Angry Notts

i like to move it!

2008-03-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

you will find my ~~blog~~ online journal now here: www.sophiethurow.de

my personal road

2008-02-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

thanx roman!

flash ole´

2008-02-06T08:31:00.000-08:00

it's damn slow. but you get the point. click in the middle to activate it, then use the arrows. muchos funos!

this flash project was very interesting. david gave us the opprtunity to control our flash game with phidgets. phidgets are a set of different hardware devices such as sliders, joysticks, buttons, light sensors,.. with which you can control your flashgame. with the use of usb the phidgets can be easily connected to the computer.
it was fun to control my flash pingpong game with a slider.

such kind of devices gave so much opprtunities to develop different kinds of interactive interfaces. i hope that i can/will make use of those phidgets in the future. maybe for my bachelor report i have to write to finish my studies.

found!

2008-02-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

i found an amazing german photgrapher: werner amann from berlin. i really like the series 'walking in l.a.', 'heart beat berlin' and 'portraits 1'. what i like about his photos is the emotion they are expressing. it seems like the pictures are telling a long and interesting story about the persons on it.
i also like the colour theme. warm, soft, clear and a bit blurry/dirty at the same time. lovely!
also check his flickr site.

simplicity

2008-01-28T08:23:00.000-08:00

..could be the philosophy of my life. i'm always trying to make the things in my life as simple as possible. to not waste my time thinking about the complex things that happens in the world and have as much relaxing time to enjoy the little things that happens in my life.
i'm doin this without any strict rules, then it would be to complex of course, it happens more subconscious but compared to the people surrounding me, i think i'm quite good in simplyfing my life and relax.

but this book about simplicity by john maeda where he presents 10 laws and 3 keys to achieve simplicity is very useful.
it gets the things out of my subconsciousness in cold print where i can make notes and underline important things to make them from subcounscious feelings to real thoughts i can work with.
this book, for me, acts like a guard that helps me fixing my thoughts about simplicity and complexity.
especially because i'm interested in webdesign/-devolpment i find it very useful for my studies. he talks about how to reduce and organize things, how to deal with time and knowledge to achieve simplicity. on the other hand he talks about the symbiosis of simplicity and complexity and the importance of finding a good balanced center but always have a look to the edges on the left and right side to make sure that you are still in the balanced centere.
the laws of simplicity acts like a dictionary cheered up with stories from e.g. his daughters and life as a professor at the MIT.

eric needham - black & neon

2008-01-20T09:52:00.000-08:00

there is currently an exhibition in the gallery of waterstones view from the top (fourth floor). resolution, an open photography show in support of photovoice. out standing for me was the work of eric needham. first, his work seems to be the only digital one, and i like his use of neon colours.

i'm not quite sure how he did this. for me it looks like soap bubbles on a glass plate. i can't really say how much is from the photograph he took and how much he did afterwards in the computer with it. i'm sure that it is a photograph, because on his website he just talks about himself as a photographer and not explicit about the use of computer programmes.
'My innovative style of photography involves using revolutionary mounting methods to support the subject, also using light and colour to enhance this.
I also use shape, light and colour to create abstract images.'
this quote from eric needham's website could mean everything. it is not really clear if and how much he retouches his photographs afterwards.
what i like about his work is the use of black and neon colours. i have a strong weakness for black or in general dark and dirty colours, and i like big contrasts as for example given in this picture above.
a comparabel artist i found some month ago on ffffound. his name is chuck anderson a freelance artist, designer, and photographer.

i collect such kind of art (usually stored in my social bookmarking) to have some examples when i need inspiration for designing a website or retouching photographs i took.

who needs fancy pants?

