website; antmacari.net

just as interesting as his work.

Museum; The National Glass Centre

The National Glass Centre is a unique venue situated in Sunderland thats allows people to see how how glass works from all over the world are produced. It also lets them explore there own visual creative ideas with glass by allowing them to mould and sculpt pieces from themselves.
The building is made from steel and glass the entire roof is created from glass allowing people to go up and look down 'Not good if your scared of heights trust me!'
The Centre provides local exhibitions and National exhibitions for the general public and also education facilities for schools.
There aim; 'Our aim is to be a centre of national excellence supporting the production, exploration, presentation and enjoyment of contemporary glass.' You certainly learn alot about glass when you visit more than I ever thought went into the production of glass and also the endless possibilities you can achieve with it.

Website; Neave.com

Neave .com is avery impressive website created using flash.It is the interactive playground of 'interactive designer' Paul Neave. The pieces of work that allowusers to test,play and exxperiment in 3d worlds and even interacts with your built in camera and microphone. The site is a great example of how to keep your audience interested with simple navigation, sounds and by challengeing the user. The site works across all size pixel screens and even has the option of enlargeing to full screen.It is similar to the lynx efect website with its use of coding and interaction.

What makes this site extremely powerful is its use of 3D interaction it is allowing new possibilities in the way the internet can be viewed and interacted with. The use of powerful colour schemes makes it fresh and gives it a new technology feel.

This site is must view and a very impressive use of flash and interactive design.

Book; The Angels Weep

by Wilbur Smith

The Angels weep is a story based on war and how people sow there seeds of hatred in battles all around issues of race and land. I found it an exciting tale, very moving and colourful.
I believe it is the third of the Ballantynes sequence of novels. The author creates a time older than ours with many the same problems as ours. The story portrays the violence and war fought between pioneers such as Ralph Ballantyne, a man who's ambition and sense of destiny made him the greatest leader and betrayer to his leader. The Rhodesia pioneers claim the land they sow their crops in, however far in the hills the Matabele indunas are preparing for a bloody assault to claim it for themselves.
The book is a great read for anyone and gives true depth to the characters and world they live in.

Museum; HMS Belfast

Although it is not on land the boat is still a facinating museum to look around, its just on water!! Being from a family where my Grandad served in the navy, on vesels similar to Belfast, during the war he always talked about them through my child hood and it became an interest to me to know about them and learn about them.

HMS Belfast played its part during the second world war and helped in the destruction of Germanys biggest battlecruiser the Scharnhorst. It is amazing to see the 9 deck ship right from the sleeping and eating quarters up to the huge gun terruts and head naval offices. Whilst wondering around the sleeping decks it was easy to relate to my Grandads storys of the struggles of sea sickness and his emotional story of being torpedoed and looseing many friends in the lower decks.My self personally and I think many others take the wars for granted and do not realize the lengths and imense struggles people went through so the likes ofmyself and my generation are free to live and carry on with our lives. The HMS Belfast really allows you to appreciate how they worked and the conditions they faced as well as appreciate the amazing technology and skill it takes to build a vessel like this. I will always take away a sense of pride when I have the oppertunity to see things like this and be thankful to my Grandad and all those that gave there lives in the War so we could live how we do today.

Book; Dawn

by Elie Wiesel

I found the book haunting, disturbing, and thought provoking. The book is based on the final hours of two men one is the executioner and the other is the victimof the executioner, the doop is very deep and quite emotional from time to time. As the main character comes to gripes with how things will be once the execution has took place is really moving. You tend to want the main character to realise the right thing and stop what he is about to do, I found myself almost trying to tell the character what to do,he then is effected by his reflections in his earlier experiences in a concentration camp, and holding cells on both sides of the war. The English have provoked the Jews, and each will assassinate their opponent to make a point. David will be hung by the English, and Elisha will shoot John Dawson. You wonder how such brutality ever took place. You then follow how themain character must come to grips with what he has to do and face .“A man hates his enemy because he hates his own hate. He says to himself: This fellow, my enemy, has made me capable of hate. I hate him not because he’s my enemy, not because he hates me, but because he arouses me to hate.” quoted from the book. The book is a great refelction of war by focusing on specific people and the roles they play toinfluence and effect it.

Museum; Guggenheim New York

I was lucky enough to visit this museum when I went to New York with 25 friends and our design teacher on an expedition to to view design, innovation, architecture and design within Manhattan.

The building itself is a tribute to architecture and was created by Frank Loyd Wright. Quoted from the museum entrance "I need a fighter, a lover of space, an agitator, a tester and a wise man. . . . I want a temple of spirit, a monument!"
—Hilla Rebay to Frank Lloyd Wright, 1943

The museum itself has a mission to promote an understanding and appreciation of art, architecture, and other manifestations of visual culture, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, and to collect, conserve, and study the art of our time. The one thing I noticed about the museum was its international diversity. Obviously being in New York it see s visitors from all over the world and yet the museum had exhibitions catered from all over the world, some places I had not even heard of. The meuseum also embraces dancers, writers, composers, poets and musicians and exhibits regular audiences to them. The museum was a huge inspiration to me and the cultural diversity and art it choose to show to me really broadened my mind to what can be art and how different cultures show it and express it.

