Hours of focus
I don’t know how he does it. He has a kind of discipline that I don’t understand. If he didn’t have a wife and family, I would guess that he’s a monk. Good luck Jasper Blake. May the force be with you.
Local and live at Spiral cafe
There’s a coffee shop in my neighbourhood and they do stuff there that I really admire. Yes, they also serve well-made, organic, fairtrade coffee. But they do more. I’m not a music geek. Heck I hardly even enjoy music. But I recognize the role that music plays in human communities. The Spiral Cafe people seem…
Weekend on Galiano
Spent last weekend on Galiano. There’s nothing better than sharing a cool island weekend with cool friends.
What to do about hate?
Okay, so it’s one thing to notice and criticize ads that are demeaning, racist or hateful. But I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I have a duty to also contact the owners of the ad that I wrote about here and also here, and let them know that I think their ad is racist. Or…
A helpful vid by Leo Murray
This thoughtful film appeals to me so much because I think the animation is really artful. It reviews the notion of a tipping point (important notion for people to understand) and it’s written and narrated in a way that doesn’t talk down to it’s audience. Also, he’s really clear that climate change is, at this…
XKCD interlude
These always make me laugh. XKCD
Good magazine, being bad
I like Good Magazine! They’ve been rewarding good ideas lately with some good video ads!
Positioning the other, again
So last week I wrote about a bus ad that I photographed and posted claiming that it was racist. But I didn’t really speak to how or why it was racist. And it’s important to be able to say why.1 The tagline: “GREAT MEXICAN TASTE, WITHOUT THE RUNS” So the implication of this tagline is…
About pencils
Just in case you ever wondered about the blackness (B) and hardness (H) ratings for pencils, I have provided for you this really handy chart.1 As an illustrator, I have a fascination for pencils. Not that I’m a pencil snob. Probably many other illustrators would have a good laugh at my meager collection of pencils….
An average Magazine
We made this piece last year. We picked up a magazine off of the shelf in our neighbourhood grocery store. Yikes. I am very interested in the way we shape people through media, especially advertising. What I find interesting about magazines, is how any individual image seems unimportant. But what is the aggregate affect of…
Truth in Advertising
This is a good ad. I love the copy. It’s folksy – the language is down to earth. Heck, it could be my mom talking, the voice of the ad is that good. “Fact is, truth is an essential part of any successful ad campaign. Smart advertisers have known this for years. That’s why the…
Autumn prairie
Between Vulcan and the Little Bow Provincial Park.
Positioning the other
Advertisements push our buttons and our boundaries. Ad copy that once might have been rejected for being too risky or simply in bad taste is now often fair game. Companies and organizations work hard to create a brand that is irreverent, humourous and memorable. And that works for many organizations – especially if you are…
Testing the WordPress app for iPhone
Well this is pretty cool. I loaded the WordPress app onto my iPhone and I’m going to actually post. This being my fifth post, this app has enabled 20% of my actual posts. And that is not bad. But how hard will it be to assign my dropcaps and first line CSS? Hmmm. Not too…
A good php resource
PHP is a scripting language. I really don’t know a lot about PHP other than that WordPress and Drupal work because PHP works. I believe that it allows for site content, and data about the content, to get stored in a database and that this makes it easier for people to manage this content without…
Pentagram redesigns craigslist
Pentagram is a stellar design studio and I enjoy to check out their blog now and then. They did a cool redesign of craigslist. Awesome.
Drupal Camp Victoria 2009
I had the good fortune of going to Drupal Camp last weekend here in Victoria. There were so many cool nerds there! I haven’t launched a site using Drupal yet — at least not a site that’s intended for public consumption. But I hope to. As a CMS it’s a lot more clicky than WordPress…
About this theme
This blog owes most of it’s functionality to WordPress. The look and feel of this site was originally inspired by Jon Tangerine and Mark Boulton. However, the theme has morphed quite a lot. Wish I could say it’s done shifting, but I doubt it.