Your Daily Insight as told by Abraham Lincoln

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. 

Designers and Animators of the World, Rejoice: GIF's turn 25!

Remember back in the days of Netscape Navigator; the days when anyone with a propensity for black backgrounds and neon green text could make a geocities page? Such pages weren't complete without at least one GIF, though usually those tiny moving graphics like waving USA flags or burning flames made up entire border designs. You may have forgotten about GIFs once we crossed the web 2.0 threshold, but a lot of designers didn't--and thank Jevoha: They've taken the heretofore hideous format and turned into something surprisingly great.

The first GIF appeared in all its pixelated glory in 1987 (!) and to celebrate it 25th anniversary, PBS made a video that tracks the history of the form with a nod to four web wunderkinds who have transformed those little moments of Internet-browsing candy for a contemporary audience. First though, we should probably get one thing straight (as our design compatriots here tell us): it's pronounced Jiff, like the peanut butter, not GIF with a hard G. Yeah, we've been saying it wrong for two decades too. If you're unfamiliar with the form of micro-animation, Patrick Davison of MemeFactory defines it as "an image that's been encoded using the graphics interchange format, where it has multiple frames encoded into a single image file and a web browser or other piece of software will play those images back in animated sequence automatically."

But instead of animating You've Got Mail logos, the new crop of GIF wizards are applying the technology to photo-collages, fashion editorials and scenes from movies.

Our personal favorite are Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg's Cinemagraphs, which remind us of those magical moving pictures in the newspapers from Harry Potter. Beck and Burg describe their work as "the evolution of photography." It's also the most elegant and sophisticated we've seen from GIF-makers so far. Still, GIFs as a serious art form something of a brand new phenomenon. "It's too new," Tumblr's Topher Chris says. "I love being a part of this at a time when we're just figuring it out."

Want to learn how to make your own GIFs? Yes. Yes you do. Enroll in one of 3rd Ward's classes in Multimedia or Web Design.

Go Here Now: The New York Times Brings Its Image Archive Back To Life On Tumblr

Photos from around the world being sorted in the New York Times' archive, a.k.a. the "morgue." (via The Lively Morgue)

"Oh super, another photo blog," you might be thinking as we (strongly) urge you to check out The Lively Morgue, which debuted last month. But hold up—this is not your run-of-the-mill, kaleidoscopic-oveload of information-style-Tumblr blog. The Lively Morgue was just aunched by the New York Times and it's a extraordinary glimpse into the newspaper's century-spanning pictorial archive.

The "morgue" comes from the long-standing nickname for that archive. "Explanations differ as to the origins of that name, but it's safe to say that the clippings were originally biographical and kept close at hand in case a subject dropped dead around deadline, requiring an instant obituary," the Times explains. The "lively," we imagine, refers to the cavalcade of exciting images that they are bringing back to life.

Of course the photographs are amazing to look at, but our favorite element is actually being able to flip each image over and see the reserve side; where photographers, journalists and editors jotted, typed, pasted and stamped each print with relevant information, before the days of computers and digital files.

The Times' collection is so vast that they've been unable to zero in on an exact number: 

How many? We don’t know. Our best guess is five million to six million prints and contact sheets (each sheet, of course, representing many discrete images) and 300,000 sacks of negatives, ranging in format size from 35 millimeter to 5 by 7 inches — at least 10 million frames in all. The picture archive also includes 13,500 DVDs, each storing about 4.7 gigabytes worth of imagery.

The Lively Morgue will feature a few photographs each week, since posting the entire Times archive would be quite a task. Even at 10 posts a day, they estimate that the print collection alone wouldn't be finished until the year 3935.

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Mario Andretti

If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.

Far Above The Crowd: Katrin Korfmann's Deceptive, Bird's-Eye-View of the World

Let's file this one under "simple photo concepts though not as simple as they might first appear.":

After Katrin Korfmann studied photography at Kunsthochschule Berlin and Rietveld Academie in The Netherlands, she settled down in Amsterdam, where she practices a style of photography that confuses perspectives and the spatial relationship between people and their surrounding environment. More specifically, this means she takes lots of wonderful bird's-eye-view photographs of people on the street from way up high above them.

"Stemming from her background in photography, Katrin Korfmann’s works in various media – photo works, videos and installations – are concerned with photographic concepts of framing, perspective, and the social dimensions of perception, such as the relationship between the observer and the observed, the effect of the camera on behavior and the social codes of looking in public environments."

In her latest series, "Count for Nothing," Korfmann documents her travels to places like Lisbon, Madrid, Berlin, Cambridge, Tehran and Pamplona, where we're treated to a bird's-eye-view of the Running with the Bulls. The images are actually photo collages made by layering several images taken over a series of time to give a sense of progression and movement.

