Archives for September 2015

September 25, 2015 - No Comments!

Friday Link Bait: Honda Paper Stop-Motion, the iPope, and Opera Rebrands

Cowabunga! It's your weekly dose of Link Bait - September 25, 2015.

Link-bait-week-4

  • Honda Paper Stop-Motion Ad We're big fans of Analog animations. The fancy computer-generated stuff is cool too, but there's something to be said about work that is crafted by hand. Adam Pesapane, a New York-based creator of digital shorts, made this one. We just love it. If you want to read a little more about analog vs. digital, check out our founder, Dave Fletcher talking about it right here.
  • iPope? The Pope has been in town for just a day, and while it seems that the city has geared up for his tour, one thing that's undeniable - The Pontiff's mere presence was enough to delay iPhone 6S deliveries. Other than this non-issue (which certainly has upset the iPhone faithful), we hear he really likes to take selfies...
  • Opera Rebrands Google just did it and Opera was soon to follow. While we don't mind testing on Opera, we don't think that a new logo is as needed for them as much as an increase in market share. It's a vast and thoughtful improvement to the identity, nonetheless. While the engineered simplicity of Opera's new brand certainly doesn't break any new ground (we've seen plenty of logos with dimensional shadow-effects to create visual interest), it still feels familiar and cleaner than the previous iterations.

Published by: davefletcher in The Linking Mechanism
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September 23, 2015 - No Comments!

Why Failure Enhances Confidence

The great Winston Churchill said, "Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." Michael Jordan, arguably one of the best basketball players who has ever lived, noted that "I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." I cannot say that I've been throught the same, but I can certainly relate. After having spent immoderate amounts of money on buying gaming accounts. If you were to check out AussyELO, you'd know what I'm talking about. I do not stand at a significant level in that game, but I've always kept on playing the same game.

Everyone fails. Sadly, we're not taught this crucial bit of information while we're in school. The kids who fail repeatedly are usually assigned labels, or worse yet, separated from their peers and put into special classes or situations that create a direct correlation between failure and fear. The most experienced and thoughtful leaders understand that in order to better themselves, they must not be afraid to travel into the unknown or take on a challenge that might not turn out as expected.

When mistakes are made, the important part is to stand up and move ahead. For the smart ones, failure becomes a motivator; a talisman, which encourages an individual to move forward in spite of the fear of failure. And it's the business leaders who embrace this mantra who continue to move forward one misstep at a time.

Everyone fails. It's the leaders who turn failure into calculated prediction, and who are able to better rationalize their next move, that confidently take the progressive steps toward victory.

September 18, 2015 - No Comments!

Friday Link Bait: Elon Musk, Carbonite Pop Tarts and the Mystery of the Dislike Button

Cowabunga! It's your weekly dose of Link Bait - September 18, 2015.

facebook, terminator, han solo

  • Elon Musk Not many people know that The Mechanism has a connection with Elon Musk, who according to Steven Colbert may be the world's first Supervillain.

    Back in the days that we were working on the Ansari X Prize website, Elon had a team in the competition, building a spaceship to win the prize. We were introduced to him at the Explorer's Club in NYC for a fundraising event - and he was a real swell, quiet and thoughtful guy. For a dude who's "afraid of robots becoming smarter than humans through A.I.", it seems very "supervillain-like" for the guy behind Tesla and SpaceX to want to deliver the internet to every corner of the world by sending satellites into space. What should he name it? Perhaps Skynet – and maybe we should call in a Terminator or two to really expedite his (presumably) evil plans?
  • Han Solo Pop Tarts Before they sold out in minutes, you could buy a 30-dollar Pop-Tart with Han Solo frozen into the frosting, just like he was frozen into carbonite. Hospitals anxiously await sick nerds lining up who couldn't resist tasting a hand-painted, resin Han Solo. May the Fork Be With You... Always.
  • Dislike Button? Everyone, including many highly-regarded social media bloggers, members of the Technorati, and several TV newscasts touted the Pro's and Con's of Facebook's upcoming "Dislike" button, causing an internet uproar. In reality, there was no such thing, as Facebook noted they were working on an emoji that will convey "empathy" for instances where a "Like" might be a little inappropriate. Sounds to us like they found out about a project we recently did with the Pharmaceutical giant Amgen...

