Inside the Little Plastic Castle

The Secret History of Font Piracy

Today LinusBoman talks about font theft. Back in the 1990s I worked in a desktop publishing service bureau. Font foundries were still using a pricing model based on industrial customers with several blocks worth of printing presses and thousands of books. Font piracy was so widespread as to be fundamental. Good times—Linus brings it all back with an excellent news hook: how the unavoidable you wouldn’t steal a car message that scolded at the start of every VHS or DVD used a pirated font. Pro captions, silent title cards subdivide the video into eight sections.

Watch on YouTube
( or stream 21 minutes here )

Linus Boman is so my type of design nerd. More about him at TimesNewBoman.com

Kevin B Parry animates himself doing impossible things

Watch on YouTube

( stream six minutes of amazing here )

Audio is instrumental music. I invite you to write image descriptions; here are the first three:

1. Kevin in red hoodie stands in corner, falls slowly to ground — at moment of impact human becomes eight red balloons, bouncing lazily
2. Big cardboard boxes in empty room. Kevin stands behind one of them, jumps into the air and then into the box. His body sinks in and he’s suspended by his armpits — at the same time as his legs push up from inside another box
3. Leaning on a counter, Kevin slides his right hand along the corner towards the camera, and then his hand detaches and begins to slide all the way to the end of the counter, where he drums his fingers. Then the fingers slide back to his arm.

Watch Kevin on all the platforms: https://lnk.bio/kevinbparry/

Visual ASMR

Anthony Howe of HoweARTdotNET sculpts stainless steel into "kinetic sculpture," installed outside and set in motion by the wind. Most comprise a circular metal structure atop a 10 to 20 feet curved column. The circle supports four to eight rings that rotate perpendicular to the circle. Each of these rings is decorated with assorted shapes, including discs, commas, sticks, flaps, and blades. The rings are staggered so that the motion seems infinitely various; the shiny stainless steel creates cascading light and sparkles as it moves, along with the illusion of interlocking gears moving forward and backward at the same time.

If you’re at all photosensitive, scroll on by — do not open this "details" arrow

Many static pictures to admire at https://www.howeart.net

A Mind Sang | A Mãe de Sangue, directed and animated by Portuguese artist Vier Nev

In the last moments before childbirth, a mother sees how similar her life and her child's life will be. A hypnotic visual poem in which each frame tells two simultaneous stories.

Principally black and white flowing shapes which never are exactly one thing. Image description eludes me.

direct link: https://vimeo.com/430690235

( 7-minute embedded video )

The Oregon Zoo posts adorable animal videos — oregonzoo — oregonzoo

Here red panda Mei Mei cares for her two-day old cub, stretching and then wrapping herself around the cub. Mom is brick red with white patches; the cub is soft brown with eyes firmly shut. It’s clear that breathing requires all its attention.

direct link: https://youtu.be/_qd0bn3w6tw

( 1 minute of sweetness )

Here Takoda the black bear cub wallows happily in a black plastic kiddie pool. Face down, face up, legs and legs flailing about, at times he’s even floating.

direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xufymny9mc

( 1 minute 22 seconds of cool joy )