The idea is to take multiple pictures of a subject (Preferably a human) from a stationary camera and to combine the photos together in Photoshop to create a surreal environment.  I love this picture for the quirkiness of it, the guy is wearing this bright striped t-shirt and part of his body is cut away.  I love the repetition in the picture (Duh), but repeating the trees was a really nice touch.  It has a great sense of depth as the viewers eye goes to the guy in the foreground, before moving on to the midground and background.  A really cool creative piece and his work can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gadl/312754502/

Now, who doesn't love a good paradox?  They force one to think and question reality, especially when they are showcased in photography; they're bizarre, unusual and whimsical.  This photo is a great example, showing the dog on what could possibly be an ordinary walk, held up by colorful vibrant balloons.  Everything in this picture is dull, the background and even the clothes the girl is wearing, except for the balloon, which creates emphasis on the floating dog.  Overall it's a very imaginative piece that stretches the fabric of reality.  The photographer is Erik Johansson and his work can be found here: http://erikjohanssonphoto.com/

More Photography;  I'm sure this was a big surprise for everyone!  It's amazing to gaze at the vast and seemingly endless expanse of the cave.  What's even nicer is there's a person isolated on the edge of a cliff to offer proportion.  With this isolation it creates great emphasis and a feeling of awe and curiosity towards the unknown in the world.  Happy Friday-eve and see ya people later!

http://nedhardy.com/2012/02/20/19-pieces-of-awesome-photography/

Instead of looking for an awesome photoshopped graphic photo, I found an incredible one that isn't!  I love the droplets covered all over the fly's body, enhancing it's natural metallic color.  The photo has great leading lines with the stick leading straight up to the fly.  What's most amazing about this photo, is the artist managed to take something most people consider gross and disgusting and turn it into a work of art.  The source can be found http://martinamm.deviantart.com/art/ugly-beauty-75637353

Happy Hump Day!  Once again I was just looking for random photos on the internet and I managed to stumble upon this beautiful creation made by Calder Moore.  Both of this pictures have a great amount of emphasis using isolation on the lone hiker, enhancing the digitally created landscape.  It's very vibrant and this gives it a very calm mood which fits the lack of motion.  This image can be found at https://www.behance.net/gallery/21826965/Isometric-Swamp

Dogs are the best and there is now a product to help people understand mans best friend.  This is the "No More Woof" designed to translate a dogs thoughts and barks into English and other human languages.  This picture shows it off pretty well with the headset attached to the dogs head and the speaker.  It's currently under development and can only translate four phrases for the dog but more is yet to come!.

This is a personal 3-D printer called "Form 1" being sold for just $2,799!  Although this may seem expensive at first, this is significantly cheaper than what 3-D printers were originally sold at.  The capability of being able to quickly produce 3-D replicas of prototype or being able to print out replacement parts for objects is priceless!  I think we can all agree that they're pretty cool too!

Happy Monday everyone and I hope you all had a great weekend.  I was looking at creative advertisements and I found this add for Sky Guard.  The design is balanced very well and the humorous element of wrapping the kid in bubble wrap brings a chuckle to the viewer, making it more memorable.  It has great contrast, the red helmet standing out against the dull background and the white letters against the black background.  Overall it was done very well and clearly gets its point across!

This TV show on TNT is a continuation of the three older Librarian movies which had it's season finale last week.  It's basically a fictional story about people who work for "The Library", and they search the world for magical artifacts to prevent them from falling in the wrong hands.  The new season was done incredibly well, creating a show that was fun and light hearted.  The story takes the viewer from looking for a cursed pearl, to finding the secret of a haunted house before it can claim more victims, or finding Santa Claus (Who was kidnapped).  To those who haven't watched it, you are missing out!!

Sorry this had been delayed; I've been a little busy for the past few days but here are the new cards I managed to get on Saturday.  Not all of the cards I got during the event are from the new set but I'm including them anyway because they're cool!

 

 

This weekend I'm planning on going to a pre-release event with the new card set of Magic the Gathering, Fate Reforged and I will be posting pictures of the new cards of the set (I think somewhere around 80- 100 cards so expect tons of pictures!).  To those not familiar with these type of events, anyone can go and you pay 25$ for a prerelease box and in an hour you build a deck using the cards inside which comes with a foil (shiny) promo card.  I'll definitely be showing a picture of that one.   Pictures should be up Sunday or Monday depending on which day I go.  A couple cards from the deck list form the website to hold you over until then!

 

With the arrival of the new doctor, Peter Capaldi, comes the question of how season eight stands against the rest of the seasons (and doctors). (Warning: May contain spoilers)



So far, judging from season eight as a whole, it's easy to say that I definitely prefer Matt Smith to Capaldi playing the role of the doctor.  At times he seemed very one noted as compared to the dynamic Matt Smith.  BBC was trying to achieve a more grim, serious doctor and that is definitely what they achieved with his dramatic voice and constant serious tone.  Matt Smith personality was very dynamic, from a humorous childish attitude, to a more serious tone when the people he called about were in danger.  Unlike Capaldi, Matt Smith managed to achieve an obvious close bond and with the people he traveled with.  Except for a couple (bad) episodes, Peter Capaldi had his moments of glory from a bank heist and saving humanity from the Master.  Each season of Doctor Who surrounds a single idea, season five being the cracks of time, season six around "Silence will fall when the question is answered", and season seven around Clara, the "Impossible Girl", and season eight was no different.  It was a very unique idea, revolving around this heaven idea, first seen after the death of the villain in the season premier.  I loved how an old enemy, the Master, was brought back in the season finale.  Overall, it was a good season, but not as good as some previous seasons.

A large part of graphic design is the highly successful gaming industry.  This highly diverse genre includes video games, card games, board games, and many more.  A great example of an entertaining (but nerdy) card game is Magic the Gathering owned by Wizards of the Coast.  The game greatly shows how limitless the possibilities are in game design, from engaging and beautiful artworks for each of the cards.  The game rules are very user friendly in the basis in which there are basic rules which govern the game and the rest is left up to what the cards say (which is a must in any game).  A fantastic example of a group of people were able to succeed within Interactive Media.  To those who want to try the game out, visit their link  http://magic.wizards.com/en

I've been looking at digitally manipulated pictures of space on the internet and this one really caught my eye.  I love the high contrast of the picture with the bright star and the shadow of the planet not facing the sun.  The asymmetrical symmetry complements the picture very well; the sun may appear to be much smaller than the planet but it still seems to balance it nicely.  The lens flare was a very nice touch to the image, adding vibrancy and giving the sun a more realistic appearance.  Just like with the limitless possibilities space has, this picture shows the limitless potential programs such as Adobe Photoshop has.