Eat Cake!

I've been diving into the computer rabbit hole lately.

On the serious side, I'm trying to better my tech-skills, getting more fluent in photo manipulation and 3D drawing, with an AutoCAD course starting soon.  But on the more playful side, I've been discovering the joys of Portal and enlarging my creative-mode Minecraft kingdom, Blocksterdam.

Travel poster based on Minecraft image - believed fair "adaptive" use

Minecraft in creative mode is pure designer catnip!  I don't care much about the survival-mode monsters or the finicky crafting really, but I love the sandbox freedom to build.  My biggest project - an entire far-flung kingdom with trade routes by boat, rail, road, and even balloon - was sparked by a game update (in a supposedly survival type game be this noted!)... a game update that included adding colored glass and four kinds of tulips.

My first response was to help build a cathedral with stained glass windows.  Natch.

My second was to build Blocksterdam, my Venice of the West.  Here dueling tulip princes wage trade wars between themselves at home among the quaint canals of Old Blocksterdam and, abroad, against the Cactus King, the Rose King (war of the roses?), and the nefarious Poppy Cartel.

Portal?  Oh, I'm eatin' my cake.  * Polishes fingernails on shirt, looking down all humble, humming. * "Anyway, this cake is great.  It's so delicious and moist.

Look at me still talking when there's Science designing to do!"

Gotta script to read.

Computer Games

THE emerging art form.  Heck, it's already flowering.  The lovely art of games like Myst and the interactivity and free-will of World of Warcraft or Evercrack, er, EverQUEST, show some of this form's possibilities.

It's like the early days of film.

I've recently discovered Minecraft.  And have become deeply addicted, of course, since that game in Creative Mode, is basically pixilated crack for designers.  Love it.  At present I'm building an entire Dutch Colonial town in a tropical swamp (why you ask? silly question!) with a growing backstory in my head of feuding tulip-farmers.  I suspect other builders run more toward forts and sci-fi palaces and Super Hero Lairs, but for me that last update adding stained glass and four colors of tulips to the world was just too compelling, so natch, first a Gothik cathedral followed by Nederlandish Imperialism!  (Tulipmania scheduled next week.)

What does a designer do to relax?  More design!

Today on the great site BoingBoing there's a post HERE about the retirement of the computer game Glitch.  Upon it's demise, it's creators were generous and wise enough to set free all the art and code involved free into the Public Domain.  Bless 'em!  May all their creativity inspire others.

Free for your use HERE.

Glitch art - public domain

So pull up a comfy Glitch "pink lime box armchair" (obviously inspired by Rietveld's famous chair; creativity goes around, it comes around).  See what YOU can think of to create with these now publicly-owned treasures.

Rietveld Chair - photo by Ellywa at Wikimedia Commons

On the theater set design front?  I'm having my first meeting for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at lunch.  Exciting project!