Here is another of those wonderful DIY projects via Make. I have come accross many but this one definetly scoops the gold prize for me. It's all about connecting organic and the digital and how wonderful this turns out to be.

Botanicalls Twitter answers the question: What's up with your plant? It offers a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates that reach you anywhere in the world. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know, and send its thanks when you show it love. read more...

There are so many wonderful links via Make that I find it difficult not to grab posts from their site almost every day. If you are a fan of DIY, then definetly head over to make and check out some wonderful links and also video of their weekend projects. You can also subscribe to their podcast here.

For more DIY links on Allmightys.com check out our DIY category in the blog.

In keeping up with our weekly tradition of bringing you interesting, funny and well made animated films, here is our lates: Barrypilling from the UK created this wonderful animated video to the Maccabees' song 'First Love'. It's a very cool animation indeed using pens and a writing pad.

watch it here...

To view our past oscar-worthy films, check out our animation category here.

If you recently thought about upgrading your floor, why not check out byHenzel's  cool rugs. These come in a variety of designs and colours and some are great designs to have  on the floor. I could well imagine having the Paris street map under my feet :)

Take a look here...

The New York Times put together this 'Ebb and Flow of Movies' infogram. It lists the box office receipts from 1986 to today and shows the extent of the movies' popularity over time. Graphically appealing and a fun diagram to browse through.

Browse here...

Gordon Bennett makes robot sculptures out of used and new materials that he finds everywhere, at garage sales, on junkyards and construction sites. These cool little robots are no toys. They are unique sculptures, take about a month to build and have no battery operated parts.

The range is beautiful, as is the attention to detail. I think my favourite is Edward :)

Check them all out here...

Kirigami is the Japanese art of paper cutting and model making. As Origami, the initial art of folding paper, forbids the use of a knife, Kirigami does allow this and makes way for some stunning and meticulous paper models. It looks like you have to be very precise indeed... :) The art of Kirigami was 'invented' in 1981 by Masahiro Chatani, a professor of Architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

take a look at some models here...

The weekly badge review. The features from Monday 18th to Saturday 23th of February plus the spotlighted Sunday´s button badge. The week we had the stuff a design nerd really needs: a pink drip, black and white halftones... take a look. This Sunday we feature Heiko from the state of things. 

Please meet UK based Craig Watkins aka wotto and his wonderful world of illustrated characters. I absolutley love his sketches..it is as if they existed before the paper they were drawn on!  Some very nice flash animations too. Make sure you check it out: wotto.co.uk

Craig hasn't submitted anyting to allmightys yet but we sure hope to see some really cool stuff in the next comps. Bring them on wotto!

_{Do you have interesting links? Send them to us and we'll try to include them in our blog.}

Here is a little sneak of how we do things here at Allmightys. A sneak peak in how we make things happen here and they are:
1. iChat  
Apple's AIM client we wouldn't know what do without. Most of the time Kon is in Berlin and I (filip) am in London. Almost every day we are on ichat doing video, sharing thoughts, discussing opportunities, submissions, etc...
2. Basecamp
This is a great online app by 37signals that lets you collaborate online via various projects you set-up. From to-dos to milestones, discussions and much more. Definitely check it out and if you work with clients, its a fantastic way to share and update. Its free for one project.
3. Typo3
Typo is the base of allmightys, what Allmightys runs on. OpenSource! Its what you see every day and what you use. The difference being is that we use backend way more than front end. Its like cooking and serving ..all you see is whats served. I do wish at times the backend was as pretty as front end :)

We hope this gives you a little peak in how we do things over here. Make sure you check out these tools, they are all pretty amazing...Berlin and London have never been closer! :)

I am really happy to have stumbled over this cool little animation for today:

18 Russian artists have animated their drawings on post-its for this communal project and put it all together for a very enjoyable, well animated music video. Sometimes the paper stands alone, at other times the drawings are cleverly mounted into their surroundings...all in all a cool piece of work. I like the music too :)

Watch it here...

