Google X Labs is the Google version of Area 51: a futuristic and top-secret ‘blue sky’ research facility. Instead of lurking in the desolate alien wastes somewhere near Rachel, Nevada, Google’s own Dreamland is in the Bay Area. Instead of performing alien autopsies, Google researchers are developing Android armies of autonomous destruction…or something.

Let’s see what we know, what we suspect, and what we can only foolishly speculate about what these geniuses may be doing in their secret hideout.

1. “Cars that can drive themselves,” stated the Official Google Blog. “Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles.” Google’s robot cars are not the future; they’re the past (or, at least, the present). Stanford’s Dr. Sebastian Thrun has been optimizing his 2005 Pentagon Prize-winning autonomous vehicle designs for Google, with many advantages over human drivers, including safety, efficiency, and even parking space freedom (because they’ll come when you call them).

2. Android@home. For the most part, universal remotes are great. The only problems are that they’re never around when you need them and they never really control everything. Google knows this is a problem and decided that since your smartphone is already your constant companion, how about making sure it can talk to every appliance? Sure, turning the blender on and off with your Galaxy Nexus may be funny once or twice, but think about being able to adjust the heat without getting up to go to the thermostat or making absolutely certain that you turned off the curling iron when you left home this morning?

3. Elevator to Space. We know for a fact that Google X Labs is developing a space elevator. We can also guess that it will be made of carbon nanotubes, the only substance strong and light enough for the 22,000 mile stretch from the surface of the Earth to a space station in geostationary orbit. And if you’re wondering why, the answer is really very simple: for one thing, space flight is (un-scientifically speaking) about a zillion times easier and cheaper when you no longer have to worry about getting out of Earth’s gravity first.

4. Robot Commuters. Details of this one are sketchy, but the coverage of Google X Labs has repeatedly mentioned the concept of robot workers who would go into the office for you. I’m reserving judgment until I hear more details, knowing that if a robot can do my job, it seems far more likely that we’ll simply be expected to do twice the work or be replaced entirely.

5. Refrigerator Shoppers. Far more realistic are the reports of things like ‘smart’ refrigerators that know exactly what’s inside them, and can order more food when they’re getting low. Yes, I said “realistic.” This is part of the near-future Internet of Things (or “Web of Things,” as Google calls the idea), in which everything has a unique IP address, RFID tag, or something else which identifies it on the vast virtual inventory of the internet. If your milk bottle was able to transmit when it was getting low, it would be a fairly simple matter for your refrigerator to process the data and pass it on to the local grocery store’s server. Sync this process with a recipe database and a meal schedule (and your bank account), and you’d never have to write a grocery list again.

6. Light Bulb Data. One of the ideas behind the Internet of Things is to get away from constantly acquiring more stuff in order to do more stuff and, instead, make the stuff that we already have actually do more stuff (still following?). One fascinating proposal comes from Harald Haas, professor of engineering at Edinburgh University: D-Light, data transmission using an LED bulb. You and I would see a normal light bulb, but our Internet-enabled devices would see, well, the Internet. Already, Dr. Haas has his bulbs connecting faster than most people’s ISPs (up to 10 MBit/s). It’s basically fiberless optics, and it also nicely eliminates any worries about electromagnetic radiation. He also says that “it should be so cheap that it’s everywhere,” which means you’ll be able to turn off your oven over the Internet via streetlights, while your robot car is driving you to the space elevator, instead of work.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Cars that can Drive Themselves and Other Google X Possible Projects

If you spend anytime on Reddit you’re probably familiar with the term “lurker.” I don’t know if there is an UrbanDictionary definition for the term, but it’s basically someone that has an account, or continues to come back to a site time-after-time, day-after-day – reads lots of the material, but generally doesn’t participate.

As connected as I am – I’m a lurker.

And one of my favorite blogs to “lurk” – one I’ve been reading for years, but never participated is:

Bruce Turkel’s “Turkel Talks”

Bruce is the CEO of a Brand Management firm in Miami (just across the way from me!). I first learned of him 2 or 3 years ago when a friend attended a speaking event he was hosting. She was very impressed (and as cool as she is – she’s very hard to impress) so I checked him out. I’ve been lurking on his blog ever since.

Every week or so he writes a post and every week or so I’m amazed. Now – I typically view web writing as a means to an end, and advise clients in this manner – the more you write, the more often you write, the more likely search engines will find and respect your site. However, Bruce proves once again that quality is so much more important than quantity.