2008-01-17T05:31:00.000-08:00

'On Saturday January 12th, 2008 nearly 2,000 people took off their pants on subways in 10 cities around the world. In New York’s 7th Annual No Pants! Subway Ride we had around 900 participants, spread out over three subway lines.' via
shake ya ass!

bob + sophie

2008-01-15T14:38:00.000-08:00

i was just listening to a song from bob dylan. that reminded me that i saw a movie in the broadway cinema on the 6th of january. i'm not there from todd haynes. sometimes it is very nice to check out the website from films. this was affirmed by the websites of the darjeeling limited, stardust and pan's labyrinth.
the website of i'm not there offers to create an interactive movie and to send it to friends. you can write a personal message in bob dylan's subterranean homesick blues. it is a wonderful idea. and i couldn't resist:

this online project was designed by ten 4. there were more than 250,000 messages send.

my valentine

2008-01-14T12:34:00.000-08:00

it is not really popular in germany and not usual to spread valentine cards in school or so, and i never gave a valentine card to anybody in my life, but if i still were a little girl i would probably wanted to send one of those groovy valentine cards which hp offers on their activity center for free download.
guess who would be my valentine:

desgined were those valentine cards by curiosity. a 'new breed of marketing company' from portland (oregon). their clients are for example: apple, dreamworks, hp, disney and paramount.
their work includes among others webdesign, editorial and craft.

this company actually got my attention because of a beautiful animation they did. probably with after effects?

"Suicycle is a lively, multi-textured animated short created specifically for the 2007 DesignPolitics exhibition in Santiago, Chile: a forum for "visual ideologies" comprised of the best issue-driven design work from around the globe." via.

human become trees

2008-01-09T05:32:00.000-08:00

gerard moliné, a catalan designer, designed a biodegradable urn with bios seed. as for example of a tree. isn't it a nice idea to plant a urn, not to bury it, and see a tree growing out of it? for me there couldn't be a better gravestone in the world.

smile

2008-01-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

in my head: charles chaplin - smile. i'm trying.

human tetris

2008-01-05T11:44:00.000-08:00

can't stop laughing!

video killed the radio star

2007-12-25T13:54:00.001-08:00

xmas cover party in the maze. 5 bands doin some cover songs. christmas or not. recogniseable or not.
but still very nice. good christmas decoration. very nice atmosphere.
here some expressions:

cuban crime wave playing again in the maze on the 5 of january. i need to go there.

the jingle belles

souvaris

evil hawk. the singer/keyboarder is such a good musician. i saw him before in the maze at the concert of howlin' rain on the 26th november. just him, the keyboard and his lovely voice..

shoes

love is all we need

2007-12-21T14:42:00.000-08:00

.. says the last line of simone whites beep beep song.
the song is used for the commercial of the new audi r8.

a commercial made by richard mcgrann and andy clough who are working for bartle bogle hegarty (bbh) a british advertising agency since 1982. this agency worked for global brands including audi, vodafone, levi straus, british airways, johnnie walker & axe/lynx.
another well-known ad from this agency:

take out your knife

2007-12-20T23:01:00.000-08:00

.. was the name of a song from a guy i saw yesterday in the bodega social club. duncan oakley.

he was the support from a guy called huw costin. both artists were just a man and a guitar with songs about love and other stuff that was very thought-provoking. i liked duncan pretty much. he has a very beautifuly voice and is able to sing the high notes in a very clear and soft way. i found out that he is actually doing comdey music. which is kind of shocking cause the music yesterday was defenitely not comdey and it's hard to imagine that this guy is doin this.
the main act, huw costin, did actually the same: singing with his guitar thoughtfully contents. but the whole appearence didn't convinced me so much. on the website of the social club they say:
"[...] something truly special that will just break your heart!!!". no. defenitely not.

anyway. huw says that amongst others he is inspired by jeff buckley. that brings me to my actual reason for this post:
jeffy the jeff. the lovely jeff. on cd. in my room. 2 times. wohooo!
i went into this nice cd shop on mansfield road. the bag says: good vibrations - second hand records. i bought everything i could find from jeff buckley. just two cds. but still.
first: mystery white boy: live '95~'96
second: sketches for my sweetheart the drunk
the first one is a double cd with 21 songs. the second one has 12. i know pretty much all songs from the second one. but. now i can hold it in my hand. touch it. browse through the booklets. with pictures. lyrics. handwriting stuff. awesome!

my other acquisitions are:
- hot hot hot with make up the breakdown
- richard ashcroft - alone with everybody (btw: the website has a very nice intro. bookmark.)
- blur - modern life is rubbish. the original website is very nice too. minimalistic.
so is this all? one, two, thr.. five. yes.

miss sophie proudly presents:

but this is not all. no no.
what is thin, old, black, round, has lots of rills and smells like the old attic with grandmas stuff from the 60ies?
yes!
records.