Book; Flanimals

I think the creativity behind Flanimals is awsome!! The way each Flanimal has its own personality, some are complex and some are just so simple and the way they are all linked like a true animal kingdom gives it that almost non fictional sense. Ricky Jervais has always been a favorite of mine and the book really expels his sense of humor, the book isn't only designed for children, there is a lot of thinking behind the animals and the story's and descriptions of them are quite intellectual.

From that the graphic illustrations of each Flanimal is really interesting they look fascinating, right down to the little details such as the eyes, hair and body parts. Its a great short book to get lost in and slip away from everyday stresses. I sometimes find myself evening comparing the struggles in my life to theres and I soon realize mine aren't as bad, especially for the unlucky Flanimals that are born inside out or who get eating by all the other Falnimals. The book inspired me to dig out all my old math books and lecture pads with all my own personal animal drawings on from being young right up to current day lectures and I begin digitally illustrating them with my graphics tablet in illustrator. The characters so far are on my website in my portfolio. This book is a defnit for the shelf in the easy reading funny pile for when your feeling a bit down or stressed, I haven' t yet seen the second book but i'm sure it'll be just as good.

Website; Drupal

http://drupal.org/

The site itself is not of interest unless you are focusing on what it offers. Drupal is a content management system that is completely free and the site is a huge constantly expanding user guide and module download for the content management system. For the website I produced for the river canteen www.rivercanteen.com.au I used Drupal and also for my own. It has very powerful back end features so staff and outside users can log in and change/ incorporate things into a company's website. The drupal site offers a huge diversity of help to people who use Drupal to build and produce websites, modules that can be easily downloaded and then uploaded to your personal site along with endless instructional help and forums dedicated to problems and solutions of HTML CSS PHP XHTML relating to Drupal. The best thing about it though is that everything on Drupal is changeable, you can edit every single bit of HTML and CSS to style your website how you would like if you are not satisfied with the templates that are included free.

The site also provides you with very clear and easy to use instructions on setting up Drupal on your server and FTP files in and out. It regularly has new downloads of Drupal that solve problems of the ever changing HTML internet. You can also create themes for Drupal that anyone can download and use, or you yourself can download someone else's. There is very few other content management systems that come with all these benefits for free and I would defiantly recommend Drupal and the website to anyone .

Film; The Deer Hunter

A film based on a group of friends and there service in the Vietnam war, the picture on the left is probably one of the most recognizable images from the movie. The red head scarf is symbolic of Russian Roulette and is used in adverts like the revels marketing ad.The film itself won 5 academy awards.

To me it shows the struggles of war, honour and patriotism between a close group of friends and community. I love the way the film goes into before and after circumstances showing a normal group of friends, there local pub, family, hobbies and then there lives and personality's after the Vietnam War. Many people are scared from wars and obviously find it hard to fit back into social circumstances after having been in one, this film portrays this and really grabs the audience and brings them in and close to the friends and the struggles they have during there times of capture, blood shed and coming home. The movie shows real depth into the characters not so much the story of the war but the actual people in it such as this group of friends, virtue, self mastery, the idea of broken bodies, memory and the self, and the role of religion and the afterlife have a huge influence on the characters.

Website; Logopond

http://logopond.com/all/

You might think that most logos are not very 'cool' or inspiring especially when your trying to design the perfect logo for a client and there doesn't seem to be anything out there giving you the edge or motivation. This site proves otherwise, its full of some fantastic and very clever identity designs, great for inspiration and motivation. The site allows you to leave comments and upload Logos/Identity's yourself and have discussions on the Identity's commenting on what you think of them. The site is simple to use and really cleanly laid out with HTML that works across all browsers. It also has a really interesting and relevant forum all dedicated to logos in many types of industry i.e, car, book, film etc. It features individual designers who show there logo portfolios and allows new users to sign up and gain a user name and password to start uploading the same.

Fun; End of the Internet

http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm

Film; Sleepers

The Book is fantastic and I think the film lived up to it. The reason I love the film is simply because its about revenge and no matter how hard we try, we all feel it and want it over someone. The acting is awsome by the whole cast with Robert De Niro playing his usual brilliance. I've always believed that what comes around goes around and your past will always catch up with you and thats exactly what this film portrays. I also felt a slight sense of how I felt after reading of mice and men, because the boys plans were only to have fun and a little joke but they end up killing someone thus 'the best laid plans of mice and men often go wrong'. Although the film and book is supposed to be based on truth there has still not been any underlying evidence to prove it is correct.

Film; The Blue Planet (Documentary)

I know its not technically a film but I really wanted to share my thoughts on the amazing and truly fascinating documentary of our blue world. Being a BSAC sports diver and having dived in England, Asia, Turkey, Spain and Australia whilst living there for a year, surfing on a regular basis, I ve developed a huge interest and respect for our seas. The life in the sea, the power of the sea and the physical effect that the sea has on us and the world we live in is often overlooked. The Blue Planet goes where people didn't even know existed and the marine life and animals the documentary uncovered, some, had never before been seen by man. The fact that more people have been to the moon than the places they investigated, to me shows how ignorant we are of our own planet. Very rarely do you see documentary's uncovering the mysteries of the deep blue ocean and this one is defiantly one of the those special rarities that was aired over our televisions. Films can have amazing special effects fantastic acting, historical quotes that last for years and years, but there all planned. When you stumble upon and new species in a place on our planet that has never been explored before and see it in its natural place unplanned, unpredicted, then I think that can be better film than any perfectly scripted movie and thats exactly what the Blue Planet series delivered.