Have you ever wondered how much a musician has to sell in order to make a salary of $1,160 a month. Well David McCandless of Information is Beautiful can help you with that. He put together this data poster to show how much you would need to sell or stream in order to make this minimal income. Now don't take this data to heart. It's basically just showing you that if you only went in one avenue of sales, then this is how much you would need to sell.

In the music world though going through one avenue of promotions and sales is not going to cut it. You need to market yourself and put yourself in many different avenues. When I was finding information about the chart below. I came acrossed an article by Allison Rizk from Radio Potato who gave some great ideas to increase your fan base, get more exposure and start making that money flow. The ideas below came directly from her article.

Fame Games (@FameGames) – This online radio show promotes independent artists. Musicians can submit their music online and fans can vote each day for their favorites. As it grows in popularity, you can increase your exposure worldwide. Really cool group of DJ’s, too. They know their stuff! Eclectic music choices and always top notch music!

The Sixty One (@thesixtyone)
Branded as “helping artists find their audiences.” Indie artists submit their work, but rather than allowing a stuffy suit to decide what’s cool, the listeners do. Listeners have to listen to a song for over a minute before they can “heart” it. It’s very cool exposure! For music lovers, please make sure you find your favorite artists and heart them – and if they aren’t on there, make sure you get them on it!

Kickstarter (@kickstarter)
I want to kick myself for not thinking of this first. If you’re a musician that doesn’t have the jack to promote yourself, this site can help you fund projects. Much like a telethon concept, you can set up graduating levels of “rewards” and goodie packages depending on how much each fan contributes to your project. Kickstarter put one of my favorite emerging artists, Gareth Asher, on tour all throughout the United States and massively expand his fan base.

Pandora (@pandora_radio)
This site gets the Brilliant Award of the Century. This music engine automatically creates a streaming radio station that is based on the artists/songs/genres that you like – and plays similar artists based on the style and tonality of what you chose. You can now upload your music onto the site and become part of their Music Genome Project’s musical library. Click here to submit your music: http://submitmusic.pandora.com/

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, iTunes, Reverbnation etc.
The name of the game today is being accessible. Back in the day, if you wanted to find music, you’d have to go to the store, buy the whole album, and if it sucked, you’re the fool with the stack of CD’s collecting dust in the back of your car. Nowadays, people automatically go to YouTube to find a video of their favorite song and can share it immediately. If you’re not Internet savvy, check out www.mashable.com as a comprehensive resource on using social media. Oh, and if you’re one of those brooding and introverted musicians who hates people, do your best to still respond to your fans reaching out to you and Follow them back on Twitter. Acknowledging your fans individually endears themselves to you and in turn, they will support you through your sales.



via: Flowing Data, Radio Potato

If you think you need to improve your typeface knowledge while increasing your memory. Then this is the game for you. It was designed and assembled by Brazilian design studio, ps.2 arquitetura + design. The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog typeface memory game will run you about whopping $30 bucks but it will impress your graphic design friends.

It's a very attractive finished typographic memory game that includes 25 variations of the letter "A" each in a different letter type. Players attempt to find the matching A’s in the same letter type. The player who has the highest number of matching letters wins the game.

Typographic information about the letter is included on the card, and a separate folder provides a general history of the typography. This is an enjoyable and instructive game for graphic designers and anyone who is fascinated by letter types.

As you play, you increasingly recognize what are often very subtle differences between the letters and more about the details of the letter types. They become progressively easier to recognize and distinguish from one another (even Univers and Helvetica!) Among the letter types included in the game are Akzidenz Grotesk, Baskerville, Centaur, Garamond, Helvetica Rockwell, Times New Roman, Univers and many more.

via: bispublishers

Matt Pond PA has a new album out called The Dark Leaves. It's his eight studio album and it was release early April of 2010. So I guess I was a little out of loop on his new album. Although when a new album is released a tour date is sure to follow. So I'm in luck, after checking out his website I found that he will be perform a show at the New World Brewery in Tampa, Fl on Oct. 6th with guest Company(Co.) and King of Spain for $10 bucks. So maybe I might see some of you out there if your in the area.

On a side note I got to give props to Matt on his album cover art. The color palette choice and the tone of the image is fantastic. The font that was used on the album is also quite interesting and blends in nicely with the design. It has a very earthy vintage feel to it and works with the album. If you like what you hear then follow Matt Pond PA on Twitter and keep up to date on what he is up to.

