Fun Friday Resources

It’s been a few years since we looked at the BBC Sound Effects archive — and it’s grown exponentially. Go check it out; maybe that sound of a Norwegian Blue parrot expiring that wasn’t there before is now. The “female reindeer grunting close up” certainly is.

The Japanese design firm Marimekko has created a “Maripedia” of their patterns, a phenomenal collection of just over eight decades of design. You can filter by designer, style, or decade. A great resource to STEAL FROM THE BEST, i.e., look at the ways their designers used the space, then use those same techniques and strategies in your own work.

By Hans Walty - https://www.helveticarchives.ch/detail.aspx?id=1797708, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129934056

You need a high-quality illustration of mushrooms, right? Kottke.org had a feature on an obscure 20th-c. German artist named Hans Walty whose watercolors were apparently the resource on mycology for a great deal of the century. The originals are at Wikipedia Commons.

Finally, something just for fun: mazegenerator.net. It does exactly what it says in the name: you give it some parameters, click the button, and presto, a maze to keep your inner child busy for a few moments.

30 x 30 hexagonal cell maze Generated by mazegenerator.net