- pete townshend with empty glass
on the sleeve cover is a quote printed from meher baba saying "desire for nothing except desirelessness, hope for nothing except to rise above all hopes, want nothing and you will have everything". the lyrics of all songs are printed on the back. so it will be very easy for this guy whos christmas parents those records are to sing along.
-the who - the story of the who
- dire straits
i don't know much about the dire straits. but i know this great song. and it's on this record.

hellelujah!

need inspiration?

2007-12-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

lots of very nice poster design since 1968 from uwe lösch, a german graphic designer.
my other inspiration stuff.

banner two

2007-12-12T08:33:00.000-08:00

to do list

2007-12-10T15:09:00.001-08:00

there are so many things i want to do when i finished my coursework.
first: research about swiss typography
second: research about dutch graphic design
third: split toning
fourth:
and fifth: split toning.
soo amazing:

i bookmarked several tutorial links for this in mister wong. i can't wait!
i think this is what i'm goin to do the whole christmas time: split toning.

AND listening to lovely jeff:

happy hydrogen bomb.

2007-12-09T11:14:00.001-08:00

wohooo

2007-12-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

nummero uno. finished.

thermo

2007-12-07T03:55:00.000-08:00

thermo is a new project from adobe. its a new programme that ought to help designern to create rich internet applications.
for example, if you want to present a tentative draft of an internet application there are always buttons that doesnt work not yet, drop down menus that doesnt exit not yet. its pretty hard sometimes to get the right idea about how it will look like.
thermo offers the possibility to animate the single photoshop files so that you really can feel how it will work.
on the adobe edge site you can get a rough idea how thermo will look like.

it's true: the muse kisses you when you are asleep!

2007-12-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

last night i had the inspiration to make a banner where the user can click on a button that says 'let it snow!' and then some wonderful snowflakes fell from the top. this is a very beautiful idea. because snow is just beautiful! and everyone knows this christimas song. so it is kind of helping the people to prepare for christmas by giving them a song they can't get out of their minds... hähä
i found the first tutorial that hopefully helps me with the snow flakes: http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/snow.htm

ok, but what is the product? a quick brainstorming and now i cant get the snow dome out of my head.

the user can shake the snow dome and let it snow.
how about a society snow dome? rock soc?
yes, this is defenietely THE THINGY thats missing in my room!

best ever!

2007-12-06T06:45:00.001-08:00

flash motivation

2007-12-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

oh how beautiful is this animation. and i DONT want to know how long it took and how much workload is in it.

btw. this band is grandiose:

i love the combination of heavy rock music and classical instruments. as they use the violin.
same with apocalyptica. 4 guys playing the cello. uhhhhh.... birmingham i'm comming! *jump*

shitty flash!

2007-12-05T14:24:00.000-08:00

its not doing what i want. of course!
for my country banner i wanted some nice mouse-over and on-click effects. but flash is doing something different and i have no idea why it is doing what it is right now.
i think i will leave it for today and eat some sweets to feel a bit better...
i think i'm very close. i hope! here we go for the first shitty try with flash:

i'm too dump to put the .swf file here. sorry.

addition: ok, i tested this link in the uni. it worked. it probably looks VERY bad, because i used strange fonts. i will change this.

screenings from the trempoline

2007-12-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

- Caspar Below - Now Available to the Public
- Caspar Below - Sensitive Building
- Tilman Küntzel - 'Bodyguard' and 'Composition for Water' (no direct links available, need to browse: video documentation -> video)
- Max Crow i'm not able to play the movies, but for those who are..
- Aaron Bradbury & C. Gooch - Loetzinn
- Aaron Bradbury - The Fool Looks At The Finger That Points To The Sky
- Johanna Reich - front
- Johanna Reich - Prints
- Blaffert/Wamhof - It's Hard to Believe the Day Could be so Beautiful

annoying sounds, but amazing effects

2007-12-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

flower spoon

2007-12-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

what a beautiful and coltish website i found. as well the design as the programming. a few days a go i head the idea to use a specific tag. inspiration. the list is growing and growing. i would say this website is the most dreamfully one so far. lots of things to discover. and the music is very nice too.

give me an endless loop, please!!

