THE COSMONAUTS

Acabo de publicar toda la información sobre el próximo curso para formar a diseñadores de interacción. Será la tercera edición del Programa Vostok.

This is the kind of stuff Mark tells you to justify his totally unacceptable levels of coffee consumption:

(original at Homeowners Insurance)

Today we had some spare time to do an iPad wallpaper feauturing our 3-window rocket. Here’s how it looks and the original file for you to use it:

… and the file (links to the one you have to use, 1024×1024 px.):

Enjoy it.

Sam Lown has been recently tweaking the web version of Planetaki. He has made some improvements and minor alterations for a new version that’ll be released this Summer. Watch the video for more info.

We are glad to welcome cosmonauts Gabriela Lendo and Timo Taglieber. Timo is on a space-tourist internship building the iPad version of Planetaki, while Gabriela joins the permanent outpost helping out the spaceship’s comms systems.

Gabriela Lendo majored in International Relations, and her command of English and French are top-notch. She has worked in Madrid for Notisistema, and has headed the communications teams of cinema related projects in London (Portobello Festival) and Madrid (The Cosmonaut).

To sample her work, just take a look at the latest videos we’ve posted.

Gabriela is also an awesome cook, after sampling her banana bread we called the cops on the suspicion of, ahem ilegal flavor enhancements, but it turned out regular banana pancake can be addictive. And she would beat the crap out of Julia Roberts at a smiling contest.

Timo Taglieber majored in Computer Science and Computational Linguistics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Timo programmed MetaMan, a MediaWiki plug-in that suggests categories and properties based on similar pages. Take a look at his portfolio to view his work.

Timo is very eager to enjoy Madrid’s nightlife. According to the authoritative Xenophobe’s Guide to the Spanish:

The Spanish never go to bed at night if they can possibly help it, because they might be missing out on something more exciting than sleep. On the other hand they never fail to have a siesta.

We are hoping German discipline prevails over Spanish hedonism.

We just recently had a very special guest attend one of our Cosmomeals, Spanish filmmaker Álvaro de la Herrán.

For the meal to be complete, we invited filmmaker Nicolás Alcalá from Riot Cinema Collective. We talked about the film industry, the difficult times it’s going through (both in Spain and outside), the democratization of film, how now anyone can do a short but not everyone can do a good short, the limits (or lack of) and differences between cinema and narrative branded content, the problems with distribution and monetization. It’s tough out there. Lots of questions, very few answers.

Check out Álvaro’s vimeo: the man’s an artist. Special mention to his work with GQ Spain and the first two minutes of his short Marrakech.

We have the impression that there are very few filmmakers with daring and innovative ideas of using web tools to sustain profitable business models around their movies. Would you agree?

Why do you think this is? Or even better: What do you think innovation in films should look like?

yuuuuhuuuuuu… Where are you filmmakers? We need you. Films need you.

We invited Aitor García and Roberto Salicio for a chat a couple of days ago. These guys have lately been up to some serious business with AbreDatos: a 48-hour contest they launched to gather new and interesting ideas to digest raw government data. The winners will soon be announced. Here’s an excerpt of that conversation:

The idea behind open data is that of accountability, enabling a system to work for it’s people and not the other way around. In the U.S. the wheel has already began to turn, initiatives such as the Obama’s administration Data.gov or a society that finds concepts such as democratizing data and e-government more and more familiar, are all important steps towards the right direction.

In Spain the wheel is turning a bit more slowly, but turning nevertheless.  The people behind AbreDatos and all of those who’ve participated are leading the way.

Hunter S. Tyler is the new guy at Vostok. We don’t care about him being a telecom engineer or about his German or his Chinese, we don’t care either about his short films. We wired him for this:

Well.. Being a telecommunications engineer as he is, he’ll obviously add more WARP’s to our programming and systems engines. He is already taking care of all the stuff related to thecosmonaut.org (Riot Cinema’s movie) and will soon start doing other übercool and experimental stuff that’s not been disclosed yet.

Welcome on board, Hunter S. Tyler!

We congratulate Mark MacKay for acquiring his first Canadian passport. O Canada, Mark’s home and native land, with glowing hearts he sees thee rise, he stands on guard for thee…

And now DANCE with us!!

You suddenly realize the world is well designed after you have a big plate of Mixiote Chicken (Mixiote Wheat Gluten for María) cooked by our always surprising comrade Mark Mackay.

August is for crafty stuff. Laura and Daniel helped us made a blackboard out of a spare wall in our new office and they documented it in this lovely video:

First things first: Marcelo undoes his tie. In all possible meanings. He works at the innovation department of a big company and wears a suit to work. But just take a glance at what he’s carrying and you’ll notice he’s way apart from the standard MegaCorp Drone.

He’s holding a copy of The Illuminatus Trilogy, a weird hybrid of sci-fi, conspiracy theories and parody. He assures us it has nothing to do with Tom Hanks (absolutely not).

