This means you get the content immediately, and you can proceed reading articles instantly, while the ads are still loading themselves in the sidebar. Hope some of you appreciate this. At least the impression count in my stats states so. With this move I have reduced my income significantly, but your satisfaction is still primary to me. I would just appreciate any kind of feedback, and please report any problems/glitches you might have noticed.

For the illusion of the day, this picture was spotted by Syed Ali (cool name dude!) on a major internet homepage. It was released in honor of Wallace and Gromit 20th anniversary. Except from showing two of the main characters, this picture contains additional subliminal message. If you “decipher” the message, you’ll quickly realize which major website used the pic. Happy hunting!

The secret lies in the branches

I don’t feel much inspired for writing today, better yet – last few days I was completely hit by writers block. Above all this, my keypad stopped responding when I enter “space” tab. I think there is some kind of food element stuck beneath it, but who knows. So after I wrote this article, I needed to copy-paste each “space” line between words and construction elements. Think about it for a second! How much of unnecessary work am I talking here.

But I’m not gonna allow such a trivial problem stand between me and this blog. No way! I already purchased Dell’s wireless keyboard, and hopefully it will arrive tomorrow. Check the photo I linked, and please give me some feedback if you’ve had the opportunity to use it by any chance. I just hope I didn’t make the wrong decision, based only on viewing a single photo of it.

Not to bore you with my personal “problems”, I chose this simple picture (you see on your left) for today. I think the illusion is very simple to see, but the idea behind is very nice if you ask me. Hopefully you skipped reading the title, the descriptive tags beneath, and will solve the optical illusions yourselves. What are the tree branches hiding?

You can find some related optical illusions here, here and here. Enjoy!

Google Street View Illusion

Apart from playing with design, I’m obsessed with new internet trends and emerging technologies. As much as I love sharing original illusions with you, I’m even more thrilled when I get the opportunity to introduce you with something you probably never  thought of using when searching for optical illusions. Hope you approve my style, where I try to fuse our illusion topic as much as I can with modern options.

I think it’s refreshing to see our standard content, using different approach occasionally. Our friend, João Marques took his time to introduce us to Google Street View. By now, all of you used Google Maps at some point of your life. Well, at some major cities Google’s mobile crew took high res photos of surrounding areas, while cruising down the local streets. This caused a lot of controversy, as sometimes citizen privacy was invaded, but on the other hand – it helped cops catch crooks in Netherlands.

João has been a daily follower of MOI for some months, and decided to give something back. Before presenting us with the illusion, he thanked us for managing this website with wisdom, “posting only very interesting stuff.” Move around this interactive window, and try to spot what João found so interesting…

I was spending some time in Google Street View, when I saw some guys doing something strange in an window. I zoomed more and found that it was a mural painting, and was completely tricked. – João

Benjamin got a nice surprise when he opened his iGoogle homepage.

Good day mate, I’ve had your iGoogle gadget on my home page for a couple of years now, but never have I gotten such a nice surprise when I opened the internet. Nothing heaps fancy, but still a nice coincidence I think, and I figured you’d appreciate it. Keep up the good work. – Ben

Check out this twisted picture above! I have no clue whatsoever, what should these little figures stand for. They are probably munchkins of kind, or some strange fertility symbols of once great civilization. But the best part is that this doesn’t concern us at all! The strange illusion that comes into play, has much to do with relative sizes. Apparently, if you look at the above photo from left to right, you’ll get impression that the slimmest figure on the left is taller in size than the fattest figure on the right. I hope this will work for you, as it has worked for me!

Those of you who got to know me by time, probably noticed how great deal of my concentration is orientated towards graphic design of this blog. It takes more struggle than you think to keep the visual minimalism, while in the same time staying in race with internet trends, providing more and more additional features for you to play with (rating widgets, share buttons, comments, links, etc.). Often I rule out some hefty features that could help push our traffic sky-high, just because they would hurt our graphical zen. I’m talking about “Digg this” and “Retweet” counters. Somehow I find blogs cluttered with share widgets – annoying at best.