Earthlive is a Discovery Channel site which superimposes several different global phenomena and effects on a globe. You can, for instance, take a look at the gulf stream, the path of hurricane Katarina or what the world looks like with all the lights on. The site is nicely done and the rotateable globe reminds yo of a strategy computer game. At the moment there only a few topics to choose from, but it looks like more will be added. There are also links to news about certain projects and institutions.

I like these exploratory sites a lot. This one looks promising and will hopefully develop further in the future. Take a look...

In the mood for more online competitions? If so, then Momiji Doll Design Competition might be a place for you to go.

Momiji and Don't Panic have joined forces to find this year's most talented up and coming designer to design a new set of vinyl dolls. You should submit designs in 2D and they'll take care of the rest. They'll need full colour front, back and side views of your dolls. You can upload these here in JPG, TIF or PDF format. There is a £1500 prize for the winner, and their doll will be produced and hand-painted by Momiji, and then sold exclusively through Selfridges.
(via GraphicCompetitions)

GraphicCompetitions blog is a great source for online competitions so make sure you check it out.

There is a craze going on about iPhone and iPod cases and there seems to be no material weird enough to prevent it from serving as an iPhone casing. How about this one, made out of cork. I guess if you like the look and the fact that it may float on water, this is for you. Personally, I prefer simpler, less obvious shelters for my mobile ;)

check it out here...

Skeletroid vs U-botron vs The Aerobots by Puzon is finally here. The last but no way least tee from our recent Mech-Tech competition. Our gold prize winner!!

Hot off the press ....grab it now!!

Mayhem! Bombs! Lasers! Missiles! Explosions! Fight of Gigantic Killer Robots. Who's the raider and who's the defender? Nobody knows...(Puzon)

Graffiti Archeology is a project that looks at walls and their graffiti over a span of several years, documenting the change over time. The walls in question are located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and other cities. The timespan of documentation ranges from the early 190's to the present.

As graffiti-covered walls change their appearance very quickly, this project observes and conservates the style and artwork over time.

Have a look at the cool website here...

The weekly Badge Review. The features from Monday 11th to Saturday 16th of February plus the spotlighted Sunday´s button badge. This week there were features from many different places such as New Jersey, Portugal, Berlin, Israel and Madrid. This Sunday we feature the UK based illustrator Kate Sutton. 

Something for the weekend and surely put things in perspective.
Animated infographic movie from Good Magazine, visually explaining who possesses nuclear bombs & how many, & what would happen when one would fall on New York City. (via infoaesthetics)

If you are interesting to find out more ..here are few more links:
Wikipedia: List of states with nuclear weapons
Or another bit of data visualisation, check this clip using oreo cookies to see how much exactly nuclear arsenal US has and the money that is spent to maintain these.

Two days ago I went to the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands near Arnheim. The Museum, named after the collector Helene Kröller-Müller, is set in the huge Hoge Veluwe National Park in the south-east of the Netherlands. It houses the second biggest van Gogh collection in the world and has a considerable sculpture park around it. The building itself was designed by Henry van de Velde in 1938. The sculpture garden was added in 1961 and the new exhibition wing, designed by Wim Quist, opened in 1977. Here are a few pics i've taken ..and you can read more about the museum here...

Here's a little nicely drawn animation from Japan, animated by the talented Kazumi Hirota. Nice combination of drawing and rendered background. Check out more of his cool work at www.kazumihirota.com. The music is composed by Tatsuki Mori and reminds me a lot of Belle and Sebastian.

Watch it here...

Meet Pinar Demirdag, half turkish half canadian designer from Strasboug, France. An interesting collection of work especially posters and cut'n'paste books.

Check it out: pinardemirdag.com

Thanks Pinar

^{Do you have interesting links? Send them to us and we'll try to include them in our blog.}

Soulmachine, our bronze prize by a.mar.illo is now in store!
Grab it now! - Hot off the press!

Only one tee left from our Mech-Tech competition -  Skeletroid vs U-botron vs The Aerobots by Puzon. Coming to the store very soon!

