1. KaBoom! by PES

This is the latest work by the amazing stop-motion film artist known as PES. If you haven’t come across PES before, enjoy!

2. Deadline: Post-It Stop-Motion

You don’t need a lot of crazy props to make great stop-motion animation, as Bang-yao Liu demonstrates in his remarkable work with colored post-it notes.

3. The PEN Story

Simple in concept, this gorgeous short required shooting over 60,000 still photos.

4. TXT ISLAND

A beautiful short stop-motion film by Chris Gavin using nothing but plastic sign board letters.

5. MUTO: Graphiti Stop Motion by BLU

Don’t miss this one! Fantastic stop-motion animation executed on public walls of Buenos Aires and Baden by the artist BLU.

6. Guerreiros Malandrops® “O Filme”

7. Ivan Ives – All My Life (Official Video)

A brilliantly frenetic montage of stop-motion techniques.

8. Sorry I’m Late

This one is masterful! Animation is shot by a ceiling-mounted camera, with the “landscape” moving underneath. See how it was made.

9. Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

A classic.

10. Food Fight

A history of US military engagements from World War Two on, as depicted by iconic national food items.

Wireframes make it easier to communicate ideas, reduce scope creep, cut down on project costs (due to fewer design revisions later), and enable greater upfront usability and functionality testing.

1. Mockingbird

Mockingbird is a web-based beta software based on the Cappuccino framework to create, link together, preview and share wireframes of your website or application.

It’s a clean and user-friendly interface, with drag and drop UI, interactive page linking, smart text resizing and the ability to easily share mockups with clients or colleagues with a direct link, make Mockingbird one of the best wireframe tools available.

As it’s web-based, it means you can create and share mockups from anywhere. It will be interesting to see just how good Mockingbird is when it comes out of beta and the full version is released.

1. LovelyChart

Lovely Charts is an online diagramming application, that allows you to create flowcharts, sitemaps, organization charts and wireframes.

One of the key features is the application’s ability to make assumptions based on the type of diagram you’re drawing, and thus streamline the drawing process. The History management feature is extremely useful, keeping 20 states of your diagram in memory should you wish to go back to an earlier version or undo any changes.

There is a powerful yet simple tool set provided, with an extensive library of crafted symbols to suit most requirements.

3. Cacoo

Cacoo is a user-friendly online drawing tool that allows you to create a variety of diagrams, such as sitemaps, wireframes and network charts.

The drag and drop UI means creating diagrams is relatively simple; there are also a number of stencils to utilize which could make the process even more efficient. Unlimited Undo is a neat feature with the history of all modifications saved, meaning you can undo right back to the start.

Numerous users can also work on and complete the same diagram simultaneously with the application supporting real-time collaboration.

4. Gliffy

Gliffy is a web-based application which allows you to create process flow diagrams, org charts, floor plans, business processes, network diagrams, technical drawings, website wireframes, and more. It uses a drag and drop UI with the ability to add boxes, buttons, and lines from the tool shape library to anywhere on the page. Then you can easily add text to create a clear, concise mockup.

You have access to a complete library of shapes and can even import your own images, like logos and backgrounds, to complement your diagrams. You can share and collaborate with anyone, on any platform, in any location, while having the ability to protect and track changes.

The Gliffy API (beta) also makes it possible for developers to add Gliffy diagramming features to their existing web-based applications based on a simple to use framework.

5. Lumzy

Lumzy is a mockup and prototype creation tool for websites and applications. You can add events to controls, place controls inside other containers and emulate your project with easy page navigation triggered by user actions.

Real-time collaboration is one of the key features, with tools for team editing, a chat engine for deliberating over designs and file versioning. Lumzy is also the only mockup tool with a real image editor built-in — simply grab any picture from your drive and edit it, apply hue, saturation, adjust contrast, and so on, and then add it to your project.

The Pro version is white label and can be integrated into an existing platform or hosted on your own server which may be of interest to companies working with confidential information.

6. Mockflow

Mockflow is a web app based on the Adobe Flash Platform. It has a clean, minimalistic, organized interface and the editing feature-set set is extensive.

You drag and drop components into a mockup to create the wireframe with the ability to add pages and map out an entire site and it’s structure. The built-in components are extensive, from charts and ads to menus and dropdowns. The ability to upload your own images to use, as well as the option to choose from a set of stickers of common site elements, such as social networking and e-commerce images, make the process of ‘building’ the mockup pretty efficient.

