September 17, 2012 - Comments Off on Más Mexico

Más Mexico

Sorry for the silent week but I was on vacation in Mexico with my sister. It was my first vacation since starting work here at the Mechanism. My first vacation in my real life. And even though it was on the short side in comparison to some of my other trips, those new stakes made it one of the best trips of my life. There are many ways to travel but I prefer to try and throw myself into the culture, both local and backpacker alike. Doing so, every person you meet and thing you do becomes richer. Each experience, each personality, slowly changes who you are as a person. It is an additive and subtractive process that is wholly inspirational.

Taking a dip in on the perfect beaches of Isla Mujeres.

We live in a blessed age where jetting around the world is a affordable possibility for most people. Such traveling gives you an appreciation for other peoples cultural differences and similarities. There's something very special about sharing a moment with someone with whom you must rely on your common humanity for communication via a smile, a gaze. Before such travel reached the masses however, people had to use the only tool available to them to try and grasp the greater world: mail. Molly Rausch's series of stamp paintings are a pen pal's dream come true, opening up the small window of the stamp into a full blown world.

There are many other ways to travel over shorter distances such as by car. We typically cross many bridges when abroad, some over water, others over presumptions. One of the most famous bridges in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge, recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and to commemorate the event Goodby Silverstein & Partners created a fun tribute project called Band of Bridges with the help of Google Maps and Famous Interactive. In it, users can add any satellite image of a bridge to a long continuous chain. The slick design uses elements of the Golden Gate while the slick design melds form and function seamlessly.

There are many things we expect to find abroad including good food and souvenirs. But something quite unique and even more exquisite can occasionally be found. Story Corps has created a series of heart-felt animations in classic cartoon style about true stories, narrated by those involved. In this episode, two people separated by an ocean find each other by accident only to fall in love. The idea of such a long-distance relationship can be daunting but their commitment to each other is so romantic one feels that anything is possible, especially in our modern connected age.

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

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