The voting has begun and the scores are pouring in. Its great to see you guys are voting but at the same time we would like to apologise for the recent difficulties in casting your votes. It is a problem with have been fighting with since the last competition and are still trying to resolve it. With the recent large increase of visitors to the site the load on the server has been way larger than expected and we feel our server has reached "expiry date". The problems we are talking about relate to "Page is Being Generated" message that appears when you are accessing voting pages. Reason for this is that many more people are trying to access the same page too so this is putting quite a lot of strain on the server database by simultaneous queries. Without going into too much details we want to let you know that we are working on resolving this problem.
The new server is currently being prepared for the move. We will need to do a number of test before the move can happen and optimise our site to work as smoothly as possible on the new server.  Again, apologies for the difficulties but rest assured we are fixing the little devil! :)

If you are an avid iPhone user like Fil and me and also an apprentice or experienced guitar player (unlike Fil and me) then this might be for you. Here's an application that lets you practice those riffs and chords on your phone. It was developed as a Google Code project by a guy called Shinya Kasatan.

Have a look here...

The submission time for I Am thinking.. competition has ended and the voting has just started!!

Thank you all for submitting such wonderful designs!  We've had a fantastic response, a total of 99 submissions, and it's exciting to see so many cool ideas. All we need to know now is what you, your family, your friends, your work colleagues think about them by scoring/voting.

As always, you can do this by voting and commenting on the designs in the running. The points you can give to the designs range from 0 (I really don't like this one...) to 5 (I totally want to wear this t-shirt).

Score Designs Now!!

About voting:
Don't forget to comment when you score. Tell us what you think of the design and how much you like/dislike it! Remember that you don't have to score all designs at once. You can score a few, have a coffee and return later to score the rest. Our server will remember you and tell you the ones you already scored by fading the image into black and white. Neat ;) but don't forget to score all the designs ..they all need your vote!

If you are new to voting on Allmightys.com then why not check out our Voting Guide.
Voting ends 3rd March 2008, 23.00 GMT.
Winners announced on the 4th.

Here is an interesting project to visualize language in terms of related images in referral to the semantic meaning of nouns. The compilation of the related images comes through Google and other search engines and the nouns through Wordnet. The result is a huge mosaic of image clusters that make up the big 'language picture' and explores the similarities and proximity of visual and semantic content.

Read more here...

The weekly Badge Review. The features from Monday 4th to Saturday 9th of February plus the spotlighted Sunday´s button badge. This week we visited the farm of the illustrious Farmer Bob, checked out what badges to wear in case of a revolution and had a look (actually two) what´s up in The Netherlands. This Sunday we feature the southern Germany based illustrator Marek Haiduk. 

If you find yourself in London from 15th March to 13th July then this exhibition is definetly worth checking out. Titled "China Design Now" exhibion is a representative of China's post-socialist contemporary art, design, cinema and architecture.

China Design Now @ V&A, London

This exhibition will take you on a journey along China’s coastal cities to experience the country’s creative landscape. The journey starts in the far south, where graphic designers in Shenzhen began to explore new directions in the early 1990s. Next we move up to Shanghai. Here consumerism and urban culture have combined to produce astonishing fashion and lifestyles. Finally, we travel to Beijing, where monumental architecture for the Olympic Games is transforming this ancient capital’s skyline. read more..

Interestingly enough to celebrate Chinese new year they've also made an effort to put this flash piece together where you can find out what sign you are. Cute but a little gimmicky. Anyway, check it out.

Check out this wonderful portfolio by this 20 years old polish designer Maciej Rakowski. I especially love the drawings, from life drawing to characters. If drawing is not your thing then some great illustrations and logo work will definetly inspire you.

k4lab.info

Thanks Maciej...

Bulb II is a five minute short animation written and produced by Ryan Foss and Nando Florestan. It continues where the short Bulb left off.
This short animation was selected as one of North America's Best Independent Animated Shorts.

watch it here...

Only four and a half days left to submit designs for our current "I Am Thinking" competition. We've had some fantastic entries already and if you haven't seen them then check out our design forum. We are now entering the period , last few days, where things get very hectic and we loose sleep :) and get edgy ..hehe. If you are planning to submit please do so asap to avoid last minute rejection. Another great thing to submit early is that you can get community to comment on your design and you still have time to improve it/make changes. If you leave it too late ...then you are a little stuck. :)

Deadline to submit is 11th Feb, 23.00 GMT. We will be closing the submissions and opening Vote Designs the next day. It takes us about couple of hours to go through all the submissions and check everything is in order and ready for voting. When the voting starts you will see a new menu appear vote designs. Here you will be able to score all the designs and comment. Please tell us what you gave the design as we are sure designers appreciate all the comments they receive.