You can talk over the real-time chat and invite others as editors or viewers, depending on the level of editorial power you’d like each member to have. Editors have the ability to make changes to the wireframes, while viewers are limited to reviewing and commenting.

The MockStore is a wonderful add-on service that provides third party components and templates shared by the user community.

7. Pencil Project

The Pencil Project is an open source tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping that everyone can use. It’s available as a Firefox add-on or as a standalone application (Linux and Windows only). Pencil essentially installs an entire drawing application into your Firefox browser and gives you the ability to display, save, and load an external canvas, together with a palette of shapes.

Of interest is the Stencil Generator which allows you to create your own collection of stencil shapes by pointing the generator to a folder of image files. The Clipart tool lets you search through the library at openclipart.org and directly drop the images right into your Pencil document. Pencil also supports the use of external objects; both raster and vector images can be imported using copy-paste or drag and drop.

The final prototype can be exported as a PNG image, web page, OpenOffice file, PDF or DOC file. If you’re a dedicated Firefox user, then Pencil could be an essential tool for visually expressing conceptual ideas on the fly. It even won the Mozilla award for ‘Best New Add-On’ in 2008.

8. SimpleDiagrams

SimpleDiagrams is a small desktop application that helps you express your ideas quickly and simply with just enough functionality to describe a thought or capture a process. It’s built on the Adobe AIR platform, so will run smoothly on Mac, Windows and Linux.

You can drag, drop and size symbols from libraries, add photos and post-notes and export your diagram to PNG.

It may not be a fully-fledged diagramming tool, but because SimpleDiagrams is so basic, you will be creating wireframes or diagrams within minutes.

9. Denim

Denim is a free multi-platform desktop app that supports sketching and allows design at various refinement levels. It’s an efficient tool for early stage brainstorming and wireframing.

Two main features within Denim are Components, which enable you to create widgets that can be reused and Conditionals, which allow you to create transitions between pages depending on the end-users’ actions, resulting in a more interactive experience.

It’s a simple yet effective tool and allows for easy annotation using editing gestures.

10. Website Wireframe

Website Wireframe is a very simple web-based tool for building wireframes in a matter of minutes. A link to view the wireframe can be sent through email, instant message, or mobile phone, and then the wireframe can be easily updated based on feedback, discussion, ideas and suggestions.

The key to this tool is the simplicity of usage, lending itself to speed, both in wireframe creation and sharing. It is free to register and use and works in most modern web browsers.

It may not be particularly sophisticated, however it’s simplicity and efficiency is perfect for those who want an alternative to tools with a higher learning curve.

source : mashable

After Effects Tutorial – Pixel Perfect Camera Move Transitions from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.

How To Color Correct Video from your 5D or 7D with After Effects from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.

The Canon 5D, Canon 7D, Nikon D90, and Nikon D5000 put the ability to shoot high quality video in the hands of so many photographers. The footage looks great, but it lacks contrast and finish. Watch this tutorial to learn how to color correct, grade and finish your DSLR footage in After Effects.

Thanks to Brock Nordstrom for the Canon 5D footage!

Photo by Erica Marshal

I have been preaching for short demo reels for a while now. But this study adds actual data to the claim that people don’t watch long videos. What’s most interesting is It’s not just content that determines how long you watch. Knowing that the video is long makes you more likely to not finish watching. For example, even though the first 30 seconds of the long and the short video used in the study were the same, people watched MORE of the 30 second video because they could see that the end wasn’t too far away.

Even though viewers were exposed to the same exact content, the drop-off rate of the 90-second video was much higher. By the end of the 30-second video there were about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the 90-second video.

Wanna try this experiment for yourself? Head over too ReelRoulette and see how long it takes you before you want to watch the next reel. How fast do you click the “Next Reel” button?

So, how long is your reel?

Here we’ll give you an inside look at the strategies of avant garde industry leaders who’ve spent years figuring out how to move beyond social media hype and implement practical management practices into their daily work routines.

Brad Nelson, Jeremy Thum, Joel Price, Joel Frey and Bowen Payson are all marketers behind big brand names. They’ve done the dirty work. Their lessons and words of wisdom range from finding ways to unify digital assets to knowing your niche, and each tip should be heeded by those looking to follow in their footsteps.

1. Let Someone Else Say It

Starbucks is at the forefront of mastering the social web. The company is one of the most popular brands on Facebook, is adept at social media to drive foot traffic to stores, is a beta tester for Twitter’s Promoted Tweets platform and was the first big brand to offer a nationwide Foursquare special.

