July 30, 2012 - Comments Off on Meager Marble

Meager Marble

What an exhausting weekend at the beach. This past weekend I participated in my first ever Wildwood beach ultimate tournament, being the hipster that I am. Wildwood is the largest beach tournament in the world and with hundreds of teams competing it was awash with chaotic fun. On the trip back to the big city, slightly burnt and sore all over, I reflected on how lovely the beach truly is. As evidenced in this blog, I am obsessed with the ocean and the beach is the ultimate stage upon which the waves play. Though the sand may be an annoyance at times, beaches are a great inspiration.

Beach trips are a de facto part of life for most people who live near coastal regions. The sands are so loved in fact that many lakes have beaches largely thanks to human contributions. Sand creates a wonderful surface upon which to lay, play, or even sculpt. JOOheng Tan is an impressive sand sculptor who has participated in competitions around the world. This recent collaboration he did with Lowe advertising for OMO detergent is fantastic. Lowe is responsible for many familiar ads including the hit Superbowl Volkswagen ad starring a miniature Darth Vader. The youthful theme continues in this still series. Children, so often associated with playing in the sand, are here transported into a world made of the stuff allowing their imaginations to run rampant, with OMO's cleaning products allowing their parents to easily clean up the mess I suppose.

The beach is not just a local destination but very often the highlight of trips abroad. The most beautiful beaches attract tourists from far and wide who come to bask in the sun and enjoy the water. I plan to do just that when I visit the Yucatan this September but Southeast Asia has also been on my list for quite some time. The region is home to many lovely coastal areas and recently digital agency Fi helped Google create an interactive telling of the local story of Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic of the Hindu faith. The project itself is quite amazing but the case study for the project almost eclipses the work it documents. The creative design boldly expresses the region's character while clearly showing the detailed process behind the work. The study manages to even make blocks of code pretty and approachable. Be sure the check out the project itself, a modern browser and quick registration are required.

While the beach is a great medium for sculptors it can also be used a canvas. Some artists choose to create large-scale sand drawings that are as ephemeral as they are beautiful. Or others, as in this Nokia ad called "Gulp", use that impermanent quality to their advantage to facilitate huge animations. This short was shot from a crane with a cell phone camera by Aardman, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit (a personal childhood favorite). I highly suggest checking out the behind the scenes to get a sense of scale for what you're seeing.

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.

Published by: benchirlin in The Sketching Mechanism
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