Dedicated to RoseAnne who makes most clever cards!
Dan Zen has made custom cards all his life. In the early days he used fold-out techniques, pull strips and good old seventies custom bubble fonts. Moving into the digital world, he still keeps an inventive edge. Most of his cards have been given away, of course, but check these out!Winter Holiday Card (2015) ▲ A scrolling parallax card made with ZIM Parallax - ZIM is Dan Zen's open source JavaScript library. The card features dual colored eyeglasses, one of which expands surprising the little Dan Zen character. Inside, it says PRESENTS which is a double meaning of shows and gifts. You then wrap the gifts in special wrapping by clicking on them. Once all three are wrapped you can deliver them with a shrink ray and send them via social media. Zen's logo tumbles in and the cool ZIM Parallax logo animates. A top link animates all the way to the top where the eyeglass pops back in and all is ready to start again! VIEW CARDWinter Holiday Card (2010) ▲ 700 custom holiday op art cards made with Opartica Tunnel - op art in 3D parallax tool. Facebook was used to distribute the cards which were supposed to go to each Facebook friend of Zen's at the time. Unfortunately, Facebook prevented Zen from sending out so many cards so Zen stopped at 700 - still a large collection of op art with over 50000 views. VIEW CARDSWinter Holiday Card (2009) ▲ An earlier parallax card made with Dan Zen's Hummingbird Class for Flash - could now be made with ZIM this one features a surprise as you move the mouse! Move mouse from top to bottom side by side and rollover the surprise too! VIEW CARDWinter Holiday Card (2008) ▲ Create your own snowflakes with this little Flash app. Drag the shapes around and it automatically kaleidoscopes them. VIEW CARDWinter Holiday Card (2007) ▲ This card featured animating to sound with the Dan Zen Woodpecker Class for Flash. The sound was processed in Ableton Live. VIEW CARDWinter Holiday Card (2006) ▲ 200 custom holiday video greetings in two hours! Made in Zen Mix which mixes the individual videos with a motion graphic background of Focuso lights created in Zen Pan (a never-launched app - file sizes were too big compared to video). There is a Blog Post and a Zen Mix describing the process.
Folding Trick ▲ Dan Zen made 300 Creativity Magic Trick cards to be placed in loot bags at a Hamilton Hive entrepreneur conference. The cards used a trick Zen learned when he was young. He also used this technique for office holiday cards, Sheridan Interactive Media Open House invites (2002), etc. Another invite Zen made for Interactive Media was the Spring invite (as the open houses are always in the spring) which was folded into a spring which was then released upon the recipient.
Business Cards ▲ The original Dan Zen business card 1996 and the Hip Cats specialty card 1999. In 1996 very few people were relying solely on a URL for all contact data. This really set the card out as different at the time. Several sets of thousands were given out.
Pleasure Cards ▲ Above is the Tilty Card which has a target on the back for keeping a coin within while playing a non-digital game of Tilty with friends (2013) and the famous Dan Zen Spinny Card (2012). Zen has given out about 1000 spinny cards each time crimping the card slightly horizontally and vertically, finding a surface and spinning the op art backing. People are delighted often comment that it is the best business card they have ever seen. At which point, Zen replies that it is not a business card, but rather a pleasure card. In the intro to the Dan Zen YouTube channel, Zen spins the card - an explanation of the symbolism of the experience can be found at the end of the video.
Egg Hunt (2012) ▲ A fun Easter card where you rollover or click the decorated eggs to make certain patterns and reveal "Easter Eggs" or hidden messages. Created with Flash. VIEW CARDYou Move my Heart (2009) ▲ A Valentine feature where you drag a shape to make a heart. The app features early dynamic drawing in Flash and mirrors the shape. There is the next Valentine card called FOREVER, another Flash feature with parallax. To see the Move my Heart card press here: VIEW CARDValentines ▲ Each year, Zen makes a Valentine screen saver for his wife, RoseAnne. These border on silly to romantic. Above are just a few - the paint heart is made from a scan of her paint palette. VIEW LARGER
Snowflakes (2007) ▲ Dan Zen made 50 snowflakes in 20 minutes to distribute to his Interactive Media class and staff. They drifted gently down onto the desks and gave people smiles! You can read about the technique and see a Zen Mix of the construction here: VIEW BLOGCyber Bookmarks (2008) ▲ the insides of keyboards have great plastic circuits - all very unique and geek! Zen cut then in four to make enough bookmarks for gifts to his friends and his Interactive Media class to encourage reading cyberpunk!
Deck of Creations (2008) ▲ The third Dan Zen interface was called the Deck of Creations. A loose metaphor of a collectable card game was used where each Dan Zen feature was represented by a card and you could fave the cards and read about the feature. The cards are also used in the current Dan Zen Museum interface and are presented by Kirputnik conveyor in the Explore section of the Museum. Below is a sample of the cards created, each one can be clicked to to go to the feature. VISIT DECK
Thus ends the Cards Exhibit for the Dan Zen Expo. Missing are the many Dan Zen cards given as gifts ever since Zen was young. Cards represent an ideal opportunity to be creative and spread joy! All the best, tune in for the next exhibits and see all previous exhibits in the Archives section.
Cards