He doesn’t write often, but each post is filled with amazing gems. 

Turkel Talks brings together our world as consumers, business owners, etc. and teaches us about the way we all interact (with each other, with the companies we do business, etc.). If it is not the most important blog you need to be reading, it’s definitely up there with the top 10.

I decided to write this post today because, as our name implies, Bruce’s blog again inspired me this morning. So with that said I thought I would highlight a few of his recent posts and how they can help inspire you as developers, freelancers, business owners, or people simply interested in the web.

Lions and Tigers and Planes, Oh My – The importance of direct communication – This round about post regarding the creation of an LTE network that will compete with the major Wireless Telecoms takes a little while (and I believe that is part of the point) to demonstrate that very few care about technology. Only Turkel can bring together Apple’s Steve Jobs, satellites, and politics proving how important your message, your delivery, and your language are in solving real problems and truly communicating.

What Business Are You In? – Understand your REAL business – I promise after reading this post you’ll have a different take on business in general – and if you’re an owner of a business – your own brand and message. Don’t believe me? Even the CEO of Dominos knows “he’s NOT in the pizza business.”

I Have No Idea What I’m Doing – Finally a successful CEO admits what we all secretly know, and all fear others might find out!

Deth Bye A Thowsend Cutz – The importance of writing -Learn how important great writing is in communicating as well as establishing legitimacy both on and offline.

The Internet Giveth and The Internet Taketh Away – Are you a business owner thinking about using the Internet to advertise your business? This interesting take on modern consumers’ ability to both find AND evaluate your business won’t necessarily turn you away from online advertising, but may convince you that, the same savvy consumers that find you online are better equipped to evaluate and spread their opinion of their experience with your company than ever before.

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Inspired Writers (and Speakers) Bruce Turkel

We had a chance to sit down and talk again with our friends from ustwo™ about their upcoming iPhone app that generated a lot of buzz over the Interwebs recently – Whale Trail. The app is out – download it from the appstore today!

Your studio ustwo is a Ui/Ux studio: Why did you decide to make an iOS endless runner game: whale trail?

ustwo™ has grown from a two man studio to a 100+ powerhouse in the space of 8 years. Our focus has always been on slow manageable growth with a desire to house and nurture creativity and to re-invest heavily in our own product releases on the App Store.
We’ve spent the last three years experimenting with a real mix of releases, from the highly successful MouthOff, to Nursery Rhymes with Storytime, the Dot series, Granimator and the niche and zany Inkstrumental, to the groundbreaking publishing platform PAPERCUT. Each release has generated a nice amount of publicity and I think we’ve earned some much appreciated industry respect along the way, due in essence to the niche nature surrounding what we’ve produced and the leanness of download figures.
Whale Trail represents a real desire to move into a market with a huge captive audience, as game downloads make up 45% of all apps downloaded. We felt that if we built the right product this time, we at least had a chance of getting into the hands of many more users.

What gave you the idea for whale trail? and why a whale?

Whale Trail resulted from a two-month experimental prototyping phase. The idea was to explore as many different directions as possible and to see what ultimately turned us on. We knew that we could polish anything we came up with, but what we wanted was to make sure that this time, we had an engine that could drive us all the way to the top.
In the end the idea of a simple loop the loop mechanic was something we decided to move forward with. Simplicity of gaming mechanic is crucial and it doesn’t get more simple that moving the character up and down by pressing and releasing your finger on the touch screen. By simply holding your finger on the screen, the loop the loop movement can be achieved. It just felt right, and so we continued to develop the idea of a character travelling through a never-ending world of psychedelia and wonder. We wanted to create a game that would be all about the joys of flying, nothing more and nothing less.
We chose a whale as the idea of a huge blubbery mammal gracefully flying through the air seemed so wrong in the real world, yet so wonderfully right in the virtual world. We named him Willow in homage to our favourite film of the same name and the general fighting spirit the lead character emits whilst in battle.

The art is very striking, do you think it needs to be very colourful and playful to sell?

