creepily interesting...

The North Face has i'm assuming the factory labs came up with this marketing strategy. The New York Times posted this and it is very interesting and creepy. knowing that TNF knows where i am at all times, kinda invasion of privacy.

"it's just..."

'Just' is one of those nasty Four Letter words

'Just' is quite rightly included amongst the C2 wiki list of Alarm Bell Phrases. It's a dangerous word that should be used as sparingly as possible. As a developer, it's a word you hear far too often: "this will just take a few days", "it's just a couple of web-pages", and of course the ultimate: "it should just work."

'Just' is a vague, almost condescending diminutive. Nine times out of ten, it means this:

I do not know, but it is in my interest to estimate optimistically.

Generally, you'll find that if you have a definite idea of the size of something, or the amount of effort required, the word 'just' quickly vanishes from your vocabulary. Not because the thing is necessarily large, but because even being certain that something is small removes the need to qualify its smallness: it becomes what it is, no more, no less, no 'just' required.

good article

banner ads, to many graphic designers, are a thing of annoyance, but this article in adweek exlpains how to have fun with banner ads...

not to be political, but...

yesterday, obama talked about the 2010 budget. well in 2008 our GDP was about 13.5 trillion and our debt was 8.7 trillion, which is 64% . well with the new budget for 2010 we have a 3.94 trillion dollar budget with 2.19 trillion dollars in our pockets. that means there will be a 1.75 trillion dollar deficit added to our federal debt. if china calls in to the US we are screwed. we did it do the british over the suez canal and china can now do it the US. not sure if it is a good time to be a young person. the future does not look grim. maybe we will go the way of denmark with 90% tax rate? we have to make this budget up some how. i think it was stated that if everyone american citizen puts in $175,000 we will be back at sea level. do you have that kind of cash lying around?

ipad

as with a lot of people, we were all busy watching the keynote of the ipad being brought to life. after much analysis of the product I have come to decide I do not need one. having an iphone and mac computer. it is interesting, the battery is an amazing advance, but everything else has kinda been around. and what I can't believe is there is no isight camera. the ipad would have been the perfect tool for skype-ing. for $500 to have a slim tab to skype with family members would be great. to have a screen that big with resolution that they can now put into those cameras. it would have been an amazing device...but i guess to keep the price point at 500 was hard enough. they should release an option to have a camera.

my two cents.

aesthetically...it looks beautiful with the exception of the bezel...but i guess for the power button...not sure.

thank you for bringing this to my attention...

the denver egotist brought something to light that i have books on but would love a website instead. this article is a great thing for burgeoning web designers, graphic designers, art directors, and so forth... it is as follows the article explains all of these shortcuts that are in Photoshop (Ps) that you always mouse to. like, cmnd + shift + (.) increases your type by 2 points. time saving is an understatement. check it out, will do you some good.

The Big Swinging....Technology

This article in Ad Age reminds me of my Commencement Speech for my undergrad. Raymond Kurzweil was the commencement speaker. he spoke of the singularity, and how present it really is. what he talks about is how technology and price points are increasing/decreasing at an incredible rate. as technology gets better, the price goes down. something that really hit me was the iphone 3Gs. in 1999 the Pentium 3 chip came out. with it came with 500MHz of processing power and less then 256 MB of RAM. that was ten years ago. the iphone 3Gs comes with 866MHz and 512 MB of RAM. and it is about 1/20th the size. it is so crazy to think how fast technology moves. also, that computer was $5,000.00 US. the iphone OFF a plan is $600.00 US with the plan $200.00 US. it blows my mind to think what technology will overcome in 2020. hell, i am excited to see what apple comes out with in the next 3 years.

Guy Kawasaki "The Art of Innovation..."

cool work by Guy Kawasaki. HERE.

Adrian Shaughnessy

I am reading one of Adrian Shaunessy's books right now. And he has some great quotes that, even in my short time in the business, are completely relatable. i.e.

"During the time that I ran a studio, and despite having some blue-chip clients and, at one giddy moment, 40 members of staff, I never employed account handlers. Why? Because 'account handling' was something done by advertising agencies and big soulless design groups as a way of distancing their clients from the messy business of creativity, and this was the opposite of what my studio stood for. We believed in letting out clients see the blood on the floor.

But in truth, account handling was what I mostly did: hand-holding nervous and mistrustful clients; listening to them; placating them; remonstrating with them; and sometimes admitting to them that we'd screwed up. But although this is what I did, I refused to call it account handling. I called it: looking after clients, and showing them what we do, and letting them know where and how their money was being spent."

I am enjoying his book immensely.

Big Ups for Small Creative Cos.

This article published in ADWEEK today, explains how small business in the creative industry will grow in 2010. Interesting article for sure.