website: alex ostrowski

alex ostrowski is cute.
he has a lot of good ideas.
i'd like to be his friend

www.alexostrowski.com

guess what i ffffound

FFFFOUND!

this is such a magical place. it's nothing fancy or anything, but it's just a place where people tag images as their favorites (what they refer to as "image bookmarking"), and from those images, they are recommended similar images. it's a great place just to click around for hours and find something inspiring. you never know where you'll end up. unfortunately, this service is by invite only. *sad sad me*

but it's definitely worth looking at. i love it love it.

Inspiration!

Since our blog is all about creativity (more or less), this entry will be about its partner-in-crime, Inspiration.
Inspiredology's goal is to find and post about things that will hopefully inspire you to get out of that creative rut you sometimes find yourself in. There is a heavy emphasis on website design, as well as design in general. I find the entry on business card design to be very interesting, and it makes me want to redesign my own. I thought this was subtly cute:
And speaking of the source of this inspiration, here are some puppies and flowers for you, dear Shift-Click bloggers. ;)

subaquatica

kinda like spain's giant robot, subaquatica is a gallery/publication that showcases urban/street art in madrid. you know, it talks about toys, art, design, books, etc. etc. but for the spanish scene. i always like to know what's going on outside of the country. more input for more output. pretty pretty things. oog.

http://www.subaquatica.com/

Cake Wrecks

I love eating cake. It's even better when a culinary artist designs a cake, and it looks as great as it tastes.

Unfortunately, for every perfect, well-designed cake, there is a shadowy bastard-cake that nobody wants to eat.


Cake Wrecks is a blog that highlights these imperfections and gives them the Project Runway treatment. What's sad is that these are professionally-made cakes. Someone out there unknowingly (or otherwise) PAID good money to have these made! For weddings! For baby showers! For birthdays! For shame!

(Image taken from Maniac World)

totoro forest project

boo urban sprawl! save sayama forest!

remember what happened in pom poko? yup. apparently, there are plans to tear down the forest that was the inspiration behind hayao miyazaki's totoro. you know, the weird but cute cuddly monster that has its own facebook group -- "i want to sleep on totoro's tummy" -- of which i am a proud member. (check out the singing totoro in the tree on the banner of the site; super cute.) this is an international effort to raise money and save this forest.

the website features heaps and heaps of gorgeous art donated from animators, comic book artists, and illustrators all over the globe. the themes deal with the beauty of nature and magical childhood things -- a response to how totoro inspires them. not to mention, pixar is a big sponsor of this project. they will be holding the auction at their studio in september this year. what i'd give to be invited! luckily, a selection of the artwork will be shown in the cartoon art museum in san francisco in the following months, which i will be around for! ooh, excitement!

it's amazing how big miyazaki's influence is on the art and animation world. i just really appreciate how from his films to this project, he's always reminding us to take care of our environment.

http://totoroforestproject.org

website: erwin bauer

Erwin Bauer KEG - Designbüro für Konzept & Gestaltung
http://www.erwinbauer.com/

super cool click and drag interface. it can be a pain not to be able to use your mouse wheel but i think you quickly get over that. i love how they bring the element of print into the layout and i think it's very smart of them, animation-wise, to give reference points when moving to another part of the site. quickly, the viewer gets a sense of how this website works and how to navigate through it. can anyone shed some light on how they made this? it's not flash, is it?

this austrian studio has really awesome work! make sure to take a look at their environmental and exhibit stuff and their original typefaces. really gorgeous design solutions, here -- i'm kinda drooly. actually, take a really good look at everything, haha.

edit: i was just thinking that wednesday is probably a really good day for me since i don't really look at websites. so this is forcing me to see what's out there. i feel better about this blog already, haha.