We wanted to reach the biggest audience possible, and this meant that we had to create characters and art that would appeal to all taste and sensibilities. It had to be just right, not too commercial, and not too cool. It had to be coolmercial™! We had made games before (we call them graphical toys) that pitted a simple dot as the lead character, which although was very slick, couldn’t really be loved by anyone other than its mother. However in Whale Trail we’ve designed it so that the player is immersed into a psychedelic candy covered fun park with nothing but joy and laughter. We included end of level goodies over baddies, and all characters were designed to make you smile.
For big sales we need the game world to unite to ignite the passion, but we need that love to influence children, parents, grandmas, grandpas and pets. We need everyone! All good games need an awesome nemesis and we wanted a character that strikes fear into the heart and makes the player want to protect the protagonist. It can’t all be fun; it needs fun contrasted with pure bottled evil and destruction.
So therefore Whale Trail does have a dark side, in the form of Baron von Barry and his evil cloud henchmen ‘the Evil Thunder Bros’. Baron Von Barry is an evil sea monster that rules the oceans, his only friends are the Thunder bros and even they would stab him in the back if they had any hands.

So in brief, what’s the point of the game?

To fly Willow the Whale gracefully through the air, eating blubbles (blubbery colourful bubbles) that give you flying fuel, and avoiding the electrifying clouds that want to rob you of your flying time. Last as long as you can as you enjoy the seven incredibly joyful kingdoms. It makes utter sense!

How long did it take to make? and how many people were involved?

It took about two months of prototyping time, which is where we explored multiple ideas and routes, before finally landing on the ’loop the loop’ functionality. From there we had a team of six full time for around five months, two designers, two developers, one project manager and our QA master. On top of this we applied a liberal dose of CHIEF WONKA into the mix. We intend to continue developing long after with planned and lovingly nurtured updates to our hopefully massive user base.

Why do you you think whale trail won’t sink on the app store like so many games seem to these days?

Simply because I have seen the reaction from those lucky enough to play with it, it just makes them smile. I think that we’re lucky enough to be releasing at a time when people are looking for something new on the store, something that has been crafted to create joy and a good feeling inside.

These days there are so many games released on App Store – what have you done to increase the chances of success post launch?

We’ve gone one better and sourced a team of 300 play testers for Whale Trail early and throughout the development process. We not only got invaluable feedback from them which informed some key decisions in the creation of game, but they also have become our social army, talking about the game on twitter and Facebook, and really helping to build interest. With interest comes investigation, and it wasn’t long before game journalists became switched on to what we were doing. We’ve had many game sites writing about the release and all this fuels the fire. I only hope the big splash we make on release doesn’t put that fire out!

Do you have any predictions for the amount of sales it will generate?

I really feel this is my last shot because if we can’t make it with this product I will have to give up! In all seriousness it has cost the studio £150,000 in man-hours. Hence we need 300,000 sales before we even break even. I really feel this game has potential to sell over a million and I’m dreaming of that no.1 by Christmas!

PS: The game is out – grab your copy now!

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Inspired Talks: Mills of ustwo™ on the Upcoming Whale Trail

As a typographer you have a distinct advantage. Inspiration is everywhere, as text is a regular part of our every day lives: on billboards and posters, TV commercials and boxes of rice, and on our computer screens, phones and other devices. We are always confronted with new ideas and old ones that have been reused or modified.

But not all inspiration has to come from the outside world. There are actually plenty of websites that have been created in order to provide us with concepts tailored to the special mindset of typography enthusiasts. Certainly, there are more than we could list without turning this post into a directory. So, we came up with 12 of the very best the web has to offer, to give you a boost in creativity.

1. I Love Typography

This blog was created with the way that typography shows up everywhere in mind. It uses real-life and online examples to inspire readers, and encourages them to create their own. They also offer occasional posts to professional websites that specialize in font and other graphic design modules. Informative and handy, this one is highly recommended.

2. The FontFeed

A full font-related blog, there is a special touch of media use on FontFeed. My favorite posts is when they give on-screen examples, such as the one currently available that shows typeface from box office hits such as “Horrible Bosses” and “Crazy Stupid Love”. They manage to stay relevant to current events and trends, while giving a ton of great advice.

3. Typographica

This blog lists themselves under the header of reviews, books and commentary. They manage to deliver on all of these fronts, offering a designer’s view of different typefaces, giving in-depth articles on typography issues, and reviews and commenting on books and other related media. They also have some gorgeous font examples, and an introduction to proper typesetting.

4. Fontleech

While it hasn’t been updated in several years, Font Leech is an interesting site that gives several types of font for you to select and learn from. Many of them are updated or adapted basics that have been given a new touch, which can really spark some creative initiative when you see them. You can search fonts on the homepage.