Jeff Nishinaka is a master of paper manipulation.He is considered the world's premier paper sculptor and has constructed amazing 3D art with his skill in paper manipulation. On his website he states that he had an "ah-ha" moment on the idea of using paper when he was in college. From then on, he began experimenting with different papers, finding ways to shape, bend, and round the edges on them. He also stated that he wanted to manipulate paper in the least invasive way, to keep the integrity and feel of it. Paper to him is a living, breathing thing that has a life of it's own and from his art work you can tell that he is achieving his idea.

Stephane Massa-Bidal is a French illustrator who combines the past, present and future into his works. On his site Retrofuturs he has numerous series that are worth checking out. Although, there was one series in particular, that caught my attention. That was the "Life is Circle" series. The reason it caught my attention is because life moves in a circle and things always come back around in some form. So his idea matches the concepts in which he portrays. In this series he takes different photographs and places them in circular form to represent life as a circle. I get the idea that each has a meaning like the first one below is the circle of space and land. The layering and textures and feel of this series is fantastic. He also uses Helevtica type for his number sequence if you wanted to know. Now that you know, I'm sure you're wondering what the numbers mean. Well I think I can answer that. From a post on Wanken he stated that there was no significance about the numbers, just esoteric numbers.

So I highly recommend checking out more works by Stephane and if you want follow him on Twitter.

I came across Alex Schulz on Vimeo this week and I wanted to share his video called "view". It's an animated short film about "human" perspective. I really enjoyed this video because of the meaning of the film and the concept in which he used to portray his meaning.

Alex who is from Pforzheim, Germany is a very creative artist who not only works with animation but also photography, graphic design, illustrations and producing music. From both videos that he has on Vimeo he has produced the music for each of them. I think their great little tracks that go well with the concepts. So check out his Behance and Vimeo sites and enjoy. Let me know what you think about the video?

The Temper Trap is a 4 piece indie band from down under. This Australian band gives you some Aussie style with their atmospheric sound, that incorporates pulsating drum and bass grooves with fluctuating pitched vocals and arpeggiated guitar chords, and a modest drizzling of synths .

Their album Conditions was release in 2009 and their single "Sweet Disposition" has been used in countless commercials and it's also on the soundtrack to 500 days of Summer. Although this song is their mainstream hit don't let that full you. The rest of the album is full of great fines with the courtesy of Dougy Mandagi and his plaintive vocals and the swelling strings that accompany each track.

This album was well produced and bristlingly melodic, but also sobersided and personality-free, with lyrics that have big themes - life and death, love and faith - in empty platitudes. They are currently starting to work on their second album which I can only assume will be just as unique and filled with blissful sounds as Conditions. If you're looking for something to quiver and tingle your vertebrae and give you goose bumps then this album is for you.

The Malibu 5 is a modern home built in California by Kanner Architect. This house is conceived as a passive solar home. It was built facing the Pacific Ocean to take advantage of the coastal breezes, the energy generated from solar gain, and the natural lights and views. This home has a photovoltaic panels and solar thermal panels for domestic hot water on the roof. The photovoltaic panels generate power for the house during the day. This home generates enough power for the owners needs and the remainder of power is sent to a local power grid. On the ground-levels concrete floors act as heat sinks, pulling in the sun's energy during the day and releasing it at night. This 3300sq ft house not only has some greening properties to it but its design gives them full access to it's surroundings. The Malibu 5 home is a beautiful example of blending shapes with sustainable and eco-friendly technology.






via: freshome.com, architecturedesign.com

On Mozilla Labs website they launched a Concept Series with an open call for participation. They have received thousand of people who have participated and shared their ideas and concepts. One in particular that caught the attention was Billy May and his Open Web Concept Phone. The input for the phones idea came from users in the spirit of Mozilla's open source. The Mozilla Seabird, part of the Mozilla Labs’ Concept Series, is an experiment in how users might interact with their mobile content as devices and technology advances. Drawing on insights culled from the Mozilla community through the project’s blog, a focus quickly developed around frustrating physical interactions. This phone is full of new options and ways to utilize your potential for this concept phone. Check out the video below to see some of the features of this concept phone.