If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives)

3D Sculpted Paper Heads By Bert Simons

I spotted these 3 dimensional photographic paper portrait heads and sculptures by artist Bert Simons over at Bored Panda, so I dove a little deeper and found some more on the artist's web site.

Using multiple points on a model's face and head, Bert inputs the data into the computer and uses Blender, an open source 3D program to construct a three dimensional model of the head. He then flattens the image to 2D pieces and prints them out on paper stock, only to rebuild them as a purposely piecemeal modeled head.

The making of Harry Hamelink (2007):

In addition to some self-portraits, he has created versions of other men and women, an anatomical head and a three step head which represents vegetative growth.

Self-portraits, 2006:

Rozemarijn Lucassen, 2007:

Mr. Ivo Opstelten, 2008:

the mask as seen on a human:

Cardboard Cutie, 2006:

the making of Cardboard Cutie:

Anatomical head, 2005:

Vegetarius (just add water), 2003:

all images courtesy of the artist.

The Beauty of Breaking Down. Stranded Motorists Photographed By Amy Stein.

above: Amy Stein captures a broken down vehicle and passenger on Route 84, Texas.

Thanks to the New York Times' Wheels section, I have learned about photographer Amy Stein's collection of broken down vehicles and their passengers.

Stranded is a visual documentation of drivers in distress- accompanied by a Google map which documents the images and their whereabouts. Cars with their hoods up, passengers waiting for tow trucks, vehicles abandoned at the side of the road.

Peri, Route 64, Kentucky:

Steven, Route 10, Louisiana:

Walter, Route 90, Louisiana:

Route 14, New Mexico:

Clarence, Route 71, Ohio:

Man Under Overpass, New Jersey Turnpike, New Jersey:

Beth, Outside Tallahassee, Florida:

Car, Route 79, Pennsylvania:

Interstate 15, Cajon Pass, California and Truck Driver, Interstate 10, Florida:

Third Street, Memphis, Tennessee:

Family, New Jersey Turnpike, New Jersey:

“I’m interested in the idea of a breakdown as a sort of existential failing,” she said in a recent e-mail to the New York Times.

Inspired by the government's failed response to the flooding of New Orleans in 2005, she has spent the past 5 plus years driving across American photographing stranded motorists.

Cheerleaders, New Orleans, Louisiana:

Phil, Route 93, Idaho:

Car on Fire, Route 17, New York:

Route 10, Texas:

Courvassi, Interstate 95, Georgia:

Six Flags Park, St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana:

Freddy, Outskirts of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania:

Her Interactive Google Map

These and more photographs from this series can be found on this Google Map that Amy created which documents her travels across the US.

Amy has several other fabulous series of photographs that are most certainly worth checking out at her website.

The First 3D Custom Font From Freedom Of Creation

Freedom Of Creation (FOC) has launched the production and distribution of the world's first 3D font and made one further step towards its dream of totally customized industrial production available to a global public.

Kashida-arabic and Kashida-latin are the two versions of the three-dimensional font, developed by Yara Khoury and Melle Hammer in collaboration with FOC and upon invitation by the Khatt foundation for Arabic typography and design research.

With the innovative Kashida-arabic and Kashida-latin 3D fonts, and the Kasheeda online app, the customer can type his personal text, word or acronym on the computer and order his sculptural text directly from the 3D printers of Freedom Of Creation.

This means 100% customization: the very first opportunity to have a standardized basis product personalized to every single one’s needs, fabricated just in time in an industrial way and distributed all over the world.

Customize and order your own 3D text online:
Below is a screen grab of the Arabic interface, followed by a close up of my having typed in my last name, Sweet, along with the price and size for ordering.

The Font

The font is based on the concept of a thin and wide ribbon, bending freely through space. Just from one perspective the text reproduced by the ribbon can be read. All other points of view just offer suggestive visions of a banner floating in the air and bending on the ground in order to create a visually dynamic sculpture.

Cultural content

The new Kashida-arabic and Kashida-latin 3D fonts transform the characteristics of the Arabic and Latin letterforms and invert them. The sloping Arabic letterforms become straight and strict and vice versa, generating a fusion of the two cultural backgrounds. This is enhanced by the fact that in 3D typewriting the result is non directional: neither from left, like Latin writing, neither from right, like Arab writing.

The FOC expertise
Materializing the Kashida-arabic and Kashida-latin 3D fonts as a sculptural object in traditional ways, like bending metal ribbons or similar, would have been artisan work and undergone the influences of the skills of every single craftsman. Choosing the FOC expertise in 3D printing is the will to make the 3D font available at standardized aesthetic and material quality to everybody thanks to rationalizing the production. Letters just will be typed on a computer, which will do the rest about connecting them in a fluid way. After having calculated in order to transform them into a single CAD file, the additive layer manufacturing process can start, the polyamide shape can materialize.