5. Nice Web Type

The real standout section of this blog is the HTML5 Boilerplate, which focuses on helping you get your own updated HTML projects underway. But there are many fantastic font posts, videos, talks and instructional guides here to keep any modern day typographer happy. Be sure to check out the identifying tool “Whatfont” as well.

6. Type For You

With movies, interviews, reviews of books and plenty of inspiration abound, this archive is well worth a browse. They have great examples taken from popular (and much smaller) design studios that have happily given their advice, tips and ideas for others to work from. The interviews are truly an invaluable resources, and the films are interesting.

7. Mark Simonson

A freelance designer who has worked for companies such as Target-Direct among many others in his long career, Mark Simonson has set out to create what might be one of the best blogs on graphic design. The articles are very informative and well written, with topics such as retro styles and iPad applications, and he is friendly and enjoyable to read.

8. Not a Weblog

Big things are happening at this blog, but that isn’t stopping them from sharing interesting typography examples and font designs. They update every couple of weeks, and they show everything from lettering on T-shirts to full original concepts. Right now they are going through major construction, so you shouldn’t judge their content based on the overall look of their current layout. Instead, take a wander through their archive.

9. Letritas

This is a Spanish speaking site, but it is helpful for people who don’t know the language. While you will miss out on the great posts they write, you will still be able to check out the gorgeous, full color examples they provide. They are especially interesting for those who like logos and posters, and want some fresh perspective on future design concepts.

10. Typography For Headlines

Obviously headline specific, this is a showcase site that gathers those headlines from all across the web and presents them for you to look at. They also provide a direct link to the original site that it was taken from, providing a source and a reference of contact if you need it. Simple but functional. Here you will see design and typography collections from web resources (sites and blogs), media (infographics and videos), print media (magazines and calendars), etc

11. Font Blog

This is a small, but useful, blog with a collection of typography articles. Some of them are quite entertaining, such as one that uses Beavis & Butthead as an example of the limited use of numbers in most typographic arts. You would have to read it to understand.

12. Swiss Legacy

Swiss Legacy was made for the specific purpose of inspiring other typographers who were looking for ideas. These are presented through artfully taken photographs from around the city, including signs, posters and even coffee cups. Beautiful, simple and very helpful, you will be sure to appreciate the efforts of blog owner Xavier Encinas.

There are plenty other examples of well made typography websites on the net. What are some of your own favorites?

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

12 Great Blogs for Typography Inspiration

As you may know by now, Inspired Magazine is a sucker for data visualization. That’s why we invited Tony Shin – a social media ninja and creative design samurai – to curate the weekly dose of infographics. If you like them as much as we do check out some of the older editions and follow Tony on Twitter and Facebook as well!

1. How We Talk to Computers

I found this infographic off of Mashable that describes the advancements in speech recognition. The Medical Transcription team designed this beautiful looking infographic that illustrates just how far this technology has advanced and where we just might be heading. I really loved the little cute faces and emoticons, I think it really helped understand the data. Though it is geared toward the focus of medicine, I can’t help but wonder just what we’ll be able to do when something like this is full developed. Perhaps use voice control to cook my breakfast?

2. The Ultimate Dorm Room Guide

As school starts back up again (for those in the US), I thought this graphic by EBay Collectors fit perfectly. A great dorm room is always key. Buying low cost supplies and furniture, how to efficiently place things to get the most space in those small, compartment-like rooms. The infographic illustrations the vision of your dorm room, where things should go and really, a guide to a great dorm room.

3. The Hidden Rewards of a High School Diploma

On the same topic, Alleyoop created this infographic that highlights the perks of a high school diploma. They seem to have nailed it on the dot with those hidden ‘rewards’ like, health and employment, with a very diploma-like aesthetic to the graphic. Makes me feel kind of good that I have one. Though, #2, which talks about happiness and true love, hasn’t happened to me just yet. Forever alone.

4. From C’s to A’s

Diplomas & degrees are the end goal in schooling. The question is, how hard is it to get there? Well, Masters Degree lays out this infographic about how students are finding the road a bit easier to get those diplomas and degrees. Professors feel the pressures of scoring high on a performance evaluation. So how do they make it easier on themselves? Bump the student’s grade up a bit. However, there’s more to it. Take a look!

