This spring, The Nature Conservancy and the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will present “Design for a Living World,” a traveling exhibition featuring objects created by leading designers and made from sustainable, natural materials. The exhibition will premiere at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum on May 14 and continue through Jan. 4, 2010.
The Nature Conservancy collaborated with prominent designers from the worlds of fashion, industrial and furniture design, and each designer focused on a natural material from a specific place where the Conservancy works. The locations ranged from iconic American landscapes, such as the sweeping grasslands of Idaho, to such exotic places as the southwest coast of Australia and the forests of China’s Yunnan Province. The designs explore the transformation of organic items—wood, plants, wool—into beautiful and useful objects. By choosing sustainable materials that support, rather than deplete, endangered places, designers can help reshape our materials economy and advance a global conservation ethic. Through this process, the exhibition reveals fascinating stories about regeneration, natural places and the human connection to the Earth’s lands and waters.
In partnership with its exclusive supplier, MyMusicSource, Photolibrary now can offer thousands of full composition MUSIC tracks at www.photolibrary.com. Producers, designers and studio managers alike can now browse and listen to cutting edge tracks. There is no longer a need for long drawn out negotiations or paying more than what is a fair price. This fantastic proposition coupled with Photolibrary’s ability to ensure the client always gets what they want, allows everyone to be satisfied.
With thousands of tracks available right now and new tracks being added daily, the music available is original, pre-cleared, pre-priced production tracks and songs. The variety of sources includes independent artists, bands, songwriters and composers. Music lovers are now just three steps away from naming that tune; search, license and download all at www.photolibrary.com or contact your Photolibrary representative for full unlimited access.
Glenn Parker, Photolibrary Group CEO, says: “This is an exciting development for us and rounds out the product offering on www.photolibrary.com with traditional imagery, stock footage and now music.
Michael Redman, MyMusicSource President, says, “We have been searching a long time for a partner in this vertical market that values great music as well as understands the needs of the creative industry. MyMusicSource has found that partner in Photolibrary. We share the vision of offering terrific creative content while making it affordable and simple to license.
The owner of Worldlabel, Russell Ossendryver, is known for his passion about open source projects. This time, he’s joined forces with ColourLovers.com to create CD and address labels that will knock your socks off.
To view templates, use any of the following office suites: OpenOffice.org, Koffice, StarOffice, IBM Lotus Symphony, or any other office suite supporting the OpenDocument format. For Microsoft Office users, an ODF plugin is required and can be downloaded for free Sun ODF plugin for MS Office.
Worldlabel offers tips on how to personalize the labels and on how to create your own labels. And, since the work is open source, you can feel free to remix, reuse and share your designs. Additionally, if you want to share your label designs with Worldlabel, they would be happy to display them! Just submit your graphics to Worldlabel @ gmail.com (remove spaces). They will format them into templates and publish your designs in the exhibit. Visit the site to learn more.
MyToons.com, the first and only online animation community to offer HD animation, today announced the launch of MyToons Live; MyToons.com’s latest collaboration with Google, utilizing the power of Google Earth technology. MyToons.com has built its reputation on connecting animators and fans around the world, and MyToons Live graphically represents their activity on a real-time global map.
“MyToons.com thrives on connecting animators, creatives, and fans - the global animation population - bringing them all together under one virtual roof to share ideas, information, and knowledge,” says Paul Ford, president and co-founder of MyToons.com. “MyToons Live serves as a visual representation of this global collaboration, inspiring artists everywhere and emphasizing their possibilities and the breadth of their worldwide networking capabilities.”
For more than 30 years Plaid Enterprises, Inc., a leading arts and crafts company, has worked with designers, artists and inventors to bring some of the most innovative craft products to market. These products are found at craft and hobby stores world-wide, featured on popular TV shows and in well-known publications, and have garnered national and international recognition.
Plaid is currently accepting submissions for new product ideas and innovative crafting techniques. They also want to expand their network of freelance designers. If you have a product idea, invention or are an artist interested in working with Plaid, now it’s easier than ever to submit your work to them. Simply fill out the required information:
Tell them about yourself – background, skills, specialty, etc.
Review and agree to Non-Disclosure Agreement terms.
Attach a few images and/or photos of your work (clearly label all photos & images with your contact information)
Include any additional infomation about you or your idea.
