Some great pieces from Alphanumeric’s HfG Ulm set on flickr. More proof that everything cool in design isn’t happening in America.

Atmostheory is the one-man design studio of Christopher David Ryan… a Portland, Maine-based graphic artist, daydreamer, pseudo-scientist, wanna-be astronaut and untrained intellectual who tends to find inspiration in pretty much anything… especially music, the universe, the human condition and natural phenomena.

Mmm, some more Michael Rother for you.

This is Harmonia’s second release just before Rother hit the studio to record NEU!’s ’75. Brian Eno joined them for their next release (Tracks and Traces (1976)).

Harmonia’s lineup was a match made in heaven: a perfect mixture of NEU! (Rother) and Cluster (Moebius and Roedelius). Wikipedia references them as a “Krautrock supergroup,” and quotes Eno as saying that they are “the world’s most important rock band.”

Deluxe was a departure from the trio’s first release Musik Von Harmonia (1975). It’s much more of a solid sound with smoother melodies.

It’s a long track (9:43), but definitely worth the full listen, as they fit quite a few movements into it.

Harmonia – Immer Wieder (1975)

See also:

• NEU! – Neuschnee
• Cluster – Hollywood

Artist Bob Stake used Photoshop 3.0 on Mac OS 7 to create this cover for The New Yorker recently. I guess you use what you know… The video above shows Bob progressing through the design, it’s a nice glimpse into another artist’s process. The whole story and more details are here. Via Gizmodo

The “Handshoemouse” was developed by scientists at the medical universities of Rotterdam and Maastricht. It’s meant to be ergonomic and it sure looks the part. I have used Logitech for many years now without much trouble. I had a bout of Repetitive Stress Syndrome years and years ago but I think that was more about the desk height than anything. This looks pretty nice, but it’s sad that you have to compromise all the special features (extra buttons, hyperscroll, etc.) to get the truly ergonomic designs. Still meaning to pick up a MX1100 to replace my old revolution. Via Hot Hardware

Earlier this year we posted The Chap “Auto Where To” on the blog and went off on a tangent on how much i loved it, well Ghostly International put together an amazing collection of remixers and edits of past Chap song’s including the French producer Joakim, check it out here.

The Chap – Auto Where To (Electroware Remix)

Xaver Naudascher – Motor City

Pigon – Promises

The Russian Futurists – Let’s get ready to crumble

Thought I’d post this nice follow-up to the last PDP11 handbook I posted a while back. Gotta love aquamarine!

An old favorite, this one never goes out of style. The loose breaks are so key, they really carry the song. And no, that’s not the cover to “Programmed to Love” up there. The real cover is so excruciatingly bad that I just couldn’t bring myself to post it along with such a nice track.

Bent – Invisible Pedestrian

You know you’d buy one if it ran OS X. The real thing is still a looker though.

All aesthetic concerns aside, the news that the new Macbooks will sport dual GPUs, taking advantage of Snow Leopard’s new-found process offloading abilities, is more than welcome. This is the first time that I’ve seen the whole “GPU as processor” revolution that’s been gaining steam lately actually start to become a reality. It’s no surprise that Apple brought it to the table first. As John Gruber put it: “What we’re seeing may be the beginning of the end of CPU hertz as the rule-of-thumb metric for system performance.” As you may know, Photoshop CS4 already leverages the power of the GPU and it’s great to see that other apps, and even the OS itself will be following in it’s footsteps.

As sort of a addendum to yesterday’s post I thought I’d put up this collection from Now Showing London, an exhibit “exploring the lost art of the film poster”:

“40+ Creatives were given the task of creating their own interpretation of a Cult, Classic or Obscure film poster from the past, whether it be a literal or abstract solution. The result is Now Showing, an Art exhibition paying homage to more than 70 years of film, through the form of Prints, One Off Screen Prints and Sculptures.“

Some great stuff in here; If I had one piece of advice for young designers it would be to take on projects like this every chance you get, paid or not (preferably not). It allows for total creative freedom within a preexisting context that most likely has some sort of personal meaning for you. It really is a big challenge sometimes to have freedom like this. Link