2007-12-01T10:44:00.001-08:00

psychogeographic

2007-11-30T04:56:00.000-08:00

oh yeah, this was a good idea to be part of this walk. so yesterday at 5pm we walked through the city center of nottingham with a group of approx. 20 people, using a different city map. it's quiete hard to explain how this maps works. it has a lot of lines on it and names of places are not really located on the right position.
but it was kind of funny to walk around the city with a group of people that had immense maps in their hands and draw from time to time 'meaningless' phrases on the asphalt.

we followed a given route on this card from the broadway cinema to the main station.
but it was more like that there were phrases given like 'in possesion of a barclays bank account card' and for the next stop 'owner of a vodaphone mobile phone contract'. the task then was to find a connection given on this map between these two location. a connection might be for example that you should be able to know your first and surname to open an bank account or to make a contract for your mobile phone.
there were more than one connection possible. we picked out one, and wrote it one the asphalt anywhere between this two places.
after two hours walking very slow i was frozen to the marrow. i like to exaggerate, but i really enjoyed this cappuccion at the main station in the end.

after this walk, the trampoline festival was about to start back at the broadway cinema with several screenings and art whatever exihibitions?
i really hate being on my own, so i was very glad that Jon took part in this walk too, and wanted to go to the trampoline festival afterwards.

so when we came back the cinema was very busy. and it seemed that nobody knows whats the timetable for the evening. so jon and i were like running from a to b over c to a and b again. down in the studio we where shortlt before takin part in an interactive project that draws neon coloured lines on the wall *smilez*
people get a mobile device, walk around the city for a bit, and on this wall in the studio a line appears almost in real-time and shows the route they are walking.
because of too many difficulties with the timetable respectively the different information we got from different people, we misses to take part in this interactive-neon-lines-drawing-project.

but we saw an interesting screening with four or five different 'shortmovies' oder rather 'documentations'. for example a guy trying to make pictures of a government building. the first guard allowed him to take pictures after having a little discussion for what purpose. a second guard forbid him to take any pictures from any street, sights, perspectives of this buildings.
this was kind of interesting. two people, working for the governement, having the same job but telling different things. the reason for this forbiddance was: the buildings are sensitive. nice!

all-time favourite!

2007-11-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

SPP + Broadway = Confusion -> Wonderful Film

2007-11-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

the task for this weeks tutorial was to go into the broadway cinema and find a piece of art which we should present.
so i went into the broadway cinema, expecting something like an exhibition and needed a few minutes to discover that there is nothing like that, except of a little screen in the hall showing supposably some digital art. i was a little bit confused. and i was a bit worry about what to talk about then in the tutorial.
i just took every flyer i found with me and decided to have a closer look at home. i had this closer look but couldn't get anything out of it.
but i decided to take advantage of this special student/sunday offer in the broadway cinema to watch a movie for 3,50. uhhhhh, and this was a very good decision: the darjeeling limited by wes anderson. what a fantastic, beautiful and gorgeous film.

i talked to deborah yesterday in the tutorial about my confusion with the piece of art and the little screen. it was kind of strange for her too. after finding out that there's the trampoline festival at this weekend i made kind of an agreement with deborah that i will have a look at this psychogeographic walk through nottingham with heath bunting on thursday.
i just found out that this walk is limited to 17 people and it is advisable to book the tickets in advance. so i will have a look tomorrow if there is still one ticket left. otherwise i will have to the festival on friday or saturday as it is scheduled for the whole weekend.

the laws of simplicity

2007-11-19T02:45:00.000-08:00

so, i started reading in one of my books from Maeda. design by numbers actually needs you to have a laptop besides you to start immedeatly programming some artworks.
althoug i already have some experience with processing i decided to start reading the other one.
laws of simplicity has less then 100 sheets and is very easy to read not least because it so well structured. maeda illustrates 10 laws and 3 keys of simplicity illustrated with well-known examples so that it is easy to follow him.
of course, those are not laws everyown has to follow now, for me it's more like a very good advice from a person with a lot of knowledge and experiences.