5. Job Searching in Social Media

When all these students get out of college and go look for a job, where do they look? Media Bistro designed this infographic that highlights what companies are now doing to find those students and recruit them. Interestingly enough, 45% of companies use Twitter to look for recruits. The world of Twitter is much bigger than I had imagined. I can’t comprehend how something of that nature could be used to recruit. Though I do see the networking and connections that could be used to find talent, but it’s hard to swallow. Could social networking giants like Facebook and Twitter wipe out sites like Monster and Career Builder? That’s scary to think about. So what’s the take away? Students, get a Twitter account. Now!

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Infographics of the Week #8

This is a guest post by Zach Katkin – entrepreneur, web developer, designer and writer – co-founder of Florida Web Design Company Atilus. Additionally Zach also owns a number of web properties including Promana.net, a resource for Small Business Software News including Basecamp Project Management.

If you’re like me you’re a power user – on the net constantly – you have an account on every sharing and social site, and you jump at the latest technologies – even if they DO flop and they are sometimes less than useful.

Well, over the last couple of weeks Google has slowly been revealing their new design, and it’s mysteriously been marked by Google’s new black bar. If you’ve been following the news Google has made an unbelievable amount of changes and announcements over the last couple of days. Google first released information on their “Facebook Killer” social network called the Google+ project.

Then just hours later, the roll out of the new design was announced and all of this just days ago.

Android is the dominant phone operating system,  chrome is fast becoming the most popular browser, Google.com completely destroys the competition in search – as always Google has been hard innovating and creating new projects and implementing changes.

Back to the black bar – for those of us with Google accounts, the bar is not of much note, it’s been around for years. But, only recently did it switch to black, and really begin to pop.

What is Google’s Black Bar?

Google’s new black bar is simply a new design for the Google interface as a whole, the black bar being the common denominator among many, if not all, google services.  Take a look at the shot I just took:

Simple, elegant, exactly what a good design update should be. I suspect it’s prominence and the new contrast the dark color adds will also help introduce Google’s myriad of services to a whole new audience – as they realize – what that MORE drop down is for!

Google’s New Interface – First Impressions

I’m a HUGE fan of Google’s new interface. I’m not sure if it’s been rolled out throughout the US and the rest of the world at this time, and I’ve noticed a rollout of services over the last few days (starting with the black bar, continuing with a complete overhaul of Maps, and finally seeing Google’s completely redesigned home and search interface).

I’ve wanted to see a complete overhaul since the days of me first stumbling up the talented designer Andy Rutledge and his ideas on Google Redux – a complete design overhaul of Google. Over the years Google has made modest changes, mostly as new features required. As a web designer myself I do understand that sometimes, it’s best to leave well-enough alone, until such time that features and tools have been locked in. Ofcourse this is also a dangerous trap as any website, application, or giant brand – like all of Google and it’s services – are ever-evolving.

With that said however I think now is the perfect time to overhaul the design, creating a unified theme and optimizing the site for speed and simplicity. Where as other sites like Yahoo and Bing are at best overly colored and a reminder of “the old web” and at worst, horribly overburdened with content and imagery that distract from a single purpose – Google’s new interface(s) streamline a visitor’s distractions, keeping single goals in mind – all across different services.

Although mostly cosmetic additional updates including instant search (without having to select the search field on Google’s homepage (google.com) make searching EVEN quicker – how quick can this get? I did hear a Google researcher say his ultimate goal was to have you be walking around and simply utter a search query and magically get results (in your head, auditorily-not a word, visually, etc.). Although that technology may be just over the horizon:

For now Google’s updated interface is a welcomed change that is sure to solidify Google’s stronghold on each industry and service it enters.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Google’s Black Bar & New Look

This post is made possible by Lexus Hybrid as a new part of the Fresh Perspectives series that focuses on featuring disrupting and innovative transmedia artists around the world. Every week, the program focuses on one of the six amazing artists involved in the Fresh Perspectives project.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer (born February 21, 1977) is a Jewish-American author best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). In 2009, he published a work of nonfiction entitled Eating Animals.

Ulterior motives

interview by Larry Carroll

Escape is a word that can’t help but come to mind when you consider the career of Jonathan Safran Foer. His acclaimed novels “Everything Is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” gave readers a stylized version of our reality where tragedy still exists, but is woven into a tapestry of beauty, adventure and self-discovery. In “Tree of Codes,” he sliced out words and sentences from his favorite book, creating a wholly original work from its stripped bones. And in 2009, he published his first nonfiction work, an examination of his own struggles with vegetarianism called “Eating Animals.” In this interview, Foer talks about dodging expectations, mutilating one masterpiece to make another, and why he has blank pieces of notebook paper hanging on his kitchen walls.

