Batman: Arkham City Identity Package

With the announcement of Batman: Arkham Origins this week from E3, I thought I'd revisit something I was completely enamored with two years ago and never quite got around to blogging. 

Obviously beautiful, this identity package developed by Trailer Park straddles the line between pretension and art. Which, although hard to distinguish most of the time, is here very clearly drawn. 

Extending the audience for this open-world game would need a completely fresh take on things, and here it was a case of reversing the color schemes the world has known to be quintessentially essential Batman. Black is now white and silver. The highlights of green and blue in villains perfectly cast in the stark renderings, while the only color in images featuring Batman himself is red (either in his own blood, or as a color in an ally or foe). Although it feels like too much emotion and meaning for a game featuring a billionaire psychopath cracking skulls dressed in armor with bat-ears, it actually does have relevance to the undercurrents of social outcasts without a conventional method of releasing anguish and not finding solace in any attempt. The representation of Batman and his enemies of crime and love in a pure, un-tampered vision of mere suggestion does convey a feeling of newness; a fresh beginning, an open world of possibilities to repeat old mistakes or reinterpret old conflicts. 

The game itself won several well-deserved awards and sold like gangbusters. Having been released more than a few years ago, it is easily found for $20 or less now, removing all reason to not own the game in a collection. And although it undoubtedly would have sold several million dollars worth of units regardless of the marketing material, I love that  this campaign was developed in such a truly artistic and original vision. There will be more Batman games, and I hope that with them, just as imaginative and compelling visual identity material.

Seapunk Summer

With Summer upon us (and with it, hopefully, some actual real warm weather), I thought I'd share one of my recent obsessions. Seapunk is such a strange, fascinating, ridiculous sub-culture that I find to be so tacky that it is classic, and so self-aware that it is inspirational on every level. 

For more information on Seapunk in general, the wikis have a good rundown, and there is always the old-fashioned Tumblr and Pinterest tags. However, my favorite summation of the genre in general is from an article on The Atlantic Wire by David Wagner:

"What it sounds like: Digital milkshakes blended with equal parts drum 'n' bass, '90s R&B, new age muzak, top 40, trance, and a bunch of other sounds recovered from the musical recycling bin of the last 20 years. Visually, seapunk takes viewers on a sea-faring voyage through a landscape full of Windows 98 and Sega Genesis graphics.

How real it is: Completely not real. It's actually so unreal that it might be the realest genre of our increasingly hyperreal, inter-webbed world."

Let's enjoy the sun, turquoise seahorses and 90's effected future nostalgia.

Seapunk Summer from darkpenguin on 8tracks Radio.

A Few Words About Game Music

This is a long one, so be warned (twhs).

Music of video games from the late-80's and mid-90's were far under-appreciated, and should have been revered as accomplishments of works of art within a medium that had not yet grown into itself.

The Story of Miss Dior

"The story, the direction, the aesthetics, the music...it's all a work of art..."

 

Truly, nothing more can be said outside of the fact that this is a perfectly crafted work of commercial art that engages, entertains, informs and inspires the audience.

Directed by Tim Walker, in the most elegant and stylish way possible. Fucking beautiful.

Penguin - Books for Every Interest

Truly amazing work by Y&R, Malasia for Penguin. Each graphic treatment takes the iconic Penguin logo and lends it to different genres to beautiful effect. From Ads of the World.

Paris 1914

I find this so incredibly surreal and fascinating.

Is it any less impressive because I can view these images on a laptop in my kitchen rather than in a museum with a dress code and a $40 valet charge? With so much information and history and knowledge available at the click of a word, when does all of everything become valued at absolutely nothing?

From the official archive:

"As surprising as this may seem, there are many photographs of Paris shot in direct color from 1907 to 1930.

The Autochrome process was developed by the Lumière brothers in 1903. The technique was based on a composite of black and white emulsions passed through a series of color filters (red, blue and green) designed based on potato starch."

I have stared at the collection at Paris 1914 and am utterly captivated. It all looks as if it is from a movie set or art exhibit. That we can so easily view images from so long ago now should be mind blowing.

Each image links to the archive which contains MANY more.

Berndnaut Smilde's Indoor Clouds

How beautiful is this? Both in concept and execution, this kind of art deserves the recognition it is receiving.

I love that each cloud only exists for a brief few moments before disappearing; those that are present are truly the only witnesses to the actual "art" created; photographs and video are only documents of it. The performance of the art is the star and like a moment in time, it only truly exists in the mind of those present and aware. The technology isn't revolutionary, the settings are fairly obvious, but the overall emotion and meaning of the project is absolutely beautiful.