The first law -reduce- deals with how to reduce functionality. Maeda says: 'The simplest way to achieve simplicity is trough thoughtful reduction'. he confronts the two questions 'how simple can you make it?' with 'how complex does it have to be?'. the most of the items he is discussing i feel familiar with. it is like i always tried to act in this way or heard about this ways reaching simplicity, but having a book like a reference that deals with this topic in a written way is very effective to develop my own knowledge.

beauty overwhelms mess

2007-11-12T14:12:00.001-08:00

i've been to the city centre on sunday and discovered a very nice shop: ikea for the rich. such beauty and simplcity in all their products. of course, too expensive. but i found something that inspired me to be a more ideal student: little notebooks in A5 for £0,75 and 30 sheets.
because all the sheets with my notes i have taken since yet are a complete mess. some sheets are fretted for little shopping lists i made, some sheets have a content from three different lectures on itself with a list of the bands i need to check out for a possible concert... and so on.
the whole way home i was very keen to write in this nice little notebooks. and i'm happy now and much more motivated to go to the next lectures and write everything in it!

First Interaction Design Session

2007-11-08T04:33:00.000-08:00

i just found one of the pictures we took when we had our first interaction design session with roma. in this session we went through the city campus and took pictures from things that we thought interact in any kind with the human being. there is one picture which is really interesting. dan took this picture and when you have a closer look you can see me in the two mirrors.

My Books

2007-11-05T02:41:00.000-08:00

For having a look on my bibliography, please click here.
i really would like to talk about two of them:

the first book from Tom DeMarco - Deadline i had to read for a course last year. the course was about project management and called 'media engineering'. it was a very interesting course which gave me a lot. the main items where about project management, how to start a project, talking about the different software life-cycles and approaches, doing some cost-estimation and things like that.
the professor told us to read this book as a companion for this course. this book is a novel and deals with a fictional story about a software development team. DeMarco illustrates the principles and outright absurdities that affect the productivity of this team. the main character Mr. Tompkins is hired as the manager for this project. he has to deal with an incredible huge staff of developers and to divide them into groups. there are six different products that have to be produced and he wants to combine this chance of having a lot of people with a kind of test of the different project management principles.
he decides to divide the staff into 18 different teams. that means three groups for every product. but the times are of different sizes and they have to use different methods. they all compete against each other and against an impossible deadline.
at the end of nearly every second or third chapter in this book, Mr. Tompkins writes the most importants things, recently learned, down in a book. those headwords combined with the fictional story that uses real software and management approaches the book offers a lot of very useful and interesting information.
i really enjoyed reading this book, although i dont read many books and sometimes have to force myself.

the second book is a little bit more heavier and needs a lot of cenctration and brain work.
i did a course about programming pictures with processing. this is a very nice tool to produce very nice artworks. the professor recommended many books during this course. books from John Maeda, Joseph Weizenbaum, ... and all those authors that fits into this topic. sometimes he gave us little extracts from certain parts of one book. he did this with this german book 'Sieben Wunder der Informatik' by Juraj Hromkovic. im afraid that this book is just available in german but the translation of the title would be something like 'Seven Miracles of Computer Science'. in its nine chapters the books deals with topics like algorithm, endlessness in an algebraical way, computability, computational complexity theory, coincidence as source of efficiency in algorithm, calculate with DNA molecules and quantum calculator. i know this topics sounds very abhorrent. and they are definetly not easy to understant but Juraj Hromkovic deals with very nice examples. for example he tries to describe the functionality of an algorithm with a recipe of baking a cake. i always had problems to understand all this well-phrased and didactic definitions of those kind of terms. but when i read this extract, the professor gave to us, about algorithm and how to bake a cake i was so excited, surprised and amazed by the manner he explained it. and it was the first time i really understand what a algorithm is and how it works in general.
without paying a lot attention to the price of 21quids, which is quiet a lot for me as a student, i bought this book the same day and i never regreted it.

2007-11-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

totally flashed by the last web application lecture, i ordered two books of john maeda at amazon for very cheap prices. a very passionate professor in germany recommended this guy and especially the book 'design by numbers' before to me. so having like the second hint on thursday i just thought, dont care about your money or what ever.
today we did some very addictive excercises in our interaction design session: the tile machine.

