Located in both New York City (Creative Fluff’s base) and Buenos Aires, Concealed Lighting has managed to provide innovative solutions for creative problems posed by clients for lighting design.  The first, and possibly my most favorite examples are their display lighting examples.

Aside from the fact that I’m a sucker for anything that glows blue, I found their creative display lighting reminiscent of fibirous spider webs and it was an excellent example of using natura as the basis for a design concept.  What’s most interesting about this specific example is that it uses its subtle lighting to make impressive  shadow illustrations on plain walls getting rid of any need to spend money on creative wallpaper.

This second example is a completely lit bookcase / storage displace with built in LED’s that illuminate every compartment.  Concealed Lighting’s use of LED’s instead of lightbulbs offer them the ability to consume less energy, it allows for flexible/subtle lighting sources, and it is less likely to set anything on fire removing any and all health hazzards.  The bookcase remains minimal and fuctional while retaining the ability to qualify for something that would be displayed in the MoMA’s product design section.

The final piece from concealed lighting I want to discuss is the Nikon display.   The subtle lighting in the background is far from a neon sign with Nikon’s name on it.  Instead it is a warm, f uzzy, but recognizable version of the logo created by hundreds of golden LED’s.  Even though its a lighting display it manages to retain Nikon’s corporate branding while expressing it in a creative manner.

If you need lighting design done for you or just want to check out their portfolio make sure to see them here: concealedlighting.com

Windows Live Mesh is an online web application which allows the sharing of files between multiple computers, and what makes it different than other online storage applications is that it allows the syncrhonization between multiplie media devices.  For example, you can sync up files between your PC, Mac, iphone, Blackberry, and almost any other media platform.  Windows Live Mesh prides itself on being the best web application for: 

•  ”Unified Device Management” - enabling your devices to report into a common service, for status, for health, or to report their location.
•  ”Unified Data Management”- or the transparent synchronization of files, folders, documents & media, the bi-directional synchronization of arbitrary feeds, of all kinds, across your devices and the web.
•  ”Unified Application Management” - for centralized web-based deployment of apps across the devices you own.
• “Centralized Management” - where you could configure and personalize your devices and remote control into them from just about anywhere. 

And from the moment I started using it, I found that the software wasn’t that far off from its ideals.

When you click the large call to action button in the middle of your screen it brings you to a desolate page devoid of..well..anything.  You start yourself up by clicking “Creative New Folder”, name it, and right away you can start loading files.  If you have Vista or a Vista knockoff you’ll notice that it looks a lot like its File Browsing system.  And since it looks just like it, you assume that it can operate the same.  To test this out, I went ahead and tried veiwing the fules I uploaded as thumbnails.  However, to do this I had to install Microsoft Silverlight.

I had been hearing a lot about Silverlight but I never paid it much attention.  Upon installing the software I found something interesting:

It functions just ike Vista!  I was particulary excited because I can easily upload videos, flash movies, and other animation files and view them right there on the web without installing anymore software.  I also didn’t have to wait for a conversion time of the video, it would just play right there the moment I uploaded. (If only Vimeo could learn how to do that).  If you’re looking for a way to keep lots of files between you and your fellow bloggers, try Windows Live Mesh out, it makes for a great online content management system and it’s easy to use.

[Images from http://www.veryawesomeworld.com/awesomebook/inside.html ]

More can be found about the book from http://radder.bigcartel.com/product/an-awesome-book and http://dallasclayton.com/products/

More bullet buddies can be found on the artist’s own website at http://www.rachelpfeffer.com/bullets.html and on Etsy.

[ Images from http://www.rachelpfeffer.com/bullets.html ]

Coming across this work, I just had to share. UK based artist Andrea Joseph shows her talents in her remarkable illustrations mostly of everyday objects and a few creative interpretations. How much work goes into something as detailed as the washing machine or desk-top illustration is nearly unimaginable to me. Never before have I seen such extraordinary applications of crosshatching. Her illustrations are incredibly detailed and she claims to have “Obsessive Compulsive Drawing Disorder,” [ http://www.bestoff.info/2008/11/03/andrea-joseph-sketches/ ] obviously not a bad thing to have if these are the products.

