Raleigh to Follow NYC with Food Allergy Poster (hopefully)

Posted: October 20th, 2009 | Author: Daniel | Filed under: Community, Graphic Design, This Is Beautiful | 3 Comments »

Our very own Sofia Noble has created a poster for Gluten Free Raleigh as part of a petition to the City of Raleigh for inclusion in all area restaurants.

The poster will serve as an informational guide for restaurant staff to gain knowledge about the different food allergens that may exist in their menus and the appropriate restaurant procedures to follow when encountering a patron with a specific food allergy.

New York City is the only other city in the country that currently publicly displays food allergy information in all of their restaurants. Raleigh should be the second!

The poster can be downloaded here.

If you’d like to talk to Sofia about her work or her personal experiences with food allergies, you can contact her at sofia [at] thisisbeautiful.net.

Happy Birthday, William Faulkner.

Posted: September 25th, 2009 | Author: Daniel | Filed under: This Is Beautiful, William Faulkner | Tags: Faulkner, This Is Beautiful | No Comments »

It’s our first official company holiday done our way. Today, September 25, is William Faulkner’s birthday and we are going to enjoy it with a #FunFriday (start looking for this hashtag on Twitter to see what we are up to).

So, why is William Faulkner such a big influence? I get asked this a lot when I am out working on developing our business and ever-growing list of amazing clients and I always want to go into much more depth than I am allowed. So why not use today as a good reason to talk about it?

The Creative Process is the core of everything we do at This Is Beautiful. First and foremost, we approach Design as Artists and our goal is to elevate the role of Graphic Design in every project we work on. Quite often, we hear things like “making it pretty” or “polishing it up”, and we do not accept this! Design, like Art, is about problem solving, whether through a complex user interface, a new brand identity or creating a sophisticated family of icons that are informative, instructional and effective.

Every problem can be solved with our Creative Process. We know this because we see it happening over and over and over. We have learned over the years, as Painters, Illustrators, Sculptors, Interaction Designers, Information Designers, Software Architects and Developers that we all, in fact, share the exact same mission and offer a variety of diverse methods to solve the problems we encounter on a daily basis. Our mission at This Is Beautiful is to mix these methods while never losing sight of the Creative Process. We are all Artists, but we do not just make paintings, sculptures or installations. We are Developers, but we do not just write code and build websites. We make Beautiful experiences, not just pretty ones.

So what does this have to do with Faulkner? Well, what I just described is much like the Stream of Consciousness that Faulkner embraces in his writing style. Perhaps a sentence begins with one intention, and after the addition of a semi-colon, completely shifts focus to address another issue. This constant shift of focus is much like the Creative Process we embrace. We address the problems presented to us without a pre-determined script or textbook to give our clients something new and interesting, all without losing sight of the goal…and to make this even better, our process is a part of our daily lives.The result is something that is compelling, usable, unique and thought-provoking.

It is William Faulkner. It is Art…and it is why This Is Beautiful.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Faulkner. We would not be here without you.

Our Projection/First Friday

Posted: September 4th, 2009 | Author: Daniel | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Our Projection/First Friday, originally uploaded by This Is Beautiful.

Western Lanes, Raleigh

Posted: May 23rd, 2009 | Author: Daniel | Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Western Lanes, Raleigh, originally uploaded by This Is Beautiful.

Beef Jerky Meets Augmented Reality!

Posted: May 14th, 2009 | Author: Daniel | Filed under: Marketing, Trends | Tags: 3D, advertising, augmented reality, sasquatch | No Comments »

Jack Links Sasquatch

A lot of you guys know I have been obsessed with Augmented Reality and learning to code it using the Augmented Reality ToolKit. I have been working in Processing and experimenting with it in Flash.

Today, I stumbled across an incredible application from Jack Links Beef Jerky. That’s right. Beef Jerky! http://www.livingsasquatch.com/ Developed by Brock Davis, one of my favorite artists of the moment, it makes great use of Augmented Reality and allows users to create short films with the app. If you have access to a printer and a webcam, you’re good to go. Go to the site, print out the footprint and activate your camera thru the Flash app. When your camera detects the shape (the “Hiro” image), the sasquatch comes to life using a series of 3d files performing the actions you select.

What’s the future for Augmented Reality? Have you experimented with it? Is it a useful tool or just another gimmick? How can we use it in our daily lives?