Music & Sculpture at MIT's Media Lab

You know when you’re flipping through a newspaper or a magazine and an image is so arresting it stops you in your tracks? So goes the story with Katherine Taylor‘s pictorial spread in this Saturday’s NY Times. The article, Duet for Composition and Software is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into M.I.T.’s famed Media Lab, articulating the audio and visual work of composer and inventor, Tod Machover. Focusing on the future of Opera, his team’s been working to improve sound, through sculpture, movement and visual sensors.

If they ever wanted to cross pollinate, they could commercialize at Owen’s West Village shop, as the paper-covered walls probably offer similar acoustic wonderment.

August 19, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Manipulations in Advertising

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While flipping through British Vogue on my flight back to New York yesterday, the ads were plentiful. The September Issue’s out and prefall’s on display, along with rectangular manipulations and collaged scale. MAC’s amplification of the lash, Vivienne Westwood’s Gold Label as realized through white paint, long braids and lush leaves, and Missoni’s set within a set all play with scale, collage and perspective. If we were to make an art-related comparison, this print series is a visual tie back to Daniel & Geo Fuchs’ STASI – Secret Rooms featured in Aperture Magazine (from a few years back). The comparison’s purely visual, though the idea of interrogation, memory and narrative are uncomfortable topics worth exploring that harness history, location and human indecency. Heavy topics to parallel print ads, but oddly relevant.

August 6, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Bold Banners, Jay-Z, & Samsung

It’s rare when a banner catches your eye- they’re always a bit pesky and quite honestly, as a designer, they’re one of my least favorite items to create for clients. I’ll do everything I can to suggest other advertising methods before doing a banner-specific media buy. That said, this one, in particular, is interesting. It’s bold, it’s graphic, it’s minimal, and Samsung’s let Jay-Z and his latest album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, really shine. Rounding out a hefty social media campaign, this is one part of the puzzle preparing the world for Samsung’s Magna Carta app and Jay-Z’s July 4th release. Getting excited?

June 26, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Flat & Floral with Marni

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A few bold and beautiful palettes to illuminate this gray day in New York. Marni’s presenting their 2014 Evening and Resort collections with an artistic, flat video. Using floral vectors for a curtain, the edges are cloaked in busy stillness. The edges allow the viewer peer in ever so slightly, creating a secret garden effect. Here’s a link to the video, if you’re so inclined. What do you think?

June 10, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

An Artist's Profile: Jessy & Odie

Here’s a special window into the private world of Ryan McGinley‘s muse and model, painter and mother, Jessy Brodsky and her son Odie, shot by the talented ladies behind Bicephaly Pictures. Enjoy and happy Mother’s Day.

May 10, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Textures in Media from 2012

Nowadays, with all of our forms of media, we are constantly confronted with a barrage of images, sights and sounds. All of these combine to create the visual & societal texture that will come to define our time.

Here are some of the year’s most interesting textures in media: