Now take a closer look, and see that the cat is literally build up from the letters C-A-T, and – ofcourse – the same for the mouse.  (Amazing right !)

This is the work of  calligraphy artist Margaret Shepherd. An author of best-selling books about calligraphy and etiquette. For example books with pretty clear title’s such as;

- The Art of the Handwritten Note: A Guide to Reclaiming Civilized Communication
- The Art of the Personal Letter: A Guide to Connecting Through the Written Word.

Definitely worth checking is her Gallery and Website

Really great stuff !

Artist Statement by Margaret Shepherd, February 2010:

While the letters I use are often the simplest classic pen-written forms, I arrange them in completely new ways. My calligraphy aims at the area of the viewer’s brain right in the middle between reading and seeing. I began by using long passages to build up woven textures, full of pattern and color. Now I use short words to form shapes that look like what the words mean–the letters c a t line up to look like a cat, for instance. The viewer feels as though the image has been concealed in the letters all along, and my art lets it be seen. My mantra is that a letter can be anything–a hoof, a breast, a hat, or a whisker.

I have always tried to free calligraphy from its antiquarian tendencies; I don’t rely on ornamental borders, medieval elements, or expensive materials such as gold leaf to carry the image. I have always sought a page where there is no image other than what is created by the letters.

In addition to exhibiting my work, I have written a number of books for amateurs and students of calligraphy. This year I am writing Calligraphy All Over the World, and discovering that colleagues everywhere are also taking radical new approaches working to their own non-Roman scripts. We each have our own unique style.

A letter can be anything!

Via

Casio is so pleased with the running contest and the way the community is working that they want to show their appreciation in a very special and very nice way: they are giving away two Casio EX FH-100. Thanks a lot Casio, excellent move! And to make the whole thing fair and nice for everyone, we decided to grant the extra prizes to those who are usually left out in the cold, places 13 and 14. They definitely deserve a prize as well and we wish we always had the opportunity to show our appreciation in such a fabulous way.

We will in any case try to make some more extra prizes available on a regular basis in the future – and there are about a thousand ways of allocating them: to the comment king of a contest, a tombola for all contest participants, the newcomer of the month etc. etc.. Who knows, maybe we already have some good stuff lined up…?

So dearest community, what do you say? Or are you too busy working on a banner for Casio to say anything at all? Let’s rock this contest and show OUR appreciation for this extra nice move!

Luckily, the phenomenon is not very present on jovoto, but there’s just no way to ensure a 100% troll-free zone. Who are these people? And what do they want? That’s still quite a mystery, not only to us but also to researchers (yea, there’s actual scientific research on the troll phenomenon). An early and often cited analysis comes from by Judith Donath, who describes trolling as:

“… a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group’s common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they — and the troll — understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll’s enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group.

Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community.”

Her text appeared in ‘Communities in Cyberspace’, p. 27ff (Edited by Peter Kollock and Marc A. Smith, Routledge, London) in 1999 – when “cyberspace” was still a legitimate term and didn’t sound as ridiculous as it does now. Btw thanks to google. the book, or large parts of it, can be read here.

More than 10 years later, the communities have changed but trolls are still much the same. It’s hard to tell when enough is enough and action must be taken to expel the troll from the community. For jovoto, a line is drawn when our Terms of Service have been violated and several other community members have felt so disturbed that they decided to report the particular troll for being offensive, or intruding into their private lives.

The most useful and practical tip on how to deal with trolls is the simple advice: Don’t feed them. Trolls are hungry for attention and will always grab for more, so its best to ignore them from the very start.

Forget about Avatar,  forget about alice in Wonderland and YES also forget about the geeky 3d glasses.

Good morning future. Imagine somebody prints out a 2d print, and then suddenly buildings pop off from that print. Showing you exactly what the structure of – for instance – the building will look like. This technology really gives you the opportunity to generate high-speed, life-like, visually 3dimensional products. And all within a screen as small as 30 x 30  of a few centimeters thick. For sure you’ll have to see this one, before believing it.(check out the movie below)

Imagine how we could use this technology within the creative industry !

Holographic Architectural Imaging by Zebra from Core77 on Vimeo.

Via Archibald Kobayshi

A hammer, an hammerhead shark
A Saw, an crocodile
A garden hose, an elephant

Designer Marc Monguilod from Barca really did a great job with these packages, for sure also check out his website with his portfolio. Very refreshing style !

Found on lovely package

So is it groundbreaking/inspiring/innovative ? NO, but well… yeah its an Apple.

The facebook page is the main jovoto representation on facebook. Become our fan to help us out of the misery of having so embarrassingly few!

Becoming our fan you’ll be be second (right after our twitter followers) to be informed when new projects start on jovoto, and you’ll be able to interact with us on a day to day basis. We try to send out interesting links and events every now and then, whenever something connected to design, the internets, crowdsourcing. collaboration. co-creation, community (or any other cool word with ‘co’) has caught our attention. There might also be the occasional freebie, if you all behave well.

Oh, and Jo Voto, our facebook profile guy, is also still around, taking care of some administrative tasks. Just don’t mind him and his little robot ways too much.

Instead, become fan, fan, fan, yes, FAN!

Thanks!

BTW, the cute hand-drawn facebook icon is from here and it’s for free!

Over the next couple of days you may experience some srange shifts and turbulence in the value we call Karma!

We’re adjusting the Karma system, trying to determine the ideal factors to have the BEST of you lead the Karma position. And by best we mean: best for the community, in terms of quality of contributions and willingness to participate in a positive, encouraging manner.

We have to test this live, because we need to observe what happens with live data. Let us know what you think and  of course we’ll keep you up to date with the procedure.

We asked you to come up with ideas to make monoskiing popular again. And hell yes, you did have a lot of great ideas. The ideas you submitted were pretty diverse. The Submissions changed between posters  about condoms until ideas who involved Sir Prince Charles.

The quality of most of the submissions was once again high and even more important, you did a great job commenting and rating them.

And we proudly present THE winners !

Pommes really proved his talent in this contest. With 2 ideas in the top five, he proved what great illustrations he can make. The one-eyed-cyclops is the perfect symbol to make the young target group enthusiastic about monoskiing.

One is enough, simple as that. But what a great idea from joelo.

jotto really got a total different approach on this contest. He really worked out an extremely funny idea about “One is better then two”. With a view inside the diary of Alain, you can see the pain and suffering Alain’s been through in his younger years from the rivalry with Hansi.

And last but not least the rest of the prizewinners.

While most people try to hide the fact they use photoshop to brush up their pictures, there are also artists who obviously distort images. Only in this case Erik Johansson does it so cleverly that you almost start believing in the amazing illusions he creates. Different from a lot of other digital artists Erik Johansson is a 100% self-made man. He does everything on his own. From the idea for the image ’till shooting the pictures and even ’till being his own model most of the time.

In an interview with don’t panic magazine, he explains the mothifs behind his work.

“My goal is to make pictures as realistic as possible, but at the same time impossible. Many photographers try to look weird, so I try to make my shots as plausible as possible. I would say I try to use humour a lot and I rarely have a didactic message. Sometimes I want to tell something, but mostly I want people to interpret.”

What i especially love about Johannson’s work – apart from his incredible technical skills – is the fact that you can easily relate to his scenes. Just punching yourself in the face after you’ve done something stupid or who hasn’t wished to simly iron out a kink in you’re character. check out his website here

“go your own way”

“face vs fist”

“downside of the upside”

found on visualblog