When you sit down to write, what drives you?
A lot of different things make me do what I do. Sometimes, I do it because that’s what I want to do. Sometimes, I do what I do because that’s what I did in the past. Sometimes I do what I do because that’s my job. Part of being a writer is balancing all the incentives — or disincentives — to actually write.

After the success of your first two works of fiction, why did you decide to go so far off the beaten path?
I didn’t want to write another novel, just because I had in the past. With “Eating Animals,” the choice of becoming a vegetarian was a subject I’d been interested in since I was a kid, but had never given any real serious thought to my decisions, whether it was religion or instinct. When my wife got pregnant, before making the choice on someone else’s behalf, I wanted to take the question more seriously.

Is being a writer ultimately about following your passion? Do you need to be passionate to write well?
No, I don’t actually think so. You have to care about what you’re writing about, but on a day-to-day level it’s not about passion, it’s about willpower. Very often, writing isn’t fun at all; it’s quite aggravating. But I’ve found that when it’s most aggravating, it provides the best material. People have these magical ideas about it being an inspired process with muses and so on, but it’s just the opposite. It challenges one’s will — every day, there’s another blank page to fill.

With “Tree of Codes” you sliced out chunks of Bruno Schulz’s “The Street of Crocodiles” and used die-cutting to create as much a sculpture as a novel. How did you come up with such a unique idea?
I’ve always had some interest in that technique of dye-cutting books, the physicality of books and how little that physicality is taken advantage of. It’s a particularly interesting issue now, because books are becoming even less of a physical presence. With “Tree of Codes,” I wanted to make a book that remembered it was a physical thing.

You once wrote about your hobby of collecting blank pages from famous authors. Do you still do that?
No, I don’t do it anymore; that was something I did before I was a writer. Somebody giving me a page, a piece of paper, the next page they would have written on — that was really interesting to me, and moving in a way. I hung them up on the wall of my apartment when I was in Queens. Now I have 40 or so, and a number of the writers — Susan Sontag, David Foster Wallace — have died. So they’ve taken on even more meaning.

Do you still look at those pages for inspiration?
Not really. I look at them because they’re in my kitchen [laughs]. But I continue to really like them.

Is your dream that someday, some young kid will ask you for a blank page?
No, my dream is to write the things that feel significant to me. A dream is something that happens before a book gets published.

Further reading

• Eating Animals
• On Facebook
• On Twitter
• Farm Sanctuary

To find out more about this and to connect with the organizers and artists check out the Fresh Perspectives website and follow Lexus on Twitter and Facebook.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Inspired Talks: Jonathan Safran Foer, The Author Of Everything Is Illuminated

Typography is very, very malleable. It has to be. Typography is everywhere, and yet we don’t get bored of it (Well, maybe take Comic Sans out of the equation). Posters are always rich in typography, as it is one of the major ways to get a message across to the audience. Just like musical scores in films, typography can set the tone of whatever it is trying to connote.

Below are 25 posters are unique and that I find inspiring. Seeing the first one made me want to research the design studio and find out more about them. If you click on the snippet view, it will send you towards a full resolution version of the poster for you to do whatever you want with.

Posters

May the Force of Typography be with you

100% Helvetica

Self portrait

Grids are Good For the Soul

MERRYXMAS

Bodycount

MoMA Gallery Talks

Type Tedious

Typography

Bauhaus

Experimental Typography

Made You Look

Chaos is my Name

The Joker

Inception

Synaesthesia Pyramid

I’m Lost Without Colour

Share Design

Wear the Pants

Typography Project NY

Bauhaus

NesCafe

Design Culture Now

Typefaces of the World

International Typographic Style

Conclusion

Some are clean, some are what some might consider to be grunge. Some follow a strong grid structure, some don’t have a grid at all. Some are Infographical, some are advertising different things. I have gone through a wide range of different syles that typogrpahy can take. However, there are a lot more that you can find. Searching “Typographical design” comes up with a lot of hits. Even “Typographical [random word here]” should bring back a few hits. All you have to do is look!

Need a poster design?

Hire Joshua Borja – a freelance poster designer from Sydney.

Looking for freelance design work?

Find poster design jobs and poster design contests at DesignCrowd.

Join online 642-188 and 646-223 to pass 642-746 exams in first try. Our best quality 642-736 and 640-460 tutorials guide you well for real exam.

