Visual Budget will be a data-visualization web site that explains all the complicated ins and outs of the US Federal Budget using interactive charts and motion graphics. It is a tool that lets citizens like you and me understand this important issue, armed with the latest most comprehensive facts and figures. It brings a new breadth of knowledge to our political discourse and helps us share our opinions with artistic power.
Definitely worth supporting. Back it over on Kickstarter:
I just backed this supercool Kickstarter project called LetterMpress, A Virtual Letterpress on Your iPad. I can’t wait to show this to my almost 5 year old!
(via ChrisGlass)
Now here’s a Kickstarter project that stopped me in my tracks: Haptica™ is a Braille watch that allows blind people to check the time quickly and accurately without an audible disruption.
I just backed the Haptica Braille Watch project. Joine me?
I just backed The Manual over on Kickstarter:
Join me in backing this project!
The Noun Project’s mission is to share, celebrate, and enhance the world’s visual language. The goal is to collect and organize all the symbols that form our language into one easy-to-use online library that can be accessed by anyone. All the symbols on their site are completely free to download, and can be used for design projects, architecture presentations, art pieces – just about anything. The folks behind The Noun Project think a visual language that can be understood by all cultures and people is a pretty amazing thing. I fully agree.
Watch a video about their project over on Kickstarter.
(thank you Edward)
The Fixers Collective is a Brooklyn based group that gets together and helps people to fix whatever it is they need fixed.
This is fantastic! Will you join me and help them meet their goal of raising $3,000 over on Kickstarter?
(How much do I love Kickstarter?)
I just backed the JELLOWARE project over on Kickstarter. I am truly hoping that these ladies will raise their $10,000 to develop this fantastic idea further. I can only imagine how much fun these would be at a kid’s birthday party. Heck, even in our studio!
Jelloware are biodegradable, edible (and vegan!) cups that are flavored to compliment the drink inside. You can eat your cup as you sip your drink, and any leftover remnants can be composted.
Join me in backing the Jelloware ladies?
The Minka post over at Subtraction caught my attention: Khoi points us to a very promising trailer for a documentary about a 250-year-old farmhouse in Japan that was restored by an American journalist and his adopted Japanese son.
“In Fall 2007, Princeton Architectural Press published ‘Minka: My Farmhouse in Japan,” the memoir of retired AP foreign correspondent John Roderick. Moved by the story of this remarkable house and the memories it contained, and with seed funding from the Graham Foundation, we began work on a documentary film about John, his adopted son architect Yoshihiro Takishita, and the 250-year old house they shared. John died in March 2008 at the age of 93. ‘Minka’ is a meditation on place, architecture, memory and the meanings of home.”
The filmmakers have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to complete the movie. With your help, they can finish the film! No donation is too small, and they’re offering some great rewards. Please check it out here.
I just pledged $50 over at Kickstarter. If they reach their goal, and finish the movie, my name will be on the film’s website and I’ll receive a digital download of the film.
(Is Kickstarter simply the best thing that has come out of the web in the past few years? YES!)
Hypothetical Development Organization (Kickstarter Trailer) from R Walker on Vimeo.
I had the pleasure to enjoy a cup of coffee with Rob Walker a few days ago here at swissmiss studio. I am a fan of Rob’s creative endeavours, thinking and writing. You might have read about his book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are or his wonderfully poetic project called The Significant Object. During his visit Rob told me about his latest project called Hypothetical Development.
Rob explained that he kept walking by a construction site that sported one of those fancy 3D renderings of what’s soon to come. After months of walking by the site, and nothing happening, it was clear that obviously this was just a bunch of hot air.
The idea for The Hypothetical Development was born. Why not pick interesting sites and come up with Hypothetical Development renderings? Consider it a new form of urban storytelling.
Or as they explain it on their site:
Members of this Hypothetical Deveolpment begin the narrative process by examining city neighborhoods and commercial districts for compelling structures that appear to have fallen into disuse —“hidden gems” of the built environment. In varying states of repair, these buildings suggest only stories about the past, not the future. What this means is that they will put huge signs with illustrations/graphics of what soon is to come on this site outside various locations in New Orleans.
Take the Museum of the Self as the first example. (Rendering above) I can’t help but think about how much these futuristic hypothetical developments would make me chuckle.
I just backed the project with $50. It’s only $1,200 shy of meeting it’s goal. Let’s help Rob and his team make this happen.
Kickstarter page for Hypothetical Development
Official site: Hypothetical Development
My friend Zachary Lieberman who’s work I highly admire just pointed me to the Kickstarter Campaign he started for his project with and for Tony Quan (aka TEMPT1).
TEMPT1 is an artist, publisher and social-activist based in Los Angeles, California. He was a pioneering artist in the California graffiti scene in the 1980’s and 90’s and influenced a younger generation of graffiti writers with his vision to unite the No-Cal and So-Cal graffiti communities. Sadly, in 2003, TEMPT1 was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ( also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a degenerative neuromuscular disorder that causes paralysis and ultimately death. Over the course of 5 years, he lost the ability to move his arms and legs, speak, eat and even breathe without life-support systems. But, the disease has left his mind alert, and his creative spirit and drive to make art completely intact.
In the last year, Zach and his team have been developing tools and software in collaboration with TEMPT to help allow him to draw again using his eyes. See eyewriter.org for more info. Now, they’re going to make some art from the great drawings that he’s making.
This represents his return to being able to make a living as an artist.
In addition to the kickstarter, they’re also going to be dropping a 2.0 version of the device in the very near future. It’s a big improvement over the first design, which was really specific to TEMPT and his condition, and remains cheap (approx 100$ in parts), fully open source and has a high degree of accuracy. They were just out in LA testing it, and he told them that it’s completely comparable in accuracy to his 15k system.
TEMPT will be making artwork for digital prints, typefaces and screensavers, and in addition, they’re teaming up with my friends Chris Glass and Arianna Orland to make t-shirts, letter press prints. There’s alot of ways to get involved.
Let’s support TEMPT1 & EyeWriter. Go to kickstarter.com to get involved.
I have mentioned this project before and I think it deserves another shout-out:
Rachel Sussman is working on a project called The Oldest Living Things in the World. She is researching, working with biologists, and traveling all over the world to find and photograph continuously living organisms that are 2,000 years old and older. She started the project 5 years ago, and has since photographed nearly 25 different organisms, ranging from the Bristlecone Pine and Giant Sequoias that you’ve surely heard of, to some truly unusual and unique desert shrubs, bacteria, a predatory fungus, and a clonal colony of Aspen trees that’s male and, in theory, immortal.
As you can imagine, this is a very expensive undertaking. Thus far the project has been largely self-funded, and helped along by some generous friends and family. Rachel started a Kickstarter campaign and I encourage you to support her wonderful cause..
Dictionary Story was originally a handmade artist book in an edition of 100. Because of the time they took to create and its limited availability they became rather expensive collectors itmes.
With your support Sam Winston hopes to produce a new and cheaper edition that everyone can afford. You can see & read the book here: dictionarystory.blogspot.com. Watch a video about the project here.