Thanks to Liz and All Songs Considered, I’ve been on a Talking Heads kick for about a week now in anticipation of the new David Byrne and Brian Eno collaboration. It’s available exclusively through their website.

This is also the last week to see Playing the Building.

While doing some research, I came across this piece by Ben Fry. It is hardly surprising that you need only look at our roads to see the shape of America.

I joined the rest of the world and finally saw WALL-E last night. It was excruciating to sit through the preview for Beverly Hills Chihuahua, but I was rewarded with Presto, a Pixar short that runs right before the feature. Despite the hype and some spoilers, I enjoyed WALL-E from beginning to end. It’s a beautiful movie. Very nice, and bold, work by Pixar.

As always, I’m looking forward to the next one.

I meant to post this on Friday, but I guess I got a little distracted by work.

About a month ago, I started hearing things about Generation Kill, HBO’s miniseries that follows the Marines of First Recon Battalion through their first 40 days of the Iraq War. After watching the first two parts, I think it’s going to live up to the hype. Generation Kill is based on the book by Evan Wright, who was embedded with First Recon reporting for Rolling Stone. Two Marines depicted in the series, Sgt. Eric Kocher and Cpl. Jeffrey Carisalez, served as consultants and Sgt. Rudy Reyes plays himself, giving Generation Kill the authenticity any true story needs in order to be taken seriously.

Generation Kill is on Sundays at 9PM.

I’ve never read comic books too much, mostly because they cost money and, when I was younger, I couldn’t bring myself to spend it very often. But when I did, I went for the tougher ones, like the Death of Superman, or the issues of X-Men where Magneto pulls Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton out, nearly killing him. I enjoyed the stories that truly tested the heroes, showing the things that make them “super.” Or that keep them from it.

I’ve been looking forward to The Dark Knight for a while, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing it last night. I’d even say my heart was “pumping” the whole time, because the heroes are tested, along with the rest of the “regular” people of Gotham. Appropriately, the Watchmen teaser was shown before the feature. It’s one of the few books that have inspired strangers to talk to me on the subway, and after finishing it, I realized why. Watchmen is about much more than re-donning silly costumes, and remains relevant 20 years after it’s writing.

Go read it and meet someone on the Subway, the movie’s not out until March 2009.

Jibjab’s looking a lot more polished this election year.

I know I do. This latest from Pes made me smile a few times.

by Improv Everywhere

via Gothamist

TPMtv Sunday Show Roundup; Iraq Backtrack Flak

Am I crazy? Do all these people hear things that I am missing? As far as I can tell, Obama’s plan is, and always was, to end the war in Iraq. No matter how many times “reporters” say otherwise.

Part of a group of design experts, including John Maeda, Khoi Vinh, and Steven Heller, Jakob Trollbäck contributed to a BusinessWeek survey on what web design should look like in 2008. Check out the article by Matt Vella and watch a slideshow of the best and worst of the web.

T+Co’s conceptual 3D text elements for Adria Petty’s Target spot Portal (through W+K, Portland) won a North America Gold award in the Typography/On-Air category in the 2008 Promax/BDA Design Awards Competition.

Our designers’ collaborative piece ‘Things I Think About Before Sleep’ has been making the rounds on the design blogs. In addition to the previously mentioned Motionographer post, Cool Hunting, Digital Arts, Shape + Colour and swissmiss are all digging the piece. And over at Studio Daily, it was named the Top Video of the Week!

Robin Tooms decodes T+Co’s ESPNEWS redesign on three pages in her Insight section of Step Inside Design. Buy the July issue or read the article here!

The July issue of Japanese magazine CG World features an article with our staff designer Tetsuro Mise. Read it here!

Trollbäck + Company’s 120 feet long and 11 feet high video wall at InterActiveCorp’s headquarters on Manhattan’s West Side was granted a Merit Award in SEGD’s 2008 Design Awards: The Best in Environmental Graphic Design. The awards were presented at the 2008 SEGD Conference in Austin, TX.

With one theme, no guidelines, T+Co’s designers created a series of personal pieces that demonstrate a broad range of talents and skills. (Thanks to Justin for featuring it on Motionographer!)

An interview with Jakob for citizen journalism site Digital Journal’s series Mavericks.

Trollbäck + Company has created a logo animation for the amazing World Science Festival, taking place right now in New York City.

Sadly, it’s nothing new to see a complete lack of taste from the New York Post.

Tomorrow is LVHRDs annual dance party. And while many of you have probably seen the UNIQLO dancers, you may not have seen the DNCHRD dancers dancing at UNIQLO. I’ll be there in teal, hopefully helping the color more than hurting it. You should come too!

Kinda reminds me of Halloween.