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I Give You My CSS3 Heart

By Tom Saunter on August 12, 2011 // design

I made this little heart shape with CSS3, which I’ve been playing around with lately as a way of rendering rounded corners in the latest version of Subscription Options. Turns out there’s loads you can do with CSS3!

Here’s the (admittedly complex) code that’s used to render the above:

#heart {
    height: 200px;
    position: relative;
    width: 400px;
}

#heart:before,
#heart:after {
position: absolute;
content: "";
left: 120px;
top: 0;
width: 120px;
height: 200px;
background: url("http://files.digitalcortex.net/images/header/rotate.php"); // this makes the colour the same as my header image - but could be any HTML colour instead
-moz-border-radius: 100px 100px 0 0;
border-radius: 100px 100px 0 0;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-o-transform: rotate(-45deg);
transform: rotate(-45deg);
-webkit-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-moz-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-ms-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-o-transform-origin: 0 100%;
transform-origin: 0 100%;
}

#heart:after {
left: 0;
-webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(45deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(45deg);
-o-transform: rotate(45deg);
transform: rotate(45deg);
-webkit-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
-moz-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
-ms-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
-o-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
transform-origin :100% 100%;
}

If you’re interested in playing around with CSS3 shapes like the above, loads of them are are available at CSS Tricks.

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Aside

A Better World, Through Typography

By Tom Saunter on August 8, 2011 // design

Try Helvetica: website that photoshops user-submitted images of Brazilian business signage, replacing hand-painted text with Helvetica, the classic font designed to make whatever it’s used with appear fresh and modern:

tumblr lctiaweMfy1qdtz0po1 500 | A Better World, Through Typography | Digital Cortex

tumblr l7tqhfG2RJ1qdtz0po1 500 | A Better World, Through Typography | Digital Cortex

tumblr lj5yoq1Sze1qdtz0po1 500 | A Better World, Through Typography | Digital Cortex

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Video

‪The History of CGI

By Tom Saunter on August 5, 2011 // film

‪I see loads of great stuff every single day, but since switching from Tumblr I’ve been quite poor at posting sideblogs.

I’m gonna up the frequency a little, but I promise I’ll only show you the good stuff, like this one, which came via @rochellelara:

So many memories! And think of all the breakthroughs yet to come.

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Sun, Sand & Selective Laser Sintering

By Tom Saunter on June 27, 2011 // design

It’s the Summer. It’s an extremely hot day here in London, the hottest day of 2011, in fact. So it’s with just the tiniest stretch of the imagination that I could be right there in the desert watching Markus Kayser at work on his next great experiment.

He’s built his own solar-powered 3D printer out of a large panel of magnifying glass and a computer-guided motorised panel, the raw material being the desert’s primary natural resource: sand.

With his design, he is able to create a focused laser beam that melts sand, so that it cools and hardens in a design of his choosing. In effect, he is ‘growing’ his designs right out of the sand. It’s really, really impressive:

Markus describes the process on the project’s website:

Silicia sand when heated to melting point and allowed to cool solidifies as glass. This process of converting a powdery substance via a heating process into a solid form is known as sintering and has in recent years become a central process in design prototyping known as 3D printing or SLS (selective laser sintering).

These 3D printers use laser technology to create very precise 3D objects from a variety of powdered plastics, resins and metals – the objects being the exact physical counterparts of the computer-drawn 3D designs inputted by the designer.

By using the sun’s rays instead of a laser and sand instead of resins, I had the basis of an entirely new solar-powered machine and production process for making glass objects that taps into the abundant supplies of sun and sand to be found in the deserts of the world.

22 solarsiter014 530x353 | Sun, Sand & Selective Laser Sintering | Digital Cortex

Markus with his Solar Sinter

Sintering is a natural process, commonly occuring products being Fulgurites, which are glass tubes that form deep in the sand when lightning strikes in the desert. Each have a unique quality: colour; shape; consistency and location, which together with their ‘atmospheric origins’ they’ve become quite collectible artefacts.

My take is that Markus’s device will allow command over the sun to grow one’s own kind of ‘artisanal fulgurites’, quite a powerful idea, and undoubtedly a great use of technology that harnesses our most abundant natural resources in a really cool way. Nice one!

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Gameboy Emulator for Android

By Tom Saunter on May 28, 2011 // gaming, mobile

gba emulator for android 540x324 | Gameboy Emulator for Android | Digital Cortex

You know how I love my phone like it was a sexy robot from the future? Well check this shit out. It’s also a full-blown GBA emulator, which with its massive AMOLED screen, and dual core processing, makes my Samsung way more awesome than I could possibly have conceived.

This is a screenshot from Tiger GBA running Advance Wars 2, on it’s original resolution (you can upscale but I like to kick it oldshool). The app integrates with a ROM downloader, where one can select ‘backups’ of the games they already own in order to play.

Legal note: it is against the law to download and play ROM backups of games you do not own. So play safe!

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