Happy New Year all! Sorry I didn't get a post up last week but I decided I'd only do one if I came up with a truly great sketch or idea, neither of which occurred while I idled by in my deep holiday coma brought on by good food and a nauseating amount of ye olde consumerisme. Anyways, seeing as how some people are convinced the end is nigh...again...I thought I'd draw up a nice Mayan inspired sketch (though my style tends to add a lot more North Eastern indigenous stylings since I prefer the organic shapes, patterns and I grew up on the stuff in the Smithsonian). The disc supposedly has January 1, 2012 in Mayan numerals displayed as the number of days since the beginning of the current Mayan epoch, but I'm no anthropologist only a Googlist.

Do you like eyes? Do you enjoy staring into someone's eyes and getting lost in those pools of inky blackness? The windows to the soul are an artistic obsession with practically every creator out there. Plus they're right up there with faces and genitals in terms of things people identify in abstract works and nature. I'd wager its an evolutionary survival thing (keen tip: if you're in a crowded city like NYC make sure you're looking directly where you want to walk, this is actually how we tell where others are walking and not by any other factors like body language). Clearly Stylianos Schicho also loves peepers.

Stylianos' focus doesn't end with eyes. Most pieces share an isometric perspective and a fish-eye lens effect around the point(s) of interest(s); normally the subject's eyes. Also, a running theme seems to be people in space normally under some sort of surveillance system. Together these facets give an overwhelming sense that these images come from some artistic security camera positioned discreetly in the corner of each setting. However, the fact that the subject(s) make direct eye contact with the camera/viewer is quite unnerving, making each piece a powerful statement about civil liberties and personal space.

Now making a website full of content can be difficult. Its easy to clutter a page and no amount of cool interface or graphic design can save a page that has been overloaded. Such is the sad fate of sports clothing brand Protest. I love the site, don't get me wrong, however the homepage is an overstimulating mess in spite of some really cool little bits of functionality like the movable shelves and slick hover transitions. I simply don't know where to go or what to click.

One solution, as illustrated by McCormack and Morrison, is to take those individual elements and let them fill the page to prevent content bloat. Granted such a model probably wouldn't work for a retail brand like Protest who wants to put as much purchasable material and engaging links in front of the user immediately but one has to acknowledge that a usability line has been crossed sooner rather than later. At the very least Portest could benefit by giving each element more space, perhaps a whole horizontal line, or generally giving their homepage a more regular grid pattern.

I always love when I find a video for the Sketching Mechanism actually centered around sketching. But 12 Dessins Par Jour takes it to a whole other level. Denis Chapon, a French animator, chose to recycle some aluminum paper with the help from scrap metal pick up Newcastle . The results are fantastic and clearly show how ridiculously skilled Chapon is at animation and drawing. His command of perspective creates some truly fabulous shots and the entire sequence, despite having no planned out narrative, is a fantastic exploration into the power of his imagination. I want to know how he stayed so consistent in style and line over three years, not to mention how he addressed the frame registration problems he must have had.

I hope you all have a great 2012. My New Year's resolutions: to keep getting out there and host more parties. I can't wait for my first New York Spring.

The Sketching Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Mondays, containing the artistic musings of Mobile Designer/Developer Ben Chirlin during our Monday morning meeting at the NY Creative Bunker as well as his inspiring artistic finds of the week.