"These monochrome surfaces place the events at first sight in a strikingly abstract context, against which people from disparate cultures seen from above do not necessarily appear so different. But when we scrutinize the figures and events more closely, details such as the goods carried on the heads of people in Luanda, the black robes of the women in Teheran or the slightly different attire of the academic students at the University of Cambridge, help us to localize different habits and rituals very precisely." 

One great feature on her website is the ability to zoom in super close, down past people's shoulders to the dirt in between the bricks they're walking on. 

Katrin Korfmann's solo exhibition at Galleri Andersson/Sandstrom in Umea runs from April 4 - May 25, 2012.

Think you can take on Korfmann's work? We do too. Check out 3rd Ward's Image Manipulation class.

-- Perrin Drumm

Price-Weary Art Collectors Behold: The Affordable Art Fair

"New York Grand Central Station Waiting Room," by Norman Lerner

Even if art fairs don't intimidate you, the prices fetched by the work shown there might. And while it's fine to simply look and appreciate a piece, if you've ever actually purchased an original painting or drawing of your very own then you know it's occasionally nice to buy one too. While we don't anticipate making any purchases at The Armory Show, we just might open up our wallets at the Affordable Art Fair, which runs in New York from April 18-22.

Don't be put off by the fact that the chick from "What Not To Wear" is singing the Fair's praises on their website. It might be billed as a place for art newbies who are afraid of "serious art," but it's also a legitimate place for people who know a thing or two to get their art collecting feet wet. And besides, how could a less snobby art fair be a bad thing?

The exhibitor list for this year is yet to be announced (we'll keep you posted), but judging from last year's line up, you won't be disappointed. Sure, there are definitely some more commercial offerings than you're likely to see at The Armory Show, and we wouldn't recommend only going to the Affordable Art Fair this season, but we do feel it provides a valuable and much-needed balance to all the heavy handed art dealings that are about to descend on our fair city.

Feel just totally in the dark on New York's art happenings? 3rd Ward's got an Introduction to New York's Art World class, a crash course in the NY scene for the unititiated.

-- Perrin Drumm

Your Daily Insight as told by Beverly Sills

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

Documented Decay: Yves Marchan and Romain Meffre Photograph Detroit's Ruined Cityscape

A little over a year ago Steidl published the English edition of Yves Marchan and Romain Meffre's exquisite photographs documenting Detroit's rundown and derelict structures in "The Ruins of Detroit." In the past few decades, Detroit's economy has suffered more than any other major city in America, and now the landscape is plagued by rampant neglect and buildings left to decay. Still, it's difficult to understand how the city could allow beautiful, historic buildings like Michigan's Grand Central Station (above) or the United Artists Theater (after the jump) to fall apart.

According to Marchan and Meffre,

“Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension. The state of ruin is temporary by nature, the volatile result of the end of an era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time: being dismayed, or admiring, wondering about the permanence of things. Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.”

"The Ruins of Detroit" is currently on exhibition Kuhlhaus in Berlin. Inspired by Marchan and Meffre's work? Check out 3rd Ward's Documentary Photography class.

 -- Perrin Drumm

Member Trunk Show // Photos Are Up!

Last Thurdays, our talented Members filled 3rd Ward with some of their most beatiful wares for our first ever Member Trunk Show.  Thanks to everyone who came out!  Check out a few of our favorite photos below, and see the whole album on the 3rd Ward Facebook Page.

Thanks to Liz Clayman for the photographs!

Re-sewn & Re-purposed: Atelier Volvox's Collection of Twice-Loved Stuffed Animals

Ever wonder what happens to all the unloved stuffed animals of the world, even the really sad-looking ones that sit in a bin at the Salvation Army and never find a home? Swiss design outlet Atelier Volvox is giving some of those secondhand zebras and giraffes and new life with "Outsiders," their latest project and the winner of Germany's Recycling Design Preis 2012. Their collection of inside-out stuffed toys bested 600 entries in the Preis this year and snagged a nice chunk of prize money (€2500) too.

The formula for Volvox's idea is pretty straightforward: cut open, turn out, restuff and sew. The execution is purposely crude, and it's clear from the rest of the portfolio that they're perfectly capable of a high level of production quality, like Tischbaum (literally tree structure), a handy desk accessory, or Werbank 2.0 aka the desk of our dreams. What we really like about Volvox is their willingness to play and create impractical objects for their conceptual value alone, like the series Für das Tier in mir, or "For the Animal in me," a line that connects products with our animalistic side. There's a hobo's stick on wheels (like a rolling suitcase), a white oxford with two neon yellow circles in the arm pits and a pair of women's see-through underwear with an embroidered cat on the front playing with the crotch area. 

If you want to make your own collection of inside-out animals but don't know your way around a needle and thread? Easy: check out 3rd Ward's Level 1 Sewing class. Meanwhile, grab a few more glimpses of Volvox's work: