Though I don’t post a lot about it, I really love me some folk-ish art. I was raised by my mother who drag me to craft fairs all the time, which made me kind of hate anything of the sort. But then I was introduced to the work of Margaret Kilgallen and my perception was totally and completely changed. Stuart Kolakovic’s work gives me the same feeling as Kilgallen’s does, maybe with a touch of Kara Walker’s sense of narrative.

Stuart recently did a giant mural for his solo show at Projeckts MCR, which he’s now scanned in and put online with the help of his brother Adam. The mural is titled Never Been, and has now become and interactive art project that is absolutely stunning and mind blowing. You go through the mural by dragging your mosue across the screen, slowly exploring this beautiful world that Stuart has created, filled with the most beautiful, muted colors and thousands of minute details. One of the first images you come across is an old woman sitting on the shore of the ocean, her dress made up of patchwork quilts, all featuring the most amazing patterns.

As you go you start to realize that you’re following the trials and tribulations of a small family. A man falls in love with a woman, the seasons change, there’s life, there’s death, happiness and sorrow. When you look at this, definitely take the time to figure out which are the main characters in the story, and go from there, I promise you’ll enjoy yourself.

Bobby

Ghosts of Winter Print by Evan Hecox
June 9, 2008 | Categories: Art / Blogs / Illustration / Internet

If you read the blog regularly you know I have an extreme fondness for Evan Hecox’s work, so seeing that he’s released a brand new print is always cause for a post. This newest print is titled Ghosts of Winter, Berlin and features an almost bleak scene, the colors not quite as vibrant as say his last series which was set in Mexico. I’m pretty sure that this is the point though, Berlin is far and away a much different place from Mexico so it shouldn’t have the same tone. I think it’s entirely beautiful and filled with all the classic Hecox elements like power lines, buildings and bicycles.

The print came in editions of 200, came being the operative word, as the print is sadly already sold out. The best idea is to check back in with Arkitip frequently, they’re actually pretty good about doing reprints of his Evan’s work. You can also read Evan’s blog on Arkitip, or subscribe to the RSS feed as well, keep a leg up on the competition!

Update: So I was totally wrong up there, the print comes out on June 21st and there are still editions available. It was late, so sue me! I was also told they don’t do reprints either, so be sure to pre-order this little guy!

Bobby

6 Messages

UT LOOP!
May 9, 2008 | Categories: Clothing / Internet / Music

OMG, this is way fun for a Friday afternoon when you know all you want to do is go home. UT LOOP! is the newest creation from the folks over at Uniqlo, one of the finest Japanese clothiers. They also happen to destroy when it comes to viral marketing, as you can see above. UT LOOP! is basically sounds made by 9 different folks that you then combine to turn into little ditty. It’s like the music editor in Mario Paint but for the 21st century.

My loop is silly, but I like the rhythm of it. I also like ending with the fun UT kids, they were kind of my favorite sounds. I also love that the video of them making the sounds plays along as well, a nice detail. Go take 10 minutes and make yourself a loop!

My loop isn’t working, I don’t know why, but that’s rather annoying.

Bobby

3 Messages

Nalden
April 24, 2008 | Categories: Blogs / Internet / The Desktop Wallpaper Project

One of my favorite things about the internet is how it enables you to meet people. I have friends all over the world, which is a very new thing to me, and I absolutely love it. So one day about a month ago I got an email from a fellow named Nalden, who was writing to tell me that he liked my blog and he’d like to feature some of the wallpapers on his site. I’ve had offers from people to do this before and honestly it’s just not something I’ve wanted to do. But I took a visit to his site anyhow, and I was blown away!

Nalden’s site, titled appropriately Nalden, is more like a desktop browser than a blog. It’s made for full screen viewing, with all the things he posts about lining the bottom which you can scroll through with ease. He also has a random background that shows up as well, which is where I fit into the picture. So I decided to say yes, because not only does this bring readers from the Netherlands, but Nalden is a pretty rad guy as well.