Voting ends on 3rd March, 23.00 GMT. This gives you, your friends other members about 3 weeks to vote. By the 3rd we should have collected enough votes and comments to decide the winners.

Here is one of the recent comments from the design forum:
"There are a lot of great submissions this contest. Allmgihtys is going to have to print 9 instead of 6.."
Maybe, just maybe :))) so keep 'em coming!!!

IMAGE: A Working Brain Model : Brain power : "Am I Thinking??"
^{This shows shows the connectivity of the 10,000 neurons and 30 million connections that make up a single neocortical column. (The different colors correspond to different levels of electrical activity.) Having created a biologically accurate computer model of a neocortical column scientists are now planning to model the entire human brain within just 10 years.}

The 58th Berlinale Film Festival starts tomorrow. As every year, the city has started to become increasingly packed, and there's a great hustle and bustle about. Journalists, crewmen, wannabe's and Be's pack the area around Potsdamer Platz.

The festival officially opens with 'Shine A Light', Martin Scosese's documentary about the Rolling Stones (I'm watching that tomorrow night). Then 10 days of major Hollywood productions, international films, short films, experimental films etc follow. The festival closes on the 17th with 'Be Kind Rewind' by Michel Gondry.

I'm going to try to watch as much as I can- the queuing procedure is annoying, but chances to get tickets to all except the major premieres are good... :)

check out the program here...

We have just added 4 new tees from our recent "Mech Tech" Competition to the store plus the special Allmightys Anniversary tee. We absolutely love them and think you will too... :)

We added:
White Robot by Miroslav Kostic
A Few Good Men by Joe Gonzalez
Nature And Tech by Gary George Clotario
Tricky Forest by vergilije

and our one-year anniversary shirt
The Pencil Man by Yonil

Grab them while they're fresh!

Look out for the two designs still to come:
Soulmachine by a.mar.illo and
Skeletroid vs U-botron vs The Aerobots by Puzon!

Born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia, Boogie began documenting rebellion and unrest during the civil war that ravaged his country during the 1990s. He moved to New York in 1998.

I stumbled across this very interesting and talented photographer today. Check out his cool site, where in addition to his portfolio, he uploads a new picture almost every day, making this a personal visual dairy. Powerful photos!

The weekly Badge Review. The features from Monday 28 to Saturday of January 02 of February plus the spotlighted Sunday´s button badge. This week we had two wellknown illustrators from the United Kingdom, button badges for web designers and an austrian magazine that comes in a package with some pins. This Sunday´s special feature is México D.F. based multimedia studio "Zoveck".

An interesting post over at Inhabitat about Chris Jordan who creates installations from electronic waste. Some great collection of work and make sure you check out the battery installation.
I've personally always had an interest in visual complexity.. probably because I just find it incredibly interesting when arrangment in beyond understanding. Our minds always try to process what we see visually and when attempts are made to process something etremley complex, most of us give up. These occurrences somehow always want you to look more closeley, trying to figure it out and rationalise. If you are also interested in complexity, check out Visual Complexity blog.

Of course, what is also interesting about these pieces is the sheer fact of how much we throw away. Incredible...

Chris Jordan Creates Beauty from E-Waste

Digital artist Chris Jordan knows how to turn e-trash into photographic treasure. His large-scale images of massive amounts of statistically-inspired refuse make it all too clear just how big a problem consumer waste is. His work, which features objects from Barbies and plastic bags to e-waste and shipping containers, brings to light a tough dichotomy, presenting our gluttonous existence as consumers.... read more..

Petra Mrzyk & Jean-François Moriceau are two artists living in Paris. They work with clean line drawings, placing them in galleries along 'normal' paintings, moving in and out of scale. They also do a multitude of animated drawings. Have a look at this great animation here...