Inspiring André Da Loba



I stopped by André Da Loba’s studio yesterday and was hit with a big giant brick of inspiration. André lives and breathes creativity. If I could pick a parent for my next life, it would be him. I can only imagine how crafty he’ll get if ever he’ll have a junior. Give him cardboard, paper-mache, cork etc and he’ll turn into into a whimsical work of art. Next time I am going to get crafty with Ella (4yo), I’ll make sure to pull up his site for inspiration!

ps: Just noticed that André is selling his Narigudo Balancing Toy on his site. Ella has one and loves it!

20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

“20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web” is a short guide for anyone who’s curious about the basics of browsers and the web. Published by the Google Chrome Team, illustrations by Christoph Niemann.

Fasten Seat Belts | Asia

Excited to see that Fasten Seat Belts now came out with a guide for Asia. (I posted about their Europe guide a while back.) Fasten Seat Belts is a lighthearted guide to avoid missunderstandings while travelling.

It’s an innovative (visual) way to learn languages and pick up cultural tips. The videos describe various “Dos and Don’ts” (gestures, traditions, manners…) relating to 6 countries of South Asia : Japan, China, Korea, India, Thailand and Vietnam. The videos offer a chance to learn some simple and useful expressions in the official languages of these 6 countries.

Did you know that in China people count to ten only using one hand? See below:

China 6_Count to 10 using only one hand. from 43 Films on Vimeo.

And the guides now even come as iPhone Applications. Nifty!

(thank you Barbara)

KhanAcademy

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere. The Khan Academy is being developed as an open source project, consider it a free classroom for the World. *This*, TED and Kickstarter are perfect examples why the internet had to been invented.

(thank you rachel)

swissgerman lessons via twitter

Here’s a twitter account that I just discovered that made me chuckle: @swiss-german teaches you a swiss german word a day. While I don’t fully agree with some of the words, as we say things a little differently in my Heimat corner of the alps, but nevertheless, it made me smile. G, this is for you!

Old School, meet New School

Montessorium is the force behind some amazingly beautiful and fun iPhone/iPad apps for kids. Intro to Letters brings the alphabet to your child’s fingertips. Based on the Montessori activity known as Sand Paper Letters, these activities utilize sight, sound and touch to help your child learn the letters, while also learning the correct method of creating them.

Can I just say how impressed I am by the overall design of these apps? They are gorgeous. Montessorium.com

101 Things I Learned In Business School

I am a big fan of the Things I learned series and often keep going back to the Archicture School Edition. I just noticed that they now have one out with the following title: 101 Things I Learned In Business School.

(How much do I love Kindle? With the click of a button the book appeared on my iPad. With the exception of beautiful art/photography books, I have no interest in purchasing ‘real’ books anymore. You?)

DIY Book Binding

More over at www.diybookbinding.com

(via IamCuriousAbout)

Cereal Box Marble Run

I give Joel Henriques two swissmiss thumbs up for this simple and beautiful rainy weather kids activity idea: Build a marble run out of a cereal box. What I especially love is that he made sketch first, then started building. See the step by step instructions here.

(via minordetails)

Screen Printing

You have no idea how screen printing works? Then watch this pretty rough guide to screen printing by Andrew Bell, a graphic design student at the Glasgow MET.

A pretty rough guide to screen printing from Andrew Bell on Vimeo.

Home Hacks

This Home Hack over at the kitchn had me look: How To Clean Tough Burnt Stains Off Stainless Cookware.

Keep this checked.

keep this checked

Keep this checked.

Marco Arment’s (and my) “Entire Message” search in Mail.app hasn’t worked for a long time, always just inexplicably returning zero results for any search. Today it was finally causing enough of an inconvenience that he searched for a fix.

He learned that for “Entire Message” searches, Mail just uses Spotlight on the message files. So if you leave this box unchecked* in Spotlight’s preferences, “Entire Message” searches simply won’t work, and neither Mail nor Spotlight felt it necessary to tell him this. (You also need to ensure that ~/Library/Mail isn’t excluded from settings in that Privacy tab.)

He was impatient, so after fixing that setting, he told Spotlight to manually import the messages immediately:

mdimport ~/Library/Mail
As soon as that completed, “Entire Message” searches started working.

* he had unchecked it because mail messages always cluttered up the results when I was simply trying to launch an app or find a document.

Keep this checked.

Learn Something Every Day

learn something every day

I am loving this site: Learn Something New Every Day.

(via bobulate)

Consistent PNG quality across browsers

how to save a png

Here’s a helpful tip I got from my friend Olivier on how to save out your png’s to guarantee a consistent color/saturation quality across all browsers:

– in Photoshop, turn on proof colors (view -> proof colors)
– make sure your proof setup is set to “monitor rgb” (view -> proof setup -> monitor rgb)
– when you save for web, make sure you do 24 bit png, interlacing OFF, and uncheck convert to srgb

Voila.

Eric Sanderson pictures New York — before the City

400 years after Hudson found New York harbor, Eric Sanderson shares how he made a 3D map of Mannahatta’s fascinating pre-city ecology of hills, rivers, wildlife — accurate down to the block — when Times Square was a wetland and you couldn’t get delivery.

How a Sewing Machine Works

How a Sewing Machine Works

I have been staring at this animated gif for the last 5 minutes. Fascinating. How a Sewing Machine Works.

Artwiculate

artwiculate screenshot

The fabulous team at Atto made another nifty site called Artwiculate: The twitter-based Word of the Day competition helps clever people look clever and helps the rest of us learn new words. To play, just use today’s word in context in one of your tweets. That’s it. Your tweet will appear on the artwiculate.com site where people can tell you if they like it. You’ll get points if they like it or retweet it.

Follow them on twitter: @artwiculate

Custom Twitter Backgrounds

Twitter1280IllustrationTwitter1280Illustration

Smashing Magazine is running an interesting article on effective Twitter Backgrounds (Scroll down on their post for an impressive and inspiring collection of people’s custom backgrounds). Primary focus of their article is to explore various techniques to create unique, memorable and effective Twitter profile pages.

Playful Learning Experiences

Playful learning Experiences

Jolayne from Urbanpreschool pointed me to this amazing resource for parents called Playful Learning. It’s filled with educational activites for parents and their children. What a resource. Hat tip to Mariah Bruehl, the force behind Playful Learning.

SIGNS by Pentagram

sign_p6jpgHomeless Sign

Pentagram Papers 39 features signs from the personal collection of author and legendary Texas musician Joe Ely, photographed by Randal Ford, and a series of large format portraits of homeless people by Austin photographer Michael O’Brien. Ely wrote the foreword.

Simply moving.

Lessons in Graphic Design Theory

50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory, by Danny Outlaw

James Earl Jones recites the alphabet

Here, James Earl Jones recites the alphabet. This one is like the one on “Sesame Street: old school” DVD where he counts from one to ten. The pronounciation of every letter is crystal clear.

(via H&FJ)

Academic Earth

picture-23

Time to get brainy: Thousands of video lectures from the world’s top scholars: academicearth.org.

(via undrln)

Creative Tip: InDesign Guides and Easy Math

In this short 3-minute clip, Jason Hoppe shows you how to place guides precisely in InDesign the fast way. Let InDesign’s control panel do the math for you!