sundance

Ezra Shaw’s unique perspective on divers

This photo series, published in The Wall Street Journal and snapped by Getty Images photographer Ezra Shaw at the 14th FINA World Championships, would be smack in the middle of a Venn diagram charting fans of sports, photography, and “LOLs.” Shaw pointed his lens at the these graceful divers and presented viewers with a slightly different perspective on the sport with a hilarious (unintentional at least from the athletes’ perspective) result. Of course we admire their talents and poise as they slip into the water, like (bad analogy alert) a knife through butter, but I dare you to look at these photographs of them underwater and not laugh.

The “trick shot” video trend

In 2011 so far there’s been a trend of “trick shot” videos recorded by various college and professional athletes from all sports and uploaded to YouTube where The Internet collectively goes “ooh,” “ahh,” and “holy sh*t!” at their leet skills. My favorite so far is the one above by Brodie Smith that demonstrates he can [...]

Shaolin soccer

A neat photo gallery of Shaolin students in a monastery in Henan Province, China playing and practicing soccer just like the way I imagine them.

Vimeo of the Week: Need You Now

Cut Copy – Need You Now from Cut Copy on Vimeo. Australian band Cut Copy‘s video for the song “Need You Now” is good gay fun. It’s hilarious in its use of cliched sport imagery that’s existed in commercials and sports television for years. While the band plays straight, the athletes (swimmers, runners, fencers, and [...]

The Onion finally comes to TV

This Day In History: The Invention Of The Handjob Be afraid, Jon Stewart, be very afraid. Last week, the Onion News Network premiered on IFC and artfully accomplished what The Daily Show tries to: mercilessly skewering the 24-7 cable news industry (the subtitle is, after all, “News Without Mercy”). It’s exactly what a fake news [...]

Interactive: Gloves of the World Series

The New York Times has an interesting interactive photo website of various fielders gloves from past World Series. Hover over any portion of a mitt to see a close up of that section. Above is Babe Ruth’s mitt from 1926. [ Editorializing alert] Go Giants!

Women who hit very hard

With the tennis 2010 US Open underway, the New York Times has a gorgeously shot video series, “The Beauty of the Power Game,” directed by Dewey Nicks and featuring top female players smacking the bejesus out of the ball in extreme slow-motion.

The organic golf course: green or greenwash?

US presidents golfing on vacation is hardly news, but President Obama’s choice of a course for his ten days of family time in Martha’s Vineyard this month did make the New York Times… because the Vineyard Golf Club “is thought to be the only completely organic golf course in the United States…”

Twitter’s analysis of tweets during the World Cup

By Internet time the World Cup seems like it happened eons ago, but Twitter’s official blog recently posted their analysis of tweets during the World Cup. Their analysis and relevance team compiled results into a cool infographic “charting fans’ use of hashflags (like #esp or #usa) during the tournament with a background of TPS [tweets [...]

Comic sans comically rears its head during LeBron spectacle.

The spectacle surrounding LeBron James’ nationally televised decision to leave Cleveland for South Beach had something for everyone, including graphic designers and aesthetes. After LeBron’s LeBum’s announcement, Dan Gilbert, the jilted majority owner of James’ former team the Cavaliers, wrote an open letter tirade on the Cavs website which had the Internet and Twitterites abuzz (currently a top trending topic) not only for the content, which called his former star “narcissistic,” “heartless and callous” but for the particular infamous and comical typeface Gilbert used. Journalist Jennifer 8. Lee (yes, her middle name is awesomely a number) tweeted this older WSJ article about Vincent Connare, the creator of Comic Sans, the much used and equally hated typeface popular not only in “grade-school fliers and holiday newsletters, Disney ads and Beanie Baby tags, business emails, street signs, Bibles, porn sites, gravestones and hospital posters about bowel cancer,” but also with owners of professional basketball teams.

In 1994, Mr. Connare was working on a team at Microsoft creating software that consumers eventually would use on home PCs. His designer’s sensibilities were shocked, he says, when, one afternoon, he opened a test version of a program called Microsoft Bob for children and new computer users. The welcome screen showed a cartoon dog named Rover speaking in a text bubble. The message appeared in the ever-so-sedate Times New Roman font.

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Comments: Posted by: Matthew Rodriguez

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Tags: comic sans / designers / lebron / meme / sports / typeface

Fabric soccer balls

Klas Ernflo made these regulation-size soccer balls from wool fabrics. I was able to view some of them last year at Partners and Spade, Andy Spade’s art gallery-slash-store, and they were the classiest bespoke soccer balls that I’ve ever seen.

Adhesive soccer tape

Martí Guixé designed this adhesive tape that can be crumpled up into a soccer ball. A hat tip to Full Frontal Fashion blogger Ashley Simko for posting this on her personal blog last year. I thought it relevant to share with you in light of the World Cup AND the fact that it’s moving-to-new-apartment season [...]

The evolution of the World Cup soccer ball

The evolution of the soccer ball.

Michael Jordan’s Hitler Mustache

Here’s one for the “WTF” column.  Michael Jordan, basketball legend cum underwear pitchman has embarked on what could perhaps wind up being the most bizarre comeback of his career…the return of the Hitler mustache.  In his latest  turkey of an ad for Hanes,  Jordan perplexingly sports a  Hitler mustache.   Don’t believe it? Take a [...]

History of uniform typos

Here’s something for the sports fans: Apparently misspellings on professional and college sports uniforms over the years aren’t uncommon (more photo examples), occurring as recently as in April where the jersey of San Francisco Giant’s Eugenio Velez misspelled the city’s name (see photo above). ESPN.com had a fascinating column on this issue with some interesting [...]

