Get Inspired: Tim Minchin's Storm - The animated movie

Amazing animation and narrative. Ten minutes you won't regret watching! Very entertaining and informative. I think some of you will find so much in the movie.

In the confines of a London dinner party, comedian Tim Minchin argues with a hippy named Storm. While Storm herself may not be converted, audiences from London to LA have been won over by Tim's wordplay and the timely message of the film in a society where science and reason are portrayed as the enemy of belief.

Get inspired!

Trending: Black and white for Design entities in Montenegro

It's snowing again, and it was the perfect time for laying low tonight with a cup of hot chocolate. However, the soothing feeling stopped when I spilled my drink all over the table. Why? Simple - I LOVE WHEN DAA Montenegro sets the trends! In 2008. our agency switched from orange-blue color scheme to black and white one. It was a big step, and for the time being it was almost blasphemous. We were even called a burial service company (the black color of the brand somehow inspired our friends and foes). Well, that was 2008. and we still have a copy of our mini website version - 2008. MINI WEBSITE VERSION. This was the first big step in redesigning our agency. The next step when we went even further was almost a year later. White typography on a black shield. The transition was almost over. Yet again we left it to take a few breaths like a wine, and it grew like child of our own. I've been working on our DAA Montenegro brand blog post for a while now and it will be out soon. More info about our design process, concepts and ideas concerning the home design agency will be available.

BUT, for now I'd like to address the next question. We are happy that we aren't the only design entity in Montenegro. We support every designer, big and small, famous or anonymous in their cause. We have no competition, but only business partners. So how did our black and white trend? Like the ripples in the water after you throw a rock.

Our friends from bild-studio and gondor have transitioned to a black and white scheme. Both studios were known for their vibrant colors and yet somehow they managed to take a step back or forward and strip all the color away. For example, the previous website from the Bild studio fellas was greenish with a tint of great illustrations by Nikola Kalezic.

Now if you check back with their website, you see the kind of minimalist approach to design. As we have once made that step in DAA, so have our friends at Bild. I must say I liked their green more, but still they have mine and our full support.

The second studio I've found is the Gondor. They were more familiar with their sandy-like yellow, mostly from their adverts in downtown Podgorica. They had their issues with the design itself, some colors were kind of out of place on the adverts (red typography with a white glow behind), but it seems they are too making a leap of faith.

Now, if we switch back to their website, we can see the accented black and white scheme. Never the less, the implemented template is a big step ahead in their design and development sector. I'm sure they will grow even further.
In Montenegro we also have a great design studio Fleka. Our good friends from Fleka are creating amazing design concepts and even better apps for our media devices. We sure hope to work with them sometime in the future.
For now, I'm really satisfied that DAA's style, concepts, design and developments are approved not just by our dearest friends, the clients, but also by the community and now even the beloved colleagues designers. I didn't think that our own branding strategies would set such an inspiring blast which would eventually, couple of years later, set off this trend! #amazing

Shooting in the snow at night

Last night we got caught up in the snow here in Podgorica and I thought it was the perfect excuse to get wet and dirty with my Canon 7d. . . I hooked up my 50mm f1.4 lens with a Circular Polarizer to seal it up a bit in the front.

The first challenge was how to set up the camera for shooting in very low light conditions with snow all around. My visions were simple - I wanted to use a fairly slow shutter speed (1/60s) to catch the motion of the particles in the air, while freezing the minimal actions of my subjects. I used 50mm primarily because of the wide aperture (most of the shots were done from f1.4 to f2.8). These settings would suffice if I was to shoot in dusk or dawn, but this late with very little light I had to pump up the ISO to 1000+. This caused some grain action in the photographs but the 7d and Adobe Lightroom both have noise reduction systems. In this conditions - when I don't have an external light source I can control, I make peace with myself that the photos will be used for web only. In conclusion the settings were:

Canon 7d + Canon 50mm f1.4

Manual mode: 

Shutter speed around 1/60s and up to 1/100s; 

Apperture from f1.4 to f2.8; 

ISO 1000-1600.

Take a look!

The slower shutter speed makes the snow look like it's almost raining

While we were taking a break and warming up at Costa's.

Use lights wherever available - The light on their faces is from an advert above them

Props like umbrellas are always welcome!

I love action shots

Try to think in different angles and what they do for the shot

Remember to keep shooting between takes.

Google photography contest for students!

If you are a student who loves photography, this is the chance to fuel you passion even further!

This is the deal:

The Google Photography Prize is open to students in higher education aged 18 years and older from all over the world. Pick just one of the ten categories, share up to eight of your best shots in a public Google+ album and complete the submission form by January 31, 2012. Please follow our Google+ content policies when sharing your photos.

So, still 6 days left. I'm sure you are aware that the photography that lies in your closet is no good. Let the world see through your viewfinder! Good luck, but most of all - have fun!

CHECK ME OUT!

Montepass wins the award for the best business idea

Montepass - Online CV generator

A big congrats to my friends from Montepass.com on winning the first prize for the best business idea. Last year they launched their first campaign in Montenegro with DAA Montenegro which still is a big hit. Needless to say we are already working on new stuff and improvements. This year together we'll take Montepass another step further! All in due time. . .


Make sure you check out the animation we've put out on YouTube, subscribe and comment if you like it!

Moving in the new office of daa Montenegro!

It's been the sweet hell during last couple of months. We were on our phones and on the street all day long trying to find a better place for our office. Well, it was somewhere during December when we found this amazing place where we felt like it was the one we wanted. Yesterday was the first day here, we've moved in with new computers and equipment. While I was in charge of the installation of equipment, Bada took some time to lighten up our space with some of the materials we designed last year. More to come soon!

Get Inspired! Three olives vodka

Stylish animation with a special twist on the popular jokes starting with "Three. . . walk into a bar"

Amazing work and entertainment!

Student protest in Podgorica | Promo video is OUT and LIVE

As announced in my previous blog post, the new video is now out and streaming. Student Parlament of University of Montenegro, in collaboration with daa Montenegro have managed to whip out this striking promo video! Well, to be honest - in the beginning I didn't know what to expect. I got a call from Bada referring to the project, and I have to admit I was unsure, to say the least. But then we sat down, and I got briefed. As usual, he knows how to deliver a good idea, and since we are a great team for years now, I fully understood what he wanted. So, my answer was YES. YES to the idea of non-profit, activist promo video for students. I believe many of the things they want is legit. The shooting took place in 2 cities - Cetinje and Podgorica, with more than 50 people included. There is no acting in the video. These students protest their current status. Luckily, the shootings were done rather fast, which was great considering the fact we were on a very very very very, almost nonexistent budget (yet everything costs). Thanks to all the students who participated in the video, I hope you get what you want and deserve on this democratic and peaceful protest. Thanks to the people who organized the shooting on the Faculties, as well as Deans of the above mentioned.

For me, it was a great experience and lots of fun.

Cheers!

New video coming soon!

In the next two days a new piece of work will be published. My one and only daa is contributing to a public event during this week. I had to take a snapshot from the video, although it's not fully ready. Raw footage for the win! We shot in 2 different cities with crew counting more than 50 people. More info coming soon. . .

How to: Delete temporary files in Windows 7

Well, I just finished cleaning out my temporary files in Win7. 23GB of nothing useful.
There is a safe and efficient way to do it. Windows stores these files in a folder called Temp which is located on your hard drive disk where you have OS installed. For example the default location is C:/<USERNAME>/App Data/Local/Temp.
Fear not, this folder might be hidden. If you access folder options you can change settings so that Windows Explorer reveals all hidden files and folders. If you like these things the easy way you can go to Run program on windows (Windows key + R) and just type %temp%. Windows will open the Temp folder for you. When you are there just delete everything you can. If an error occurs that a file/folder cannot be deleted - skip it. The explorer is using those files to run itself.
Good luck cleaning out your closet!