Product Manager Brad Nelson is often the genius behind the company’s online and social media initiatives, he’s also the primary person behind the brand’s very popular Twitter account. Much of his day-to-day responsibilities involve online brand management, and as such he’s learned that sometimes the best way to say something on the social web is to, “have someone else say it.”

Nelson advises other brands to take the same course of action. “If you can find a tweet, photo or blog post that says what you’re trying to say then use that instead of writing it yourself. It does a couple of great things. Your readers will see it as an external validator, so they’ll be more likely to respond than they would if it was a billboard on the side of the road. It also makes the original author happy. Everyone wants to see their content get exposure.”

In fact, Nelson says that he tries to “find things to retweet every day.”

Recently the coffee retailer started a Treat Receipt promotion; customers that purchase coffee during the day can return after 2 p.m. for a $2 grande cold beverage. Of course, Twitter is proving to be a great medium to promote the campaign, and Nelson is employing his own strategy by retweeting tweets like this one from @jaredbtaylor: “This whole go to @Starbucks before 2 pm and get a $2 grande drink after 2 thing is pretty sweet.”

2. Unify Digital Properties

Any online or social media brand manager has more than a single audience to worry about. There’s the company website, corporate blog, Twitter account, Facebook Page, YouTube (YouTube) channel, Foursquare (Foursquare) presence and so on and so forth. Staying competitive in today’s social media landscape means setting up shop where your fans are.

While the go-where-the-people-are strategy is an effective way to reach more brand fans, it’s also the quickest way to dilute the brand as a whole. That’s why as the Director of Interactive Marketing for the Chicago Bulls, Jeremy Thum says that the company is now focused on unification and tying together each of the disparate online identities.

The Chicago Bulls Interactive Marketing Department has been busy redesigning Bulls.com, launching the made-for-web BullsTV and working on social-media driven live fan chat sessions during this past season’s regular and post season games. The team has so many online initiatives that unification — providing “a consistent fan experience” — has become a must when tackling online brand management.

Part of the unification process has been to build BullsConnect — a custom commenting platform with Facebook integration — to create a singular login and commenting experience across their online properties. In the future, they’ll be incentivizing fan activity with a Chicago Bulls points-based loyalty system to draw attention to this unification initiative. Moving forward the team will also work to bring a “Lite” version of BullsTV to their Facebook Page, as well as use it to spruce up their “dormant YouTube channel.”

When it comes to the bigger picture, unification is just one part of the process. Thum says that, “during the last 12 months, we have been focusing on building or re-building our fundamental digital marketing components, unifying them and creating unique opportunities to engage with fans on our web presence.”

3. Leave Your Ego Behind

Social media is very much an ego-driven space. The most successful social media platforms use ego and game mechanics to drive engagement, and both people and brands are often measured in fans and followers. Success is often attributed to retweets, likes, shares and various other influence metrics.

With so much of what happens on these sites fueled by this type of behavior, brands need to be careful when it comes to the employees they trust to represent them online. Social media staffers need to leave their egos behind, says Joel Frey, Travelocity’s senior public relations manager.

Frey is one of the sophisticated minds at Travelocity helping the company engage in social media travel chatter with creative initiatives on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Chatroulette. The company’s day-to-day online brand management strategy is fairly straightforward and involves an aggressive use of popular Twitter and social media application, TweetDeck (TweetDeck).

Frey and team are quick to chime in and involve customer service reps when anyone voices a problem or concern. But, Frey cautions against team members acting too rash or letting their ego get the best of them. He also warns against taking a sarcastic tone when speaking with customers online. Both tips seem obvious but are fast-forgotten when reacting with “gut instinct” in the real-time world of social media.

Frey’s policy is to, “treat my interactions with customers on social media as I would with any media interview: I get to the point, I tell the truth and I recognize that a customer’s time is valuable and that it’s important to help them get their issue resolved as fast as possible.”

To avoid any hint of attitude in your tone, Frey also recommends having, “someone proofread your work before you post, especially if there’s any risk that the content might be deemed offensive.”

And as an alternative strategy, Frey has no qualms about sending out Roaming Gnome statues. It’s a “once in a while” gesture the company employs to make a random, “I wish I had a Roaming Gnome of my own” Twitterer’s or Facebook user’s day.

