Clay Rendering

I've always wondered how to render the sort of clay looking final results in 3D Max.
Well, finally after much search, it's called Clay rendering. How foolish for me to call it white rendering.

Here's a practice doing it:



And this is for my Final Project which I did with LightTrace:



Read all about the tutorial here.

Kuler : Color theme Creator

Discover Adobe® Kuler™ — the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you're creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.



It's one of those links you can't resist. Kuler helped me a lot in working with colors. In fact, I've been inspired to do some posters just by strolling around and stumble some neat array of colors.

Less is More and More is Less

Yet another play-with-words question. "Less is more" is related to the philosophy of minimalism as having less is in fact meaningful. In design sense, very basic lines and planes are organized in such a way that they look pleasant, clean, at ease and understood. It's often related to modern design as they may look more futuristic rather than traditional or cultural influenced designs. The intriguing part of "less is more" is it's ability to function similarly to that of conventional designs. However, even having less is more, there's a fall in details which may not be of suiting to certain crowds. Take for example, a living room.



Such design may look appealing to the more later generation as oppose to the more traditional folks. And i quite agree that even though minimalist design are appealing, it lacks the details and the accents of homeliness. But that's another argument. Less is more comes into handy at these times where people are looking for a more simplistic design rather than the old conventional wardrobe and zinc rooftops.

More is less. The slight twist of words changes the whole meaning. It was hard to decipher the meaning on this particular one though. Less is more was quite straight forward. It could mean that (doing) "more with less". Having an idea of more with very little input is wizardry. It's what attracts a lot of people on the idea of minimalism.



The above poster depicts the so called "flux-capacitor" in the movie Back to the Future. It's what drives the whole plot of the movie. Without it, Emmett Brown wouldn't have discovered time travelling and that's how significant this portrayal is. And they say, you're getting more with very little.

CCTV China Central Television Headquarters

Keeping in mind that the Chinese manage to prepare themselves for the olympics in such paced time, I'm now constantly impressed by how China is developing and rising against other nations. Their open-mindedness in architectural design is further manifested by the recent CCTV Headquarters in Beijing.



Rem Koolhaas(Netherlands) and Ole Scheeren(Germany) of OMA were the architects in charge for the building, while Arup provided the complex engineering design. The building was built in two separate building and later was joint as picture shown below.



Somehow, its design reminds me of an escher illusion. Nevertheless, props to China for building an almost impossible feat of construction challenge. Read more here.

Coroflot! : An online Crative Portfolio

Interesting find this one. It's a website consist of designer from all sorts of background, expertise and prowess. It's like the Vimeo of design craft.



I love going through the site to get references and ideas. They have some very clever and creative ideas which are very intriguing.

Get there by clicking here.

World without design.

Environment. It's what we're surrounded with and live in. World without people concerned about environment makes it all dull and plain mundane. I would imagine of a world where design and art is tertiary and governments do not put a single penny on developing such an important part of any civilization. My point is, environmental design is essential to any country as it beautifies and makes a statement.

In my opinion, design reflects the overall impression of a society. I would think that China is still the ancient narrow-minded people if it's not for the recent revelation of extraordinary architectural structures they've built. Take for example, the National Grand Theater in Beijing.



Even the simplest act of decoration such as the lawn gnomes, statues and flamingo puppets makes up the essence of design and reflects concerns about the environment.



Wall Street Bull.

Dubai's Ibn Battuta Shopping Mall

The Ibn Battuta Mall is a large shopping mall on the Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai.. It is named after Moroccan famous traveller and explorer Ibn Battuta. This project was completed by the Nakheel Properties group in early 2005. The names of the six courts of the mall are named after the countries and regions to which Ibn Battuta travelled.

Interestingly, this mall is divided into six main courts. There's China,India, Persia, Egypt, Tunisia, and Andalusia.



Click image for higher-res.



Read more over here.