Archive

This morning was very traumatic. After spending most of the night working, I got up at 6AM on a Sunday, to straighten up a bit before my house guests arrive. For those of you who don’t know, Lauren and I keep a pair of rats. Yes, “rats in the bathroom,” as Mark says. Their names are Abbi and Addi (we thought we’d make it challenging).

Part of my morning preparations was cleaning the poor girls cage, which I had sadly neglected for far too long. I scooped them out of their cage. Placed them in the usual medium sized box and proceeded, with the cage, to the patio to scrub a way. Obvious lack of judgment aside (in retrospect), I have to say, I’ve done this a hundred times and never had a problem. Not so, this morning.

The cage may have taken just a little bit longer to clean. Or maybe I was just moving a little bit slower than normal, but when I returned Abbi had managed to get out of the box and onto the floor. She must have been as startled as I was, because when I entered the room she bolted. Now, there wasn’t really anyplace for her to go, or so I thought, but she managed to find a tiny crevasse between the counter and the floor.

Okay, I told myself. This is not so bad. She’ll come out. But the fact was, I had no idea what was between the counter and the floor. To give you an idea, we live a very large redev warehouse, so no real telling what lies between walls.

To top it off, in my frazzled state of rattled nerves and lack of sleep, I came up with a brilliant plan to go to the kitchen and get some peanut butter to lure her out. Of course, I ran out leaving poor Addi alone in the open box. When I returned with said peanut butter, the little bugger had wedged herself between the brick wall, a 6×6 steel beam and a tight little drop of several “rat” mile to the floor.

By this point, all plans for my expected guests had gone completely out the window and at the hight of my brilliance, I was trying to rescue Addi from slipping into the dark abyss of the crevasse, by dangling a USB cable as a rescue line.

note to self: spend less time with computer and more time with rats.

the rescue

Some clever thinking, a small cardboard box, a pair of scissors and some masking tape later, both Abbi and Addi were recovered and are doing just fine and my frazzled nerves can rest.

You’re stacked, packed and ready to design… so what now?

You’ve done your research. You know your objectives. You’ve blocked out an entire day to devote to your latest masterpiece. So why can’t you start? Every designer has been there. I’m certainly no exception.

I recently rediscovered an old favorite (well, maybe not so old, but one of those great things you come across and somewhere along the line, lose track of). Letterhead Font’s arsenal of retro fonts, styling techniques and very handy assortment of tips and tricks is typographical porn for designers. Want to know how to recreate that old Martell ad from the 1930’s? Check it out.

I bring this up, because I just finished putting together some design mock-ups for a client, with a strong, retro influence.

Unfortunately, I remembered this great site after the fact.

make something that doesn’t suck

On the flip side, you might want to start your design efforts with a “what not to do” and tromp over to ban comic sans. Really. I’ll wait.

With all this superfluous imagery in your head, it’s time to start designing. Great. Yeah, I might have mentioned earlier, you might want to give yourself some time between looking and designing. Otherwise you might end up making something like this this.

left, right or center?

…and for peet’s sake, make something good. I’d love to see it.

I’m poising to get myself out the door within the hour to go meet up with some friends. I don’t take this lightly, since I haven’t found my out of my studio in (and counting) 62 hours. Really. Not even to check the mail.

Fitting the April Fool’s legacy, I thought I’d raise the question, is new design possible in an era where we design for appropriation, to design anything at all, much less something new?

Dan Perkel asked the basic question in his recap of GroupTalk meeting Designing for Appropriation. “Is it possible to design for appropriation and unintended uses? If so, how? If not, why not?”

Concern over appropriation of design seems to have taken a sharp turn north, since. There actually seems to be a sense of gratitude by many designers I’ve talked to, when they see their work finding its way into different facets of culture. It’s something that makes me proud, from a cultural stand point. The question, however, still remains. “Is it possible to design FOR appropriation?

I’ll leave you with this. Have we not ALWAYS designed for appropriation?. From the very beginning, the relationship of the designer to the client/customer/user, the artist to the audience/curator/critic.

Have a great day of the FOOLS

Some fun from Yahoo.com