He’s a funny and imaginative person, and sometimes he resembles a late-night stand-up comedian with a red brick wall and a mic as backdrop. We had a good laugh at his prediction concerning the Microsoft’s Surface: its future awaits on the streets, with a goat dancing on it while playing the multitouch piano.

Check out his photoblog, we are all big fans of his photos.

We’ve been condecorated. After a huge load of work we deserved a reward. You don’t deliver/launch three projects in one month and move to a new office all at the same time.

Four beautiful timepieces (just three on the picture) have arrived at the office, each for one of the cosmonauts. They all are the same: the classic SEIKO 6139-7100 Helmet (a.k.a. Darth Vader) a collectors item (Spanish) and a very reliable wristwatch.

These watches were released to the market around 1972 and after more than thirty years they work just nice. Here is a good picture where you can see its beauty. And errr… yes, they also have the “vostok palette”:

Image courtesy of Jay IntrenUK

Go ahead, ask us for the time!

Let us introduce you with today’s breakfast at Vostok: Pantera Rosa!

A pastry filled with white cream and covered with soft, sweet, pink chocolate. You can’t find something like that anywhere else in nature. In fact, Panteras Rosas make worth 400 years of advancements in chemistry. Pink ecstasy!

For those who are not familiar with it, the pastry is obviously based on the Pink Panther cartoon and was introduced in Spain 40 years ago (the pastry, not the character). It is indeed the oldest licensed food product in the shelves of Spanish stores and supermarkets.

Last friday we delivered 3 (yes, three) different projects and today we sort of finish the design part of another one. This is what it was all about:

• Reviewing and improving the usability of cool software application
• Designing a website for a BIG client which will be seen around the world
• Improving some crucial pages for a real state big player in Spain
• Redesigning a retail store with one of the coolest subscription services around

I am satisfied for the work done but it’s been intense and exhausting. We deserve a few days of rest. Cosmonauts will be released of their duties and will travel around a little bit (Madrid, Coruña, Granada…). I will leave the spaceship and get into one of these pods at hotel Aire de Bárdenas:

Enjoy the holidays!

This week’s lunch was with the guy with the coolest last name in the world, David Calavera, a programmer at 11870.com and a member of the prestigious Apache Foundation.

Mr. Calavera told us about his recent trip to the US, where he spoke at Google’s Test Automation Conference 08 in Seattle (you can find Calavera’s presentation here), and then the ApacheCon in New Orleans, where he spoke about Abdera in the Fast Feather track.

Tomorrow Mr. Calavera is invading Edinburgh with Vostok’s own Sam Lown and the rest of Madrid’s RoR Gang. Make us proud at the Scotland on Rails Conference guys!

Today we had our weekly lunch with Marcos “Maki” Menéndez of Sociedad de las Indias Electrónicas.

Maki is—without a doubt—the person who carries the coolest gadgets around, casually pulling out an iRex iLiad (an Amazon Kindle-like device) and an ultra-portable Dell projector.

We enjoyed chatting about infodesign and other stuff, some highlights to linkable content:

• Hans Rosling’s spectacular presentation at TED, whoever says statistics are boring deserves a punch in the face.
• Paul Mijksenaar’s great work at Schiphol, Amsterdam; and his short but tasty book, “An Introduction to Information Design”.
• What the heck happened to Second Life? And why people still keep trying to replicate reality in 3D environments? It has all the cons and none of the benefits. At least WoW allows you to run around slashing innocent creatures.
• The difference between the “showing all the data” approach by Edward Tufte, and R.S. Wurman’s “selecting a presenting only what is important to the reader”.
• Myth debunked: Nasa spent millions developing a pen that would work in space
• We also debunked the mentos myth, however, after reading the article, I withdraw my offer to atempt it. Hey, stop calling me chicken!

Thanks for visiting our headquarters Maki!

We inadvertently created a new Vostok Tradition: once a week we invite someone interesting for lunch.

Today was Alberto ‘denegro‘ Romero’s turn. He’s an interaction designer at dnx, one of unvlog.com‘s founders, and a huge Sopranos‘ fan. Lunch seemed almost thematic: we ended up at our favorite Sicilian restaurant sipping mirto (cranberry liquor) and Alberto took home some great cannoli to enjoy while watching the fourth season tonight (departing on a Italian Vespa bike, as if it was not enough).

Past guests to Vostok’s spaceship:

• Jacobo ‘The Robot’ García
• Marcela Machuca
• Agustín Jiménez

This is by far the most amazing snack that’s ever been eaten at the Vostok HQ:

Nagaraya barbecue cracker nuts, or as Mark calls them, Japanese peanuts. They seem to be regular peanuts covered with a crisp layer of wadus that’s both sweet and spicy. As they say:

Heat up the fun with hot & spicy flavor and have a ssssizzling great time! It’s like having fireworks with your snack or party.

They are imported from Philippines (globalization rules) and they have 0% tansfat and cholesterol. Science at its best!