4. Know Your Niche

Like Starbucks, Virgin America is one of a select group of brands testing Twitter’s Promoted Tweets advertising platform. Shortly after the platform first launched in March, the company made a bold decision to announce its expansion to Toronto, Canada entirely through Twitter, using Promoted Tweets to help spread the word.

Clearly, Virgin America felt confident enough in their online brand management skills to pinpoint Twitter as the right medium for their big announcement. Online Marketing Manager Bowen Payson attributes this confidence to the company’s ability to understand their online customer base well enough to reach them in the right ways.

Payson advises other companies to keep it simple and find just the right niche. “There is often the temptation to over-complicate, so keeping things fresh and brand-forward is important, but you also have to keep it clear and targeted to the customers you want.”

Payson dates Virgin America’s niche-focused strategy back to their Boston launch in 2009. Instead of going for a large, broad media push, the airline opted to stay small and focused with their media plan.

“We worked with the likes of Gothamist (Bostonist, SFist, and LAist), going.com, Flavorpill, Boston Phoenix, and Curbed to reach an audience of influencers … It was so successful that we applied this same approach for the Fort Lauderdale and Toronto launches while adapting to those unique markets.”

At the end of the day, Payson says the key to success is “understanding how guests respond differently in niche marketing efforts than other broader efforts. So it is not only about smarter targeting and ad placement, but also about brand and demographic alignment.”

5. Don’t Wallow or Gloat

Social media is exploding in the world of sports. Athletes and teams are savvy to social mediums that inspire fan-reaction, and fans are finding that their voices are amplified with the help of Twitter, Facebook and their online friends.

Sports (sports) fans are an enthusiastic bunch to say the least, and this enthusiasm tends to swell when a team or player is either doing remarkably well or dreadfully underperforming. No one knows this more than the social media manager for a professional sports team. As the San Diego Chargers’ Manager of Internet Services, Joel Price regularly faces emotional outbursts of both love and hate from Chargers fans.

“In sports, you win, you’re beloved. You lose, you can’t do anything right,” says Price.

Price admits that often times the social media team is tasked with trying to bear the weight of a win or loss and “carry everything on their shoulders,” an overwhelming endeavor to say the least. To counteract that pressure, Price advises others to, “Realize you’re the conduit to the organization or company. Some issues can’t be resolved by you, accept it.”

In his own work, Price finds it “delusional” to use social media as way to try and convince fans of success following a tough loss. Price and team hope to inspire Chargers fans to take the “get ‘em next week” attitude by leading through example.

“Emotions run very high in the sports business and nasty things will be said. You might not be able to change everything that people would like, but by at least paying attention, you’ll gain respect for the brand you manage.”

The same strategy should be applied to moments of greatness according to Price. “When you win those big games don’t gloat. Leave that for the fans.”

Source : Mashable

Google logos (c) Google Inc. Used with permission.

Dreaming
Amazing sleeping beauty, where the beauty is actually also the beast, by Peter ツ. Prints are available as well.

Blue Sky

Far And Away

Inside Capitol Hill

The Endpoint
By Jeannette Oerlemans.

Falling Up

Song of Tide
By Wira Nurmansyah from Indonesia.

Blue
By Earl A. Jones.

Bunny Bokeh
Happy bunny bokeh wednesday, by Little Miss Patricia.

The Cat

Abstract
By tanakawho.

Ink Sea
By Hermin Abramovitch.

Fan’s Eye
A macro shot by LauHi.

falltuer

Painter
By Konrad Bąk.

Ant, The Driver
By Raphael Guarino.

A purple leaf
By National Geographic.

Flower Petal
By Alistair Campbell.

Keeper
By Wysseri.

Who Feels Love
By Ciuky.

In The Mood 4 Love
By Antonio Navarro Wijkmark.

Tunnel
By Kleemass.

Eyjafjallajökull
By Skarphéðinn Þráinsson.

Susanna Majuri
A disturbing yet insteresting serie of images by Susanna Majuri.

San Torini

Abandoned
By tEdGuY49.

blue canary
By Ursula I Abresch.

Bearded Dragon
A macro shot by LauHi.

Ant (by Unknown)
Please let us know who is the author of this image in the comments.

Light Paintings by Twin Cities Brightest

Last Click

The Plugs
Well, that’s not a beautiful photo per se, but we are confident that this image will spark your imagination for a more productive workflow — at least when it comes to handling cabels and plugs!

Source : SmashingMagazine