But yesterday, though, I have found acceptable and non-intrusive solution to implement “Share on Facebook” option. I’m sure you’ll agree with me how discreet this new button really is. In fact, if I didn’t point it to you, I’m certain you wouldn’t even notice it. It’s located just beneath the title of each article, and if you click it, a new pop-up window appears where you can easily share the current optical illusion with your Facebook friends. I hope you’ll get accustomed to this new feature, and I would maximally appreciate if you tested it for me, and then shared your experience.

Back in the eighties, Rousse started out as an ordinary laboratory photographer, but then moved on and began taking photographs of vacant car parks, empty roads and condemned buildings.

After a while an idea hit him, so he started painting figures of people on walls of these buildings, and then photographed these. Later on, he switched from figures to illusory shapes. Soon he grew tired of all this, and began superimposing photographs on spaces, realities on other realities.

I find Rousse’s combination of photography and illusions, combined with installation art somewhat confusing – perhaps annoying even. It’s impossible to really know what you are seeing ,ever! I’m not sure I would enjoy any of his works hanging from my walls…

Take the above photo for example. At first glance it looks as if one is looking at the scene through a circular filter. A closer look reveals that the shapes in the circle appear to be entirely separated from their background, as if an unrelated photograph has been superimposed on the area behind.

Nothing in the “normal” part of the area lines up with a single part in the white photo. I don’t know about you, but I feel cheated by this kind of artifice. My eyes want the circular part to fit into the main picture so much, but it just won’t! You may find more of Rousse’s work below:

Where is the ball?

Got another great vid from a friend of mine yesterday. Even though you may think: “What is a magic trick doing on an optical illusions dedicated website”, you’ll quickly change your mind after the clip has ended.

But wait! There is more to it then you probably noticed at first. Be sure to replay the video couple of times, and each time concentrate on another background figure. Are the wooden mannequin, Rubik’s Cube, radio and whole bunch of other items lined as you originally presumed?

Even though magic tricks and optical illusions have whole lot in common, you’ll certainly agree that Chop Cups video has much more to do with illusions, than magicians and tricks. This has to be one of my favorite clips of all times. Btw, it gives me a great pleasure observing the “Top 10 Optical Illusions” chart in our sidebar. It’s like watching a live-growing organism, providing me with real-time feedback of what kind of material my audience really appreciates. Apart from ratings, comments and “top 10 illusions”, I’m thinking of engaging you guys even further. More stuff coming soon!

Optical Illusion by Yamaha

Suzanne pointed me to this video commercial recently, created exclusively for Adelaide’s leading motorcycle superstore – Coast Yamaha. The motorcycle featured in video below was loaned from Clive Langley. I have to admit, I never expected such a twist!

I have to give credit to this motorcycle company – They truly understand the power of optical illusions in advertising. In a few years, when I’m done teaching marketing PR’s how illusory campaigns easily become viral, and how powerful impact they have on their audience, hopefully I’ll manage to shift on to the next level.

Next task: lure them to send in their content to Mighty Optical Illusions website, resulting with more fresh content for our audience (You), and wider reach to their brands. My ultimate goal for near future is to get quality, professionally created illusions, while in the same time being payed for the actual content. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not getting payed for this article. But just think about it for a second. Wouldn’t it be a “win-win-win” situation (visitors-me-advertisers), if for example Yamaha had previously recognized the size of our audience, and contacted me with offer to publish this video? Perhaps they don’t need to, as this kind of stuff is virally posted across the net, free of charge. But maybe, just maybe this will change in the future! Check the Billboards section for example – wouldn’t it be logical I got payed for each of those posts?  Unfortunately, I wasn’t…

Now admit it, how many of you saw that coming? Big thanks goes to Suzanne Green for sending the clip! “Firstly I have been a fan of Mighty Illusions for a few years – and I love them. I thought of you when I saw this, done by a local ad agency and very impactful. I hope you agree.”