The New Pop-Up Book

Everyone talks about how print media is dying. I for one do not agree with that statement. In a growing digital age, print needs to change reader engagement and better the print experience.

A few months ago, Entertainment Weekly (with Pepsi Max and CBS) embedded a digital video player in one of their issues that allowed you to choose from 5 preset videos. Amazing right? A video player... in your magazine! Well now Esquire has embedded a "Augmented Reality" chip in their issue which if you put the magazine up to a web cam, images pop up and interact with you on the computer screen. It really is amazing! Take a look at the clips below.

Invictus

I saw the trailer for Invictus staring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It's about Nelson Mandela using the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite post-apartheid South Africa. It is getting a lot of Oscar hype and since Clint Eastwood directed it, I'm sure it's going to be a monster.

Invictus is Latin for unconquered, and the title of a short poem written by William Ernest Henley. In the trailer Morgan Freeman recites the lines "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul". The words were pretty inspiring so I am sharing the poem with all of you.




OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Airplane!

In Grand Rapids, Michigan they had an event, organized by Rob Bliss, where 100,000 paper airplanes were launched in the air! It's pretty cool to see all the planes falling from the sky. When I saw the pictures and video it was nostalgic, taking me back to the days when I used to make paper airplanes in grade school with my buddies. Well, I still make paper airplanes in the office but that's a whole different story.

Official Video: Rob Bliss 2009 ArtPrize Paper Airplane Event from Creo Productions on Vimeo.