Masters and Their Crafts

This weekend I came across a couple of videos that seemed to have a common bond, that of masters and their crafts. It’s been said that it takes 10 years to master something, be it a language, Photoshop or something random like juggling. The guys above in these videos, Chad Robertson and Peter Welfare, excel in their fields because they’re passionate about what they do.

Mr. Robertson co-owns Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco where he hand makes the bread every day, in fact, the restaurant is now famous because of it. Mr. Welfare on the other hand is the president and head inkmaker at The Printing Ink Company. These are pretty much on opposite ends of the spectrum yet their both still masters of what they do. They take extreme care in their methods and their craft is more akin to art than labor.

If you have the time watch both of these videos and soak in some inspiration.

Tartine video found through You Might Find Yourself

Bobby

Bobby Solomon

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September 27, 2010 - See more posts by Bobby

Takashi Murakami Exhibit at the Palace of Versailles

A couple weeks ago the Palace of Versailles had 15 of it’s rooms filled with new and exising pieces from Japan’s most famous current artist, Takashi Murakami. I’m a huge fan of Murakami’s work so I think it’s amazing that the Palace agreed to house his work, though some of the more traditional folks aren’t very happy. I personally think they’re being extremely close minded and need to let a little culture into their lives… anyhow, since I live in Los Angeles it’s not very easy to pop over to Frankce, so thankfully the folks over at OFIVE.TV have made a video of the exhibit and posted it for the world to see. I think it looks like a great show and it makes me happy that I saw his show at the LACMA here in Los Angeles while I had the chance.

If you want to see more be sure to check out the Guardian’s photo gallery which has some great photos of the exhibit.

Bobby

Bobby Solomon

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September 24, 2010 - See more posts by Bobby

The Future of the Book

On a lot of blogs and in popular culture lately people are looking to the past for their inspiration. We have Mad Men on TV or blogs dedicated to Penguin covers, hell, I’m just as guilty of doing this. So it’s really refreshing to see the folks at IDEO taking a look at the future of books, coming up with some exciting, though possibly confusing ideas. They’ve created three different book interfaces that would work with a tablet computer, Nelson, Coupland and Alice, each having their own strengths and unique primary task.

I think my favorite of the bunch is Alice, which takes reading books to the next level but allowing you to interact with the story, taking photos, visiting areas in your town to unlock special chapters and communicating with your mobile phone. My only real beef with these is that there doesn’t seem to be any sort of thought around navigation, which is essential to making a users experience a good one. I don’t want to poo poo this project in any way, I think it’s a great idea and I’d love to see more forward thinking like this.

Bobby

Bobby Solomon

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September 23, 2010 - See more posts by Bobby

‘Walls Are Dancing’, Art by MWM Graphics

I honestly can’t get enough of the work of Matt W. Moore, also known as MWM Graphics, the man does ungodly things with shapes and colors. In the video above he invades the streets of Marseille, Lyon and Paris and starts painting up a storm. This is a part of the Let’s Colour Project, which I think is about bringing the arts into the public. I love that instead of going with a traditional watching him paint/interview structure they decided to do a stop-motion video of him painting, then animate it to make it way more fun.

I think Matt should do a series of desktop wallpapers, don’t you?

Bobby Solomon

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September 17, 2010 - See more posts by Bobby

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