I'm a Designer/Art Director thriving in the burbs of Chicago, IL with his wife and too many pets.
Founder of #DesignChat
Twitter: @hupajoob, @designchat
While partaking in the annual Superbowl office squares pool this year, I found myself choosing from the last handful of available squares. All of which were situated on the OUTSIDE of the chart. I started to wonder why people make this decision. Why has everyone associated the middle of the chart with a higher chance of winning? Are they afraid that their number will fall off the side? Is it warmer in the middle? Have they won in a previous pool by making this choice?
I’m not sure if any of these are correct, so I’ve decided to do an experiment to find out if there is any relevance. The only way this will work is if I get help. This is where YOU come in. After Sunday’s game, scan your squares pool and send it to me. Feel free to blur out the names if you’re worried about passing along information that I don’t need. Just make sure that the numbers across the top and side are clear, and I can do the rest. I’ll compile all of the maps, and show where the highest number of winning squares reside. Post the scanned image to the facebook group, or anywhere on the web and send me the link via Twitter.
It’s nice to see professional sports teams taking responsibility for sucking, if only they could spend less time drafting apologies and more time not being so crappy.
I received a list of Google Wave commands from a friend via email. When I printed it out, the type had scaled to about 5pt. It was useless in it’s current form, so I layed it out in a way I could read when I pinned it up at my desk.
We usually spend a few hours to half a day at the stables every weekend; today was no different. Always a good time to wonder around and shoot the wildlife. I’ve decided to go back to black and white photos for a while. I need to get back to basics while I get used to the new camera. The fundamentals are always what makes you better. So expect to see my work like this for a while. Maybe next week I’ll get some action shots with the horses.
MultiGraph desktop type press. This is one of the coolest things I have ever found. I was in a Michgan Antique shop, and stumbled upon this piece of design history. From a few Google searches, I have found out that The American Multigraph Co. was in production from 1902 to 1926 before it was bought by Addressograph. It was founded by HARRY C. GAMMETER, a sales engineer for the United Typewriter and Supply Co. of Louisville, Kentucky. The type was taken from typewriters, because this was supposed to be a solution to typing out multiple copies of the same letter. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the beginning of the Direct Mail business. It’s missing the ink roller and tray- which you can see in the last photo. I’ll be searching ebay for the missing parts, but I don’t care if I ever find them. I’m content with just having this on my desk.
Typophiles rejoice! Typedia, a community typography web resource launched this week, bringing new hope to those aimlessly wondering around the web in search of the perfect font. Typedia promises to help classify and educate people about typefaces with the web community as their power source. Here’s their description from the first Typedia blog post: “Think of it as IMDb.com for type, but anyone can contribute. You can list typefaces (as well as foundries and designers), and other members can add to or complete your entries. We’ve also started a section of the site to learn about different terms related to type and the different ways they are classified.” If this is done right, and it seems to have taken a fantastic first step, Typedia could be a heavily relied upon resource for any content creator. In the spirt of the new and wonderful open internet, community policing will help everyone create better typographic solutions.
One of the interesting features is the ‘In the Wild’ section which appears on a specimen page. Its a quick link to a flickr search of anything tagged with the specific font you’re looking for. What’s great about it is that looking at a specimen sheet and seeing the same typeface used in a design are two very different things. This provides inspiration and continues the community discussion with another valuable visual resource. Also on the specimen page is a ‘Similar Typefaces’ section. For anyone who has a fussy client that just isn’t happy with their typeface but isn’t sure why, this will be a life saver! In their EXPLORE section they rely on a tagging system to get you where you want. A simple but effective gradient of color reveals the most used tags. Common terms like san-serif and serif at the top and more specific terms like fat and counterless at the bottom.
Jason Santa Maria, currently serving as Creative Director for A List Apart (an online magazine for people who make websites) seems to be the brains behind the operation as he explains on his personal blog post. He lists other contributors and their roles:
Design: Me, Khoi Vinh, John Langdon (logo), Dan Cederholm (icons)
Front-end code: Dan Mall, Dan Rubin
Back-end code: Mark Huot, Brian Warren, Ryan Masuga, Ethan Marcotte, Aaron Gustafson, and Shaun Inman
Information architecture: Liz Danzico
Classification and Logic: Mark Simonson, Stephen Coles, Kristin Dooley
CBS Marketing Group is putting a USB enabled video chip/screen in to a page of Entertainment Weekly magazine. “We love print,” says George Schweitzer, president of CBS Marketing Group. “We’re saving the print industry.” (via broadcastingcable.com)
Let me begin by saying that I think this man is out of his ever-loving mind. There are fundamental principals here that Schweitzer is neglecting.
1) Video can’t save print, because it is VIDEO. Print will save print. If video was to save print, that would have happened when TV was invented. This will be a short term gain for print because of its shock value, that is all. Its a parlor trick, NOT conducive to a long term strategy for strengthening the print industry.
2) During a time when green is very important to consumers, CBS is distributing a non-recyclable electronic device in a paper magazine. This is just plain irresponsible. The device’s only purpose is to serve up an ad ONE time and then be thrown away. Perhaps if a user could take it out of the magazine and use it as a thumb drive, I might not feel so offended. But there has been no mention of it in any of the coverage.
The supposed experience is that when you’re flipping through Entertainment Weekly, you open to their spread, there’s a delay, and then a 30-40 second commercial starts playing with or WITHOUT your permission. As far as I understand it, there’s no mute or pause button. There’s no way of opting out of the video. Nothing could be more intrusive… except for maybe if CBS marketing walked in my front door flailing marionettes, performed a puppet show on my lap, and then dropped their dolls on my floor leaving me with the decision to keep them in my house to collect dust, or add them to my heaving American garbage pile.
This new experience is already getting widespread coverage. My hope is that a secondary examination of this action will result in outrage. After everyone is done ooh-ing and aah-ing at the shiny new toy, they will see it for what it is: a reprehensible stunt.