Own the Field of Dreams

The farmhouse from one of my all time favorite sports movies FIELD OF DREAMS is up for sale. RETRO SPOILER ALERT: That scene in the end where Kevin Costner’s dad asks him if he wants to play catch always brings me right to the edge of tearville. The owners Don and Becky Lansing are selling [...]

Major league baseball’s green season

As Robert Redford notes in the video above, the environmental footprint of major league baseball (or any professional sport) is “formidable”: from the energy to run the stadium, to the gas consumed by fans traveling to a game, to water used in bathrooms and to keep field grass green, many resources go into the production of America’s national pastime. Yesterday, the partnership between MLB and the NRDC announced a significant initiative to assess and address that footprint: “…a comprehensive software system to collect and analyze stadium operations data to develop and distribute best practice information across the 30 Clubs” that will go into use this season.

Getting by with a little help from a sportsgasm

When Craig Venezia, the man behind the Faking a Sportsgasm blog, wrote to us suggesting that our sites had a lot in common, we were wary. On the one hand, we love that he makes fun of macho dudes who slobber and moan over balls and hard pucks. But on the other hand, we’re against faking of any kind — and it seems like Craig just wants to blend in with all the face-painted sports fans. Which would mean that slobbering macho dudes win. And on the other other hand, part of us thinks that Craig just might be pulling everyone’s leg.

But then Craig uploaded his Faking a Sportsgasm song to his blog, set to the tune of YMCA, with lyrics like “A discharge of your testosterone / You can do it when you’re all alone / But it’s more fun, when you’re with other guys / Then you can all do high fives.” Okay, so (a) that is hilarious on so many levels, and choosing the YMCA tune was a stroke of genius. And (b) the recording actually sounds really good and surprisingly professional, which leads us to think that Craig is serious and not pulling our leg. We’re still not down with the faking, but we’re totally down with making fun of sports fans in song, and so we decided to ask Craig a few questions and let him explain his mission in his own words.

March Madness by the numbers

Aside from Chat Roulette, most of the country right now is obsessed with March Madness, the annual NCAA basketball tournament. GOOD Magazine shares this interesting infographic from Fast Company that explains how this tournament pays it forward.

Hi-res Olympic images

The Olympics came and went before I had time to fully understand the phenomenon of curling. I still have no clue. None at all.

And while we were a bit Johnny Weir-obsessed around these parts, and rightfully so, it would be a shame to not think fondly on the USA’s triumphs. Even with costumes consisting of bird feathers, we can still win the gold.

Sex at the Winter Olympics

The Olympics are such a noble event symbolic of international peace and camaraderie, that to bring sex into The Games would be a tactless move, expressing an outright distaste of taste. So….let the tactlessness begin! Apparently, lots of sweating, increased heart rates, and aerobic activity doesn’t just happen at the official events, but also in the Olympic Village — in the past, people have called it “an adult Disney World.”

Winter Olympics medals contain e-waste

As with the past several Olympic games, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics have worked to incorporate elements of sustainability into this massive event. From building a framework for event sustainability to creating greener event venues like the Whistler Sliding Center for bobsled, luge, and skeleton competitions, the Vancouver Organizing Committee has worked hard to lighten the admittedly huge footprint of the upcoming games.

The Super Bowl Ad Superlatives (in the love & sex category)

BEST OVERALL: Dove Men+Care’s “The Journey to Comfort”
At last, a commercial that celebrates manhood without being sexist, stupid or beer-related! It’s basically a mini-movie crammed into 45-seconds (seriously, try counting the number of scenes they had to shoot) that follows one Everyman’s life from birth to adulthood by highlighting the big moments as well as the mundane ones: puberty, love, marriage, jar-opening, parenthood. The message is “You’re mature and comfortable enough in your own skin that you don’t have to worry about seeming like a pussy if you want to moisturize your skin.” And it avoids all the divisive or offensive gender stereotypes often found in Super Bowl ads. BUT — and it’s a big “but” — the title of “best ad” only applies to the 45-second version that aired during the Super Bowl last night. If you search online for it (and on the Dove site), the version that will probably come up first is the ONE minute version, which sadly DOES include a bunch of tired gender stereotypes, like fighting at parties, never showing your sensitive side and never showing fear — ugh! Like with good film making, good commercial making is all about editing, editing, editing.

45-Second Version (Yay!):

One-Minute Version (Boo!):

See the winners for “Most Romantic,” “Most Sexist” and “Funniest” after the jump:

City museums make Super Bowl bet

1644 painting “Ideal View of Tivoli” by Claude Lorrain

It’s a long standing tradition that the mayors of the two teams fighting it out in a sports championship, such as the World Series or Super Bowl, will wager on the outcome and bet their city’s local offerings, typically food. In this year’s Super Bowl, the respective museums of the two cities, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Indianapolis Museum of Art are beating their proverbial (artsy) chests and betting a major art piece from their collection. There’s been a lot of trash talk between the two museum directors as words such as “insignificant” and “gaudy tchotchke” to describe some of the paitings has been tossed and tweeted back and forth.

The Superbowl ad you WON’T see this weekend

We used to look forward to Superbowl Sunday for the ads (that, and the excuse to over-indulge in junk food). But it looks like CBS is determined to ruin the one sports-related joy in our lives. First of all they went and accepted an anti-choice ad from conservative Christian group Focus on the Family — apparently CBS no longer bans advocacy submissions or controversial ads, as they have claimed in the past. Of course, Focus on the Family claims the ad is not controversial at all, and is simply about “the issue of life.” Riiiight. The ad — which has not yet been released — is expected to feature Pam Tebow (mother of college football star Tim) and her decision to carry Tim to term despite a recommendation from doctors that she have an abortion. Sorry: despite a recommendation from doctors regarding the issue of life.

Unfortunately CBS’s policy on “controversial” ads still holds firm if the ad happens to come from a gay men’s dating site.