The Allen Almanac

Artists: Sachiko Kodama, Minako Takeno

I’ve been really busy lately. I started a new job on Monday and my wife just started back at school. I probably won’t be updating too often, just whenever I see something cool or have something to say. Anyway, I saw this cool short film on Youtube, Fallen Art:

There is also the creator’s first film, The Cathedral.

The original, uncompressed video is on archive.org

As the father of a young daughter, it’s about time. It started with a show in Madrid on Monday, where the Spanish Association of Fashion Designers banned models with a BMI under 18. Now the Edinburgh Fashion Festival is following suit. As are Milan and possibly London. Right now, the average BMI of runway models in only 16, so it’s not a huge jump. But it is a step in the right direction. It means that a 5 foot 9 inch model would have to weigh 123 lbs instead of the average 110 lbs. My wife is 5 foot 9 inches. I couldn’t imagine her weighing less than 145 and looking healthy or attractive. This is not attractive:

And it certainly isn’t healthy. And I don’t want people trying to convince my daughter that it is either.

Normally, I don’t like government interference, so I’m glad that the fashion industry is starting to regulate this. But if they can’t, the governments need to step in. People are dying:

Last month, a South American model, Luisel Ramos, died from heart failure minutes after stepping off the catwalk.

The 22-year-old had been told by a model agency that she could “make it big” if she lost a significant amount of weight, and for three months she was said to have eaten nothing but green leaves and drunk only Diet Coke. At the time she hit the catwalk at the Radisson Victoria Plaza in Montevideo, Uruguay, she had not eaten for two weeks, her father told police.

Check out these ads for BBC World at Design Goodness.

here.

We all wish we could design a beautiful website. God knows, I do. Here are ten examples of sites made by people who did just that to inspire you:

1. http://www.subdued.net/ (CSS)
2. http://www.sozu.co.uk/ (CSS)
3. http://www.exploding-boy.com/ (CSS)
4. http://www.fluid.nl/ (flash)
5. http://www.zachbraff.com/ (flash)
6. http://www.perfectfools.com/ (flash)
7. http://www.joshuaink.com/ (CSS)
8. http://www.nemstudio.com/ (flash)
9. http://www.pixelica.it/ (flash)

And what list would be complete without

10. http://www.csszengarden.com/ (CSS, obviously)