The year may be drawing to a close, but DESIGN 21’s latest offerings of social design competitions are still open for submissions until mid-January. Hoping to utilize the remarkable creativity of its global base of designers while harnessing the power of design for the greater good, DESIGN 21: Social Design Network – an online platform founded by Felissimo and UNESCO to inspire and promote design for the greater good – is pleased to announce a stellar line-up of industry leaders who will judge the two current competitions.
Lateral Action covers the usual and unusual in their list geared specifically toward creatives. You’ll find Twitter here as well as Facebook and MySapce. What you may not be familiar with are social networks such as The Behance Network, Shapeshifters and likemind. The latter networks were designed to connect creative makers and shakers, a breeding ground for chaotic relationships, if you will.
Read more about all these social networks at Lateral Action to learn more. See ya on at least one of these spaces!
Time Magazine released their top ten delights for 2008, and among them were the top ten viral videos for the past year. Matt Harding, a 32-year-old videogame designer who quit his job in 2003 to travel around Asia won the top spot. Why? Because Matt danced his way around the world (quite badly, too), and his dances caught the attention of Stride Gum, a company that decided to sponsor two more trips. In this latest Dance 2008 video, Harding visits 42 countries over 14 months and invites the locals to join in. Once you see the video below (if you haven’t already - and, if you have, you might want to watch it again), you’ll see why this video went viral - it’s funny, hopeful, amazing, silly, goofy, filled with great music and totally global (oh, I miss Chicago and London!).
On a related note, Time also released the top ten video games for the year, and the top spot goes to…Grand Theft Auto IV.
Monadnock Paper Mills, Inc., announces the launch of its new website, designed to be a resource to the graphic arts printing and packaging communities, as well as to OEMs and printers/converters. The new website is replete with educational resources in design, printing and finishing, and also features information about all Monadnock products, including papers for Printing and Packaging, Technical/Specialty Papers and Non-Wovens.
“We now offer brand owners, designers and printers information that can help them make their work more inspirational, sustainable and efficient,” said Jim Clemente, Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “The new mpm.com is also a good place for OEMs and printers/converters to explore Monadnock’s Technical/Specialty Papers and Non-Woven Media.”
Smith Micro Software, Inc. Consumer Group today announced the availability of GroBoto, a fun and easy-to-use software program that lets artists generate fresh and innovative 3D images and animations in minutes.
Available for PC and Mac users, GroBoto provides a set of powerful and professional-quality 3D modeling, imaging and animation tools to create imaginative images and animations without the hassle of long 3D render times. GroBoto can be used with 2D graphics tools for unique webpages, fliers, posters and illustrations and with 3D tools to build whimsical scenes and objects.
In partnership with its exclusive supplier, MyMusicSource, Photolibrary now can offer thousands of full composition MUSIC tracks at 
MyToons.com, the first and only online animation community to offer HD animation, today announced the launch of 
For more than 30 years Plaid Enterprises, Inc., a leading arts and crafts company, has worked with designers, artists and inventors to bring some of the most innovative craft products to market. These products are found at craft and hobby stores world-wide, featured on popular TV shows and in well-known publications, and have garnered national and international recognition.
The year may be drawing to a close, but DESIGN 21’s latest offerings of social design competitions are still open for submissions until mid-January. Hoping to utilize the remarkable creativity of its global base of designers while harnessing the power of design for the greater good, DESIGN 21: Social Design Network – an online platform founded by Felissimo and UNESCO to inspire and promote design for the greater good – is pleased to announce a stellar line-up of industry leaders who will judge the two current competitions.
Lateral Action covers the usual and unusual in their list geared specifically toward creatives. You’ll find Twitter here as well as Facebook and MySapce. What you may not be familiar with are social networks such as The Behance Network, Shapeshifters and likemind. The latter networks were designed to connect creative makers and shakers, a breeding ground for chaotic relationships, if you will.
Monadnock Paper Mills, Inc., announces the launch of its new website, designed to be a resource to the graphic arts printing and packaging communities, as well as to OEMs and printers/converters. The new website is replete with educational resources in design, printing and finishing, and also features information about all Monadnock products, including papers for Printing and Packaging, Technical/Specialty Papers and Non-Wovens.
Smith Micro Software, Inc. Consumer Group today announced the availability of GroBoto, a fun and easy-to-use software program that lets artists generate fresh and innovative 3D images and animations in minutes.