My Pathway practitioner: Marc Ahrlich

2007-10-18T06:27:00.000-07:00

alright then. i decided for the guy who awakes my interests in web development. his name is Marc Ahrlich and he is self-employed with a friend from the apprenticeship of computer science. the name of the company is adekon GmbH and they offer services for it-consulting and internet programming.

in february and march i made an intership in this company and it was very enlightening for me. first they gave me 'real work' for clients, like a little flash animation and other little flash stuff like changes in a website for a dentist. i made a design for an autotuning company, which in the end was a little bit modified by Marc but in generally looks like that.
the second month i got the task to make a fictional guestbook and admin login with php, database connection and javascript. and this was the point were i decided to learn more about web development.

Marc did his high school diploma in 1993 and didnt exactly know what to do at this point. he decided to train to something like teller/financial in client counseling (im sorry, i havent found the right translation for Sparkassenfachwirt) to get a little bit more time to think about his future plans. after this apprenticeship in 1998 he did one year of studies in this field. a couple of years work in this area, and he didnt felt very comfortable anymore with this feeling to reach high sales figures in correlation with clients consulting.
in 2001 he trained to computer scientist with e-commerce as a speical field. since october 2003 he is self-employed with adekon GmbH and never regreted this step.

project- and goal-oriented acting, organisation and programming of abstract methods of resolutions are Marcs professions. his qualifications reach from developing online shop systems, to design and grafik, photography and adaption to front and back-end programming with use of php, ajax, javascript, css, html and xml.

are you happy with your wage?: 'because of my self-employment i own, of course, under and we are not at the wage we want to have [...]'. personally i think it quiet good what he earns.

it is always very difficult to predict the development of the future and especial the development of the internet. Marc things that the technology of web 2.0 delivers many interesting approcahes but is not able to replace the classical applications on the pc. because the idea of the web 2.0 is among other things to have all the applications like iphoto, photoshop, excel,... programms like that in the internet. online. that means the clients also have all their data in the internet. that is a very big question of data security. and in his eyes the actual possibillities are not very secure to protect the data against other parties. he also holds that the development of the data security will and can not be so fast. he sees the function of the internet in the future more as a support for the everyday life which works in addition to the classical applications.

about his own future: he is quiet happy now. in the meanwhile they have a very good reputation and degree of popularity in bremen (germany )and beyond it. they receive many orders and the manpower of two is long ago not enough. he wants to expand in the future, but havent found the right person yet.

end.

Lovely Nottingham

2007-10-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

nearly one month in nottingham. and im in love.
in love with the city, the people, the uni, the weather and all the other things. in these days i fell like i never wanna go back.. we will see.

one month and soo many things that happend. but where to begin? maybe the flight from bremen to london. because I started at very nasty weather and also landed by very nasty weather. but beyond all this the beauty is amazing.

the decision to occupy the aiport pick up service and the student accommodation for the first week was great. cause i meet so many people at the airport who also stayed with me in this accommodation. although sansby hall is not the best place to life. because of the 'bathroom' which is one little cabin and EVERYTHING gets wet whilst using the shower. and within 5 nights the fire alaram was released 2 times.
the first time i thought im going insane. i just thought 'fuck, how can u get this noise out off your head?'. i decided to put on my clothes and went outside, i was soo happy that very one was outside and realised that this noise is the fire alarm.
So i was very happy when i move into a private shared house. although i wasnt very happy for the first days. cause the flat was (and still is) very dirty.
but after some nice evenings with my flat mates and some flyer stuff at the wall it wasnt that bad anymore.
and now im soo fucking happy with my flat. it just takes me 6 min to the lectures und 3 min more to the city centre. perfect. brilliant. lovely.

i really enjoy nearly every walk to the city center. a cigarette. a coffee. music. me. nottingham. and im the happiest girl in the whole entire world!!!!

so after the orientation week followed the freshers weeks with first 'classess' of the multimedia programme. i really enjoyed making the pinhole camera of a beercan and the stop motion animation. just have a look:
picture with pinhole camera
stop motion animation

very great was also joining the rock soc. so many events. so many new amazing people. i really appreciate the huge assortment of alternative, indie, rock clubs.