ExplainistDas ist gut. In this video from an interactive art installation, Henning M. Lederer animates Fritz Kahn’s 1927 poster “Der Mensch als Industriepalast” (Man as an Industrial Palace).
Kahn, a former gynecologist, ran with the man-as-machine analogy like nobody else. That analogy has some problems, of course, but it makes a good foundation for beginners learning about human anatomy (you know, for kids).
Learn more about Kahn here and more about Lederer’s piece here.
Now that’s some nice ecommerce: The Exploded Store sells t-shirts with exploded diagrams of beloved machines. From the FAQ:
These are internals of actual equipment. We buy items, usually via eBay or Craigslist, and we take them apart. Sometimes this requires special tools. Then we photograph the pieces and meticulously render them in Adobe Illustrator. Troy Paiva and Garry Booth are two of the skilled artists who have ‘exploded’ designs for us.
This Mac design is great, but, as I’ve said before, I’d really like an Apple IIe shirt.
The celebrated English auto repair publisher Haynes is now offering an “Owner’s Workshop Manual” for Apollo 11’s Saturn V rocket, command module, service module, and lunar module. That’s good nerdery.
In an article for AIGA (“the professional association for design”), auto design expert Phil Patton rounds up several examples of “real life” exploded automotive machinery. I especially like the Harley Davidson Museum’s dismantled motorcycle, which looks intact from the side but seems to disassemble as you walk around it.
Here’s some Sunday explainist eye candy: x-ray images of gaming hardware and media from an x-ray technician/gamer.
This new exploded Atari 2600 diagram t-shirt was custom engineered to take my money. [via Retro Thing]
And if you like that, perhaps you’d be interested in these as well.
I wouldn’t mind having an Apple IIe design, if any of you shirt tycoons are listening.
It has something to do with the little city inside.
Also, an important safety tip: you shouldn’t let poets lie to you.
If you’re so inclined (and own Adobe Illustrator), VECTORTUTS will show you how to make professional-grade exploded isometric technical illustrations* to explain whatever machine you like.
*These are the types of diagrams used in patents and other technical illustrations. Isometric, in this case, means a representation of a three-dimensional object in which lines that are parallel in the three-dimensional world are represented as parallel lines in a two-dimensional drawing. In other words, the style ignores the law of perspective that says parallel lines will appear to converge at the horizon line (as seen in Q-Bert and the Sims). Exploded means the individual pieces of an object are separated, so you can see how they all fit together (as seen in product assembly manuals).
I really like this explainy patent theme 1971 Christmas card by cartoonist Roy Doty (click for the full version).
The online cartoonist magazine Hogan’s Alley has many more cool cards and an interview with Doty here.
Quick shoutout to RSG for pointing to United Technologies’ use of exploded view animated diagrams to explain the Sikorsky S-92 Helicopter, PW600 Jet Engine, and other neat things. Very cool.
United sort of ran out of steam when they applied exploded view to their Employee Scholars program — it’s just an un-technical drawing of a guy’s head with various objects in it that expand and grow labels/explanation when you roll over them. Kind of a let-down after all that awesome. Also, I wish they’d included some sort of permalink system inside the animation, because then I could be pointing you to the coolest parts of it.
[linky]
