ZEITGEIST

an extract from Zeitgeist.

the past few years, possibly due to my new found love of pessimism, i have started to read up on conspiracy theories. 'zeitgeist' is a Michael Moore style of documentary, but directed by Peter Joseph. the aim of the film is to inform people of the governments big plans. the overall message being that people in power are greedy for more, more power and more wealth which they plan to gain by tricking the passive tax payers. the film is highly informative although is edited horribly, some still shots of what appears to be a sun set being screened for far too long. the voice over explains what the visual (usually an animation or a press cutting) means in sometimes a overly complicated way, but mostly on a wave length any one could understand.

it is definitely worth a watch (so long as you were already grumpy and often ask 'whats the point in living then?')
the director encourages the film to be copied and distributed to as many people as possible to get the message across.

it left me feeling like i could not possibly change what will eventually happen, and that the people in power will always have the upper hand making the decisions and manipulating to their advantage. i dont know whether i feel better knowing, or whether i should have just gone along with 'what i dont know cant hurt me'.

you can watch zeitgeist online
www.zeitgeistmovie.com

PEOPLE COLLECTOR

peoplecollector.net

a 'just for fun' site collecting and displaying images with the same 'tag'.

uninteresting on their own, but as a collection these photos become brilliant.
there are hundreds of categories you can view, each showing pictures of different people in the same situation, or in this case.. wearing a green jumper.

very simple yet inventive.

WWF

not wrestling.

i found this after being prompted to sign up through an email.

'get on board' is the latest campaign to reduce carbon emissions from the world wildlife fund. a huge paper boat was placed on London's south bank to draw peoples attention to the issue, and to the campaign, and to illustrate to politicians that they aren't doing enough about it. the boat is a visual representation of the scale of the problem and the amount of people who want to change it. giving meaning to the phrase 'get on board', it refers to the boat and to the campaign.

after being directed to the website in the email, i found it interesting.

there are sections which seem cut out, and three dimensional. i liked the idea of a colour showing through, as if the web page had been cut to reveal an underneath layer of paper.
there is a friendly and organic feeling about the site. the colours, typography and layout arent the best, but the use of origami and the cut out sections are playful and manage to illustrate a very serious problem in an interesting and clear way.

ORANGE

http://unlimited.orange.co.uk

this image shows the loading screen of a section of the latest orange web site. being very simple and very orange, it reminds me of the old lucozade advert. most of the phone company websites are functional, but always seem dull. this breaks away from the norm, being very simplistic yet still as informative. a lovely site and a fresh way to advertise orange products.

GIFS

www.sweetgifs.com

gifs remind me of boring forums, these are totally different, each one is a little animation rather than a pointless moving picture

reinventing the usually quite dull gif. on this site there are a series of works by two guys who have taken fun subjects and created a short animation.

some more imaginative than others, but all an improvement on the rest of the gifs out there.

PHOTOSHOP DISASTERS

i can spend hours on this website. it is the perfect place to learn how NOT to do things.

there are some classics on the site

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com

it is proof that you cannot trick people with bad or lazy photoshopping as someone (or in some cases, everyone) will always notice, and most probably post it on this site.

INTERACTIVE DRAWINGS

by Henrik.

these drawings (with a little help from Photoshop) interact with the creator and the viewer. each one has a twist which flips the image from seeming 2 dimensional to being 3D.

an amazing idea which works really well.
i found a collection of them here

www.humoric.net/2008/09/17/14-amazing-interactive-drawings/

some of which you have to really study before realising the contrast between reality and fantasy.