[Images from: http://www.bestoff.info/2008/11/03/andrea-joseph-sketches/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreajoseph/ ]

More of Andrea Joseph’s work is available on her blog: http://andreajoseph24.blogspot.com/
And on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreajoseph/

“Charlotte Day combines her passion for pattern and illustration with her love of plants to produce unique botanically influenced designs for textiles, stationery, wall paper, merchandise and editorial projects. While her main tools remain pencil and paper, designs are digitally assembled in order to create perfect repeats and provide work in commercially compatible format.”  (http://www.charlottedaydesign.com)

The above image is some of his designer wallpaper that I thought was fitting for the season.  Simple, creative, and visually remarkable Day’s work is a great example of tasteful wallpaper.  Charlotte’s artowrk is reminiscent of the arts and crafts movement and takes the period of art in a new direction.  Instead of my normal rants and reviews of artwork, I’m simply going to show some of Day’s work.  Make sure to visit her website at:

http://www.charlottedaydesign.com

Before taking a look at more of his work lets take a look at Natrop’s background.   Natrop recieved his BFA in Painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a merit scholarship.  Since then he’s been featured at a multitude of galleries and has been invited as a guest lecturer to the School of Art and the University of Tennessee.  Not to mention the Vincent Prince Art Museum.  Natrop’s work features installations of fibrious paper cut outs that immediatly give the feeling of soft fabrics and spiderwebs.

Not of all his work consists of these paper cut out installations.  His work encompasses a multitude of forms and the paper cutouts can easily become static, wall-mounted pieces of art.

If you want to see more of his work make sure to check him out at http://www.chrisnatrop.com/ Creative Fluff definitely reccomends him.

Roskosh was born on MAy 12th, 1984 and attended the Arts Institute of Bournemouth and recieved a BA in animation in 2007.  During this time period and onwards Roskosh has been creating stunning illustrations remniscient of early 70’s pop art while managing to retain a large part of Roskosh’s personal aesthetic.  The main motifs in his work seems to be that of story/fairy tales.  Knights, dragons, robots, damsels in distress and damsels causing distress.  His work is provacative, simple, attractive, and inspirational.  An interesting thing I found with his work is that it is extremely textile, in that the way he colors images gives the impression that the illustrations could easily be printed or woven onto cloth and retain the same amount of quality.  Below is more of his work which will speak for himself and make sure to check out his work at: http://www.louisroskosch.com/

Backboard is a relativily new application which sets itself out to be an:  ”easy [way] to securely collect feedback and approval on documents, presentations, graphics, and websites.

Use it with your team in the office or around the world. There are no meetings to schedule and Backboard handles all of the coordination for you.”  Backboard makes a great place to have virtual meetings and get feedback and I figured the best way to see just how great the software was would be by testing it out.  As most of you know I launched Megalongcat.com about a month ago so that Creative Fluff would be spared of my rants; so I decided lets test out how good it is at managing my super awesome game-plan for marketing Megalongcat.

There are some issues that are easily overlooked.  You can set Backboard to take a screenshot of a website if that’s what you’re designing, however the script that takes the picture can sometimes mess up and it reads the code on the page wrong and re-creates the page wrong.  Notice the two “feedback” buttons in the screenshot.  There should only be one.  Aside from the simple quirks of any online application, I found Backboard to be really streamlined and efficient.  I could add a list of people via email addresses to review my work and leave comments.  There was even a pen tool so that a person could mark up the page (with a red pen, get it?) and leave comments on why they did.  However, all of this falls apart if you don’t have the proper personal file organization to even get work up on BlackBoard to review.  That’s where Bento Comes in.

Bento is a file organizational software platform that has it built in to pretty much organize anything you might need, here are some examples:

• Address Book
• Animal Stats
• Article submissions
• Artwork
• Assets
• Book Characters
• Buddies
• Chat Dictionary
• Classes

The only gripes that I have with Bento are that it is only available MAC OS platforms, and that it’s a solid framework which doesn’t allow for excessive amounts of custimization.  However I strongly reccomend Bento for Mac users who don’t want to bother with the nuts and bolts of a program and just get the files in order.  If you haven’t looked them up already check these two programs out at:

http://www.getbackboard.com/

http://www.filemaker.com/products/bento/overview.html

Chanukah Menorah!

Chanukah is the Jewish Festival of Lights which takes place every December and lasts for 8 days and nights. Chanukah celebrates the recapture and rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 BC.

According to the Book of Maccabae once the Temple had been reclaimed a lamp was lit; this lamp according to Jewish law had to be kept lit and never put out! The only problem was that there was only enough oil to keep the lamp lit for one day. This of course is where the miracle comes in; the oil in the lamp lasted eight days, just enough time to aquire more oil.

To commemorate this miracle a lamp is lit during every night of Chanukah and placed in an eight-branched candlestick called a menorah. Here are some menorah examples:

Now this is an interesting Menorah, it is seems to be made out of nails!

Although this next one may not be religious none the less it is fairly interesting….especially if you are a cat lover like Fred is…

This one is very nice, I especially like the flame effects,

This one is also quite interesting,

And here I will leave you with what a typical Menorah may look like all lit up on Chanukah!

I hope you have all enjoyed this little menorah show. Hopefully you may have learned a little something about this Festive and fun holiday!

Happy Chanukah!