[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmQT5RBftBg&w=560&h=349]

We've almost all seen her artwork, but most of us haven't met the Australian artist Yiying Lu, creator of the infamous "Fail Whale" we all see when we can't connect to Twitter. I chatted with Lu about the origins of the Whale, which was originally titled Lifting Up Dreamer and had an image of an elephant. At the time, it was a metaphor for everything she was trying to do, plus the fact she missed her friends. We also hatted about her new company, Walls360, which creates fabric-style decals and stickers that can be crumpled, uncrumpled, stuck and restuck. It's kind of like Colorforms, but on anything, like the back of your computer.