My friend Lovemoss made the animated banner that now graces the newly redesigned Stingy Kids. I still can't believe how perfect it is. Since the beginning, the patron saint of Stingy Kids has been the marionette. We're all pulled by strings of one kind or another. Stingy Kids, with its preoccupation with translation and literary ties, is particularly prone to entanglement and interweaving.
I shared with L. an early sketch for a banner: a marionette hovers in the air and, slowly, a heart-shaped flower stretches upward, reaching for its hand. I imagined that at the moment of contact, the marionette would do a little dance. I was thinking of this story:
Un cronopio encuentra una flor solitaria en medio de los campos. Primero la va a arrancar, pero piensa que es una crueldad inútil y se pone de rodillas a su lado y juega alegremente con la flor, a saber: le acaricia los pétalos, la sopla para que baile, zumba como una abeja, huele su perfume, y finalmente se acuesta debajo de la flor y se duerme envuelto en una gran paz.
La flor piensa: Es como una flor.
(Julio Cortázar, Historias de cronopios y de famas)
A cronopio comes across a solitary flower in the middle of a field. First, he tries to pull her out, but thinking it unnecessarily cruel, he kneels by the flower's side and gleefully plays with her, just so: he caresses her petals, gently blows on her until she dances, buzzes about like a bee, smells her perfume and finally, lies down beneath her and falls asleep wrapped in a feeling of peace.
The flower says to herself: He is like a flower.
(my translation)
L. added a key element that I hadn't even considered: a burst of blushing all around when the marionette and heart-flower come into contact. Refresh the page and see how the other flowers are brightened by the encounter. Thank you, Lovemoss, for giving Stingy Kids a much needed visual burst of poetry, play and color and for so evocatively capturing the spirit of the site. Thank you!
the banner is gorgeous! great concept and execution xo
Posted by: m.g. | March 02, 2007 at 06:04 PM