Through the sky float hundreds of blue (male) and pink (female) balloons, each representing a single dating profile. The brighter balloons are younger people; the darker balloons older.

The piece has five formal movements: Who I Am, What I Want, Snippets, Matchmaker, and Breakdowns. Take a look at the beautiful screens generated by this data.

It was commissioned by New York’s Museum of Modern Art for their Design and the Elastic Mind show.

All the examples are built using Flex, but I’m not sure if the Flex Library is required to publish. I’ll find out when I give it a whirl.

Screencast and additional Map API info.

Update: I just fond this great information on how to use this API in CS3, without Flex (a hack, but they say CS3 support is coming soon):
How to use the Yahoo! AS3 Maps API in Flash CS3

FFFFound! is a new image bookmarking site developed by Yugo Nakamura that continues to draw me back as it delivers a steady stream of image goodness. Currently an invite-only site to be a posting member, anyone can browse and view this interesting arrangement of images ranging from graphic design to an animated GIF from Star Wars.

So much of what I’ve seen has been beautiful snippets from collections of photography and design that give me inspiration when I’m looking for a spark in my design process. Having an account on FFFFound! (thanks Yogo), via a browser bookmarklet, you can snag any photo you see on a webpage and add it to ‘My Found’. Once on the system, other users can add the same image to their Found, doing so adds you to their favorite users list. Based on the images you tag, the site has a dynamically generated recommended page called ‘New for you!’

FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!

It’s worth checking out. Although one word of caution: the fact is that at times, as goes the internet, knuckleheads post images of naked women. I love this response to the nudie posts: “your sister anatomy: no, thanks”.

Once you get a good base for the images and users you’re page draws from, it’s easy to avoid such images.

Here is my Found page. Each user is only given one invite and I already gave mine away. But stay tuned as I’m sure more will be become available soon.

In my quest to become Actionscript 3.0 / OOP proficient I put together this simple example using the DIGG API to pull the last 10 popular stories. Right now it’s only using the TextField to display and handle the events so there is no useHandCursor option unless you attach it to a Sprite or SimpleButton. But I added a rollover color and these are linked to the articles on DIGG.

Flash Content

Source Code

Note: The source code includes the entire set of Flex 2 classes, as the Digg API requires it and I wasn’t sure how to strip out the unused classes. I wanted to include everything necessary to publish from the Flash IDE.

Joshspear.com interviewed one of my all time favorite designers and huge inspiration, Joshua Davis. I first heard about Josh when he presented at Flash Forward, San Fransisco 2001. He was talking about easing equations using Flash 5 and showing off his large collection of exploratory work in Flash. He continues to create new and interesting illustrations generated from his Flash “machines”.

Here are a few quotes from the interview:

Being creative, for me, is just a way of seeing the world hyper-sensitively. It’s not something I can turn on or off or something I learned.

I have commercials clients who hire me to create systems for commercials purposes. I feel it’s harder because you need to take the rules and boundaries of the clients project and brand, try to breathe a bit of yourself into those confines, and hope you create something new and exciting that benefits your growth as a designer and helps elevate the clients brand.

I’d like for my studio and the projects we take on to attempt to innovate and not replicate — set the trend, rather than following it. A lot of time this refers to the fact that clients often aren’t thinking about innovation, they’re just looking at what’s already been done. My studio is in the business of trying new and unexpected things.

Full Interview

Also, check out Joshua’s Flash workshop presentation and source files

An array of questions fills the page and an images of a baby is visible through the coloring of letters. You can type in a search term or select a topic from the drop down. Matching questions turn blue and pop out from the field of gray text. Clicking on on a question takes you to the answer page on their standard HTML website. Or you can just browse the large screen of questions for something you find questioning.

I like this solution as it’s a viral way to spread useful information and creates an interesting way to educate the user. The CPU usage is very high and seems to stall my browser when I switch tabs. Could possibly benefit from Bitmap caching.