Strangely enough, this is a very good idea.
Unfortunately, the name is already taken, but that should be easy enough to fix. Can't be that hard to come up with a new name. How about GeoScat? Or Crapiss? They could have a contest for names. That would be fun.
Via Pruned.
Just found a link to a fledging architecture Wiki.
It looks to be just starting and very much focused on current buildings, but it is worth a look, and maybe even worth some participation. Personally, I'm more a theory person, but don't let that stop you.
It's even onomatopoetic ... in an abstract impressionism sort of way.
An interesting article on the idea of branding the boroughs of London for marketing, tourism, civic pride, and what have you.
The article is interesting because it compares the logos being proposed by the various boroughs of London with the cities and wards that form Tokyo.
The difference between the two is very striking.
The British logos are all very corporate, like the designers mistook the word "borough" for "hotel", or "bank" or "insurance firm". Certainly professional looking, but very much not warm and inviting. All in all, far too corporate for civic pride.
The Tokyo logos are much simpler, much more iconic. Each is primal shapes that may be abstract or may be historically significant done in bold, primary colors.
So, why this difference?
At first glance I think it is that Japan is simply more in touch with, and more comfortable with its feudal past. Combine this with a written language that is ideographic and the simple crests make sense. Certainly, on the battle fields of days gone by, when you saw a troop of soldiers rushing your position, you wanted to be able to tell at a glance whether they were friend or foe. So the Japanese infantry troops would have a sizable number of soldiers with banners identifying their allegiances.
The Tokyo city icons share the same easy to spot nature and, in fact, look very much like a Dover-edition book detailing of Japanese historical crests in my library. They are, admittedly, a bit more modernist, but the sentiment is there.
So why do we not see something similar with London? After all, Europe in general, during it's feudal period made heavy use of coats of arms. More complicated than the Japanese crests, but still distinctive. Is it perhaps the historical baggage that comes with coats of arms that prevents people from a.) wanting to co-opt them, and b.) wanting to re-invent them? I am not in a position to say. Though I can say that the Tokyo city logos work much better than the proposed London corporate city logos.
The use of crests in Japan extends way beyond the limits of Tokyo. In many regions, the iconic crests of towns and municipalities are posted on thruway exit signs, so you navigate by icon rather than reading the sign. Mind you, the drive between Kitakyushu and Fukuoka City has, if I remember, four different jolly fisherman and a multitude of herons to be dealt with.
When I was in Fukuoka City a few years ago, I found ward icons to be stamped on all the subway stations, including on the fare board. It made life very easy to know that I was traveling from the end of the line to the stop with the bird with its wings outstretched and sweeping forward to form a blue oval. It took far less time to recognize than to describe, and it meant I didn't have to try to resolve the kanji into a meaningful ward name.
Check out the map (English version):
The Japanese, simply put have the West beat on iconography. A good place to learn from them in making way-finding systems in the urban setting more friendly, as well as effective local branding.
Some interesting areal photos of farms around the world, as interesting in their juxtaposition as they are individually.
Though it would be interesting a telling to also see all of them at the same scale. As the last picture shows, some of the complex interweaving of fields are collectively the same size as a single one of the large industrial farm fields in the later pictures.
From build blog.
Also farm yard art from strange harvest.
Looking to build you own world?
Well, here is the beginning of a series from Wired with plenty of resources, as well as Wikipedia entry on that very topic.
Okay, mostly a tool for gamers of sci fi / fantasy writers, but the story comes from a dad encouraging the idea of fictional worlds for your kids.
Haven't quite figured out the connection between French Lounge and J-Pop, but it is there.
Here's an example from boingboing.
And here is the site for the album it goes with.
And, of course, even before that ... Gainsbourg Made in Japan.
Okay, and this is just irresistable ... :)
And just one more ... honest.
Freaky cool video trying to give you a visual sense of magnetic fields and how they behave.
Plenty of other cool visualizations of the abstract on the site. They attempt to take difficult concepts in science and explain them through art.
An interesting Web site of maps of the world distorted based on a huge variety of demographics.
Kind of neat.
Okay, this is so totally worth a look: http://sh.edushi.com/
It is a virtual version of Shanghai, all rendered in SimCity axonometric style (ooh, I learned a new word, and here I was about to call is isometric). The detailing is awesome, though it looks much cleaner than the real thing, and it is full navigable in the basic Google maps way. It even has hotlink buttons to tell you where the McDonalds and KFC restaurants are.
Zoom in and all the bus stops, car parks, and metro lines are labeled, as well as all the street names. And if you get tired of all the buildings, the "2-D" mode functions like a standard street map.
Full screen mode seems to give it indigestion in Opera, at least the blocks would stop downloading correctly at times and would get confused on where to position themselves (Hey, let's all hind on the edge of the screen over here!), but still pretty neat.
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