artwork

Scan a T-shirt like a QR code

LAS VEGAS--Nivpat (which stands for noninvasive pattern) is an app that interacts with T-shirts you can buy from the Nivpat Web site that let you scan a shirt with your phone to learn more about the wearer via popular social networks. At the time of this writing, this app is one of the finalists for the Mobile App Showdown at CES 2013.

The way it works is the shirt comes in six basic designs, but each shirt has one design element (like an extra line) that makes each shirt unique. When you see someone wearing one of the colorful … Read more

How to add missing album art to iTunes

How many times have you ripped a CD in iTunes only to find no album art or the wrong art staring you in the face?

iTunes is adept at finding artwork for albums that you buy through the service. But it can falter at tracking down art for music not in its database. There are a few different ways to add the right artwork, but here's one option for manually adding any image you wish as cover art for an album.

First, right-click on the album in iTunes and select Get Album Artwork from the popup menu. If that … Read more

Corel Painter 12 gets 'real'

Major updates to high-end illustration and design tools can be hit or miss, but Corel Painter 12 slams this one way out of the park. The 12th iteration of the program contains significant improvements across the board, from intangible but visible performance gains to enhancements to older tools to a set of new tools that should have any professional artist drooling with desire.

The most impressive new tools bring a hefty dose of "reality" to Painter. The new Real Watercolor and Real Wet Oil paints do an amazing job of mimicking their real-world counterparts. Viscosity, blending, and drying … Read more

Google offers up Art Project for art lovers

Google Street View is going indoors.

Starting today, folks can explore 17 museums around the world using Google's Street View technology, the search giant announced in a blog post. Dubbed Art Project, the initiative lets users view artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the National Gallery in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among others.

When users choose a museum, they can opt to walk through its many halls, or learn more about a particular piece of art with an information pane to the right of the program'… Read more

Insipid images

Artwork Wallpaper Collection is not a piece of software, but a collection of images meant to be used as wallpaper on computers or cell phones. We have seen such collections before, and sometimes they're worth having. Who doesn't like the idea of having a set of high-quality, attractive images handy when the desktop needs redecorating? Unfortunately, Artwork Wallpaper Collection doesn't really deliver; we could have easily found better images using Google Image Search.

There are 26 individual images, and each comes in a variety of different sizes and formats for different uses. Almost all of the images … Read more

Artist gives new life to old machines (video)

Sculpture artist Jeremy Mayer sees life in old machines, deconstructing defunct typewriters and transforming their keys and cogs into life-like sculptures.

For 15 years, Mayer has been making his mechanical creations, breaking down the writing machines to their basic parts and rebuilding them into human and animal-like sculptures. The machines, Mayer says, are infused with the energy of the works that have been typed on them over the years. He says he imagines the hundreds of wedding invitations, love letters, and draft notices that might have been carefully typed out on the typewriters' keys.

During a visit to his studio … Read more

iTunes music artwork not showing in the Finder

A number of people are reporting an issue with the latest iTunes 9.2 update, where after installing it the Finder no longer displays album artwork for songs when previewing them in a Finder window. This is a relatively minor bug, but one that seems to happen in Snow Leopard when artwork has been added manually or with third-party tools.… Read more

Space-inspired quilts perfect for chilly geeks

On these chilly fall days I like to combat my crippling seasonal depression curled up in a blanket with a grilled cheese sandwich, soup, and some strong liquor. If only my blanket was as nice as these space-inspired quilts.

Designed by artist Jimmy McBride, the quilts draw inspiration from both astronomy and sci-fi movies--a mixture of real science and imagination. Plus they look really warm.

If you happen to be in the New York area, you can see the quilt pictured above at the Made in New York: City Quilting exhibition through November 14. Click on the gallery below to … Read more

Psychedelic computer backgrounds

Surreal Wallpapers Pack provides users with many options for customizing their desktop with psychedelic scenes. This artistic collection is certain to give your computer a mind of its own.

The program's interface will be immediately familiar to those who have customized their desktop with wallpaper before. Users don't have to do anything differently than they normally would to utilize these backgrounds. The program itself doesn't contain a Help file, but Windows' Help file will answer any questions you have about transferring images to wallpaper. The program is simply a collection of images that can be selected for … Read more