September 11, 2015 - No Comments!

Friday Link Bait: Star Wars’ BB-8, AirBnB Logo Thievery, Burger War and Peace

Welcome to Friday Link Bait - September 11, 2015.

Link Bait week 37

  • http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/09/07/30-year-belo/ Way back in 1975, a cool designer named Akisato Ueda created a logo for a Japanese drive-in called Azuma. Roughly a year ago, Airbnb switched it's logo to something very similar. Now there's a vicious debate going on, and heaven knows that arm-chair designers are always on the lookout a thief. We'll let you be the judge and jury, but in the history of graphic design we can all agree that this has happened before - and will again. One can only assume that designers in general are a good-natured folk, much like Hobbits or pretty much anyone from Denmark - so we'll give the Airbnb designer a pass. It's probably just a coincidence, right?
  • http://www.howbb8works.com People have gotten crazier than a sarlacc with a mouthful of bantha poodoo over the cute little droid from the new Star Wars film - named BB-8. And now that the Star Wars franchise is owned by the trademark holders of the largest mouse in the galaxy, we can expect a deluge of products, toys and clothing to be forced upon both our kids and on those who want to relive their youth. However, BB-8 has captured our attention here at The Mechanism, and the mechanics behind that cute little fella are quite fascinating. So much so - that Carlos Sánchez and Emilio Gelardo (aka "EGPJET3D") have put up a website all about it, with theories on how it actually works. Bonus footage: If you want to see where Star Wars really could have headed, go ahead and watch this video
  • http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-responds-to-burger-kings-truce-proposal-2015-8 Nobody likes a corporate knucklehead. Especially one with a mouthful of presumed snark. Former Chief Brand Officer and now CEO at McDonalds, Steve Easterbook responded to Burger King's rather cheeky suggestion to co-brand a product in honor of Peace One Day with his backside. Boo!

September 4, 2015 - No Comments!

Friday Link Bait: Ikea Nakedness, Bootstrap Alternatives and Some Seriously Hot Books

Welcome to Friday Link Bait - September 4, 2015.

Every week, we are inundated at the office with links to technology, programming and design. We decided to put some links together for you every Friday to give you something to actually do on your weekends besides live a life. Enjoy and see you next week.

  • Ikea Bizarro Ad Campaign - The manufacturer of fantastically complex and brittle hipster furniture clearly had a conversation with their agency (in this case, Paris-based Buzzman that went something like this: "Viral is important! Viral is how you reach people and sell stuff! Show us something so perplexing and wildly preposterous that the kids will blindly share it...Bring the weirdness, you hipster design donkeys!" Said agency responds with nudity, creeps and the terror of summer camp. Viral gold, baby! Gold!!
  • Frameworks That Can (Potentially) Take over Bootstrap - We passed this along to our development department and they are investigating between afternoon shots of pop-rocks and Pepsi. Notably Foundation uses Reams to measure instead of pixels, and has UI elements baked right in – to ensure that the web will continue to look like one great big universally similar mess.
  • Founded by Victor Cheung in 2001 (same year we were founded, you rascal!), viction:ary books specializes in visual arts and design books, and boy are these books sweet. We'd like to visit them in Hong Kong and buy everything, but sadly that would mean that we would have to sell everything we own and eventually build a shelter right on Shell Street in North Point, Hong Kong – from the books we purchased. Check out the work though. Breathtaking.
  • Speaking of China...China, China, China. Donald Trump is either behind this or enjoying this 15 minutes of political viral fame. Either way, it digs into your brain like a Ceti eel from Start Trek, The Wrath of Khan.