Link About It: This Week’s Picks
An interactive documentary, the foodie backlash blog, stylish iPad cases, and more in this week’s look at the web
1. Star Wars Meets Today’s Fashion
Making it far and wide on the web this week, “He Wears It,” a series of illustrations by Hong Kong-based artist John Woo, dresses the iconic Star Wars characters in cult fashion favorites like Band of Outsiders and Comme des Garçons.
2. Loud Cloud Interviews Scott Dadich
An interview with Scott Dadich, the creative mind behind Wired’s bestselling iPad app, talks about the creative process of producing the touchscreen version of the magazine.
3. Crayon Cuties
WFDJ takes a look at a bygone era of coloring supplies, exploring vibrant products beyond Crayola, in this quirky gallery of retro crayon, pastel, chalk and watercolor packaging.
4. Matthew Lyons’s Imagined Movie Titles
Flavorwire reports on a new project from the ever-talented 21-year-old illustrator Matthew Lyons. The collection of imaginative movie title stills in his retro-inspired signature style has us wishing they were actual films.
5. Somewhere
While some of the buzz around Sofia Coppola’s newest film “Somewhere” is negative—critics comparing Stephen Dorff’s character, a Hollywood actor, with Bill Murray’s celebrity status in “Lost in Translation” insinuate she’s made another mid-life crisis feature—from the looks of the trailer, it’s at least a beautifully charming mid-life crisis feature.
6. Prison Valley
Every news outlet has multimedia features, but Prison Valley has set the bar much higher. An interactive documentary, readers can fully immerse themselves in Philippe Brault and David Dufrensne’s story about Canon City, Colorado’s 13 prisons with content that includes extensive video and maps distributed through social media. Outlets include Flash-enabled web browsers, iPhones, Twitter, blogs, and forums.
7. Shut Up, Foodies
Forks and knives drawn, bloggers Julia Childless, Meatball and Snacktime of Shut Up, Foodies call to out elitism, hypocrisy and excess in the food world on their four-month old site.
8. World’s Worst Oil Spills
Putting the BP Gulf disaster into a wider context, Fast Company commissioned NG Oil & Gas to create an infographic comparing the sizes, ecological damage and costs of major oil spills.
9. “Got Dat Work” by Memphis Blac featuring Smokahontas Jones
Recently circulating heavily through the league of YouTube-rs across the country, Memphis Blac and Smokahontas Jones discuss life as working girls in their new video for “Got Dat Work.” Their straightforward rhymes about the everyday life of a prostitute mix clever lyrics, catchy hooks, and a dose of shock value—in other words, the perfect pop recipe for a YouTube sensation.
10. Twelve iPad Covers
As with any new Apple product, cases designed with the new shape and functions of the iPad in mind flooded the market immediately following its release. Unfortunately, also in accordance with gadgets past, most of the cases are tacky, flimsy or just aesthetically unappealing. Thankfully the good people over at Refinery29 have compiled a list of the least abrasive models, including those made of leather, cork or even wood.