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25 Inspiring and Different Typographical Posters

Ladies and gentlemen this is one very special Freebie Friday edition! We teamed up with the brilliant chaps of Motionographer to give away not one but two tickets to the amazing F5 – the biennial creativity festival held in NYC this April 15-16, 2011 that explores the intersection of art, design and entertainment.

What is F5?

Presented by Motionographer, F5 fosters creative collisions — those moments of lasting insight and inspiration that occur when we discover something unexpected. Two full days are filled with inspiring talks from the likes of Kid Koala, Wayne White (Pee Wee’s Playhouse), Adam Sadowsky (Syyn Labs), Scott Belsky (Behance), Onesize, Heather Knight (Marilyn Monrobot), and more! For more information: www.f5fest.com

How to participate?

• tweet this: Win Two Tickets To @F5fest, The NYC Biennial Creativity Festival This April 15-16 * RT to enter!
• post a comment here telling us why would you like to win

We’ll pick a random winner of the two tickets and announce him next Friday. Good luck everybody!

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Win Two Tickets To F5, The NYC Biennial Creativity Festival This April 15-16

You’ll be glad to meet DesignersCouch creative Elizaveta Porodina, a young fashion photographer from Munich, Germany. Her work is unparalleled, passionate in its beauty and enchanting in its concepts. Elizaveta explores hidden emotions and photographs her models in such intimate moments that it’s hard to believe they are posing for her.

Her Stardust series and Prayers For Rain Project have made her hugely popular and her work continues to astound and inspire. Enjoy some of her best work, then see our short but insightful interview with her below.

*Prayers For Rain IV*

*Prayers For Rain* on DesignersCouch

*Prayers For Rain* on DesignersCouch

*Cocoon* on DesignersCouch

*Cocoon* on DesignersCouch

*Cocoon* on DesignersCouch

*Cocoon* on DesignersCouch

*Cocoon* on DesignersCouch

*GOLD Project 2010: Stardust Hunter* on DesignersCouch

*GOLD Project 2010: Stardust Hunter* on DesignersCouch

*The Holy Hour* on DesignersCouch

*Holy Dungeon* on DesignersCouch

*Holy Dungeon* on DesignersCouch

*Holy Dungeon* on DesignersCouch

*Holy Dungeon* on DesignersCouch

*Goldmine* on DesignersCouch

*Goldmine* on DesignersCouch

*The Equilibrist* on DesignersCouch

Q. How’d you get started in photography?

I am self-taught. I never took classes or pursued a special education of photography. However, I’ve been art-addicted for very long. When I was 13 I started to draw and illustrate. When 21 (two years ago) I found that photography was the more appropriate medium for the expression of my feelings. And so it is today.

Q. Your work features some images that seem woven from pure magic. Where does your inspiration come from?

My inspiration comes from my environment. Winter nights in a big city, books, facial expressions and attitudes of my friends, tiny unique moments between me and this other irreplaceable person, other works of art, memories about growing up, music, music, music.

Q. Tell us a bit about how your Stardust series came to be.

I wanted to picture the alienation, the intimacy and the isolation of unique creatures. I wanted to capture strange moments and surprise myself, which is my main aim in photography.

Q. Your type of photography means models have to use with their entire body – hands, back, even feet. How do you connect with your models to accomplish such shots?

I guess that my psychology studies help a lot.:-) When I take pictures I want the model to show me the strangest and the most intimate expression he or she can make. It is important because, for me, it is the only way to a good picture. I also think that this motivation is a very strong one – it is so strong that it can motivate the model to show his best expressions. For a few hours we make an intense intimate connection which makes it easy for the model to be open.

Q. How important has location been to capturing the perfect shot and adding to your stories?

All those things – the location, the model, the camera, the light (which depends on the location, as I seldom work with artificial light) are equally important. A story can only be told properly if all elements are credible and coherent.

Q. Any thoughts for someone wondering how to elevate their photography?

Becoming obsessed with photography is the best way to elevate the level. When you are obsessed with something, it is the middle of your existence,the most important thing. You start thinking all the time about it and your mind searches for inspirations and expressions constantly like a hunting dog. You start practicing all the time – not because someone says it is necessary, but because you need it like air to breathe. So – a constant obsession would be my advice.

Creatives, follow Elizaveta Porodina on DesignersCouch.

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This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Inspired talks: Elizaveta Porodina – A Photographer Who Brings Dreams to Life