There’s only one small problem… it’s all in Dutch! It’s still worth a visit though, that interface is just so damn impressive. And if you don’t see the Dan Funderburgh background at first, just keep refreshing, it’ll show up eventually!

Bobby

5 Messages

Scribefire 2.0
April 21, 2008 | Categories: Blogs / Internet

I think maybe 4 people who read this blog are even going to care about this, but I do so I’m writing about it. Scribefire is an extension for Firefox that opens up a small window at the bottom of the browser. In this little window is a mini-blogging tool that let’s me look at a website while I write about, which is absolutely the most helpful tool in the world. When I first started blogging I hated the idea of having to blog through Wordpress, constantly switching between tabs, or having an entirely separate program to write posts.

I guess this is just a post about how much I love Scribefire, it’s one of the main reasons I use Firefox over Safari. And this morning they just released a brand new version (which Firefox 3 conveniently notified me of) and it’s even better than it was before. You can search for photos on Flickr and post them right to your blog and the same thing goes for YouTube, which I’ll definitely be using. My only beef so far is that I can’t resize the menu bar thingy to the right anymore, but I’m sure they’ll fix it eventually, it’s really NBD.

If you happen to have a blog and have never heard of Scribefire I highly suggest checking it out, it’s a life saver.

Bobby

11 Messages

My Love/Hate Affair with Twitter
March 6, 2008 | Categories: Blogs / Internet

I’ve been using Twitter in my sidebar for the last few months, and I have to say that I really like it. I just think it’s fun that I can share with anyone reading the blog what I’m doing. But at the same time it’s completely unreliable and half the time it causes my sidebar not to load completely, making me want to lash out at the ones I love.

I’m pretty good with Google-ing stuff and finding fixes for problems like this, but for the life of me I have no idea how to write my own code to stop Twitter from being the most obnoxious thing on the planet. Can anyone help me write some code so that Twitter loads correctly and doesn’t gum up my blog? One of you out there has to know something about this! If you think you can help, email me at hello@kitsunenoir.com.

Bobby

3 Messages

crgslst
February 22, 2008 | Categories: Design / Internet

Craigslist is probably one of the best “inventions” of the last 20 years, taking a the really simple idea of uniting people who are looking for something (anything) and put it online and made it geocentrically searchable. Now media designer Ian Coyle has taken this ultra-simple service and streamlined it even more. It’s called crgslst, and it’s like the hot, skinny, younger brother of craigslist.

Now instead of the clunky, jumbled (but classic) way of searching, everything is taken down to it’s bare bones and put into a cleaner search interface. It’s pretty interesting to see what can be done with something that people are used to with just a little bit of ingenuity.

Found through Paul Isakson

Bobby

2 Messages

Kitsune Noir on Alltop
February 20, 2008 | Categories: Design / Internet

Last night I received an IM from the lovely Jean over at NOTCOT, and this morning an email from Guy Kawasaki letting me know that Kitsune Noir has been included into a new aggregation site called Alltop. The site features the best 30 or so websites in certain topics such as Autos, Celebrities, and in my case, Design. This way you can see what’s happening across the board on these blogs. It’s totally a copy of popurls, but with more topics and with much cleaner design.

Personally, I’m just shocked to see the blog up there. I know people read +KN, but it’s still odd to me. I kinda’ feel like the homely girl who grew giant boobs in high school. Anyhow, check out the site, it’s certainly well done and interesting to go through.

Bobby

11 Messages

Free Jens Lekman EP’s
February 17, 2008 | Categories: Internet / Music

I dunno about everyone else, but Jens Lekman is one of my favorite singers, so finding new things by him is always good. Well I was on his site a few weeks ago and noticed that he was giving away 3 EP’s for free, most likely because he recorded them when he was 15. The EP’s were released between May 2004 and October 2005, two of them have 4 songs, and one has 5, so you’re basically getting an albums worth of free songs. Who can beat that?

One of the EP’s had a negative attached to it, which you could get developed, another EP has a song featuring El Perro Del Mar, and the last is filled with “drunken, sad, teenage confessions”. Definitely check them out.

Bobby

1 Message