May 16th, 2012 | Filed under: Notes | 7 Comments »
Hi there. If you’re reading this, cheers to you! This site began as a mere catalog of stuff I like and is becoming something a little bit more, thanks to growing readership and some things I’m learning on the professional side of life.
Here are some ideas I have to improve my site. I’d love to hear which of these sound like good ideas to you, or really bad ideas, or if you have any other suggestions outside of what I’m already considering. If you can take thirty seconds to make your voice heard in the comments, I’d appreciate it hugely.
My ideas so far:
- Focus more on some things (design? branding? music? movies? What do you want to hear more about?)
- Focus less on other things (what do you hate when I get into? What do you never read?)
- Write more full reviews (of movies, music, etc)
- Post more original art
- Add a list of suggested resources (for various categories, like design, drawing, etc., with links to Amazon)
- Add a small, tastefully-placed ad block (so that I can fund things like contests and give-aways)
- Offer prints of my work for sale (would anyone buy any of ‘em? Would you? What would you pay for one of my sketches?)
- Link to other people whose blogs I love
- Have more regular features (and less total randomness in how/when/what/why I post)
- Add a regular feature of interviews with other creatives and/or guest posts from bloggers I love
- Never ever change, keep that breathless charm, because I’m lovely just the way I am
- Other
If you can take a second to give me your feedback, I’ll send you a chocolate cookie through the internet just as soon as I can cram one into my CD drive. Wait, does my computer even have a CD drive?
Yes. Yes it does. So post your thoughts, and if I can fit a cookie in there, I’ll email it to you.
Thanks!!
May 11th, 2012 | Filed under: Music, Notes, Writing | 2 Comments »
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique, but it turns out that other people really like Fleet Foxes, too! (Oh well.)
A week or two ago, I was contact by my old friend Holgrave, of The Hipster Conservative, who asked whether I would mind their site re-publishing my post, Why “Helplessness Blues” is the most important song of my generation, as part of their May issue.
I did not mind. I was pleased as punch and said yes, provided that they append a sufficiently hipster by-line. I’m not actually sure if I’m either hipster or conservative (for my general approach to politics, I recommend Baby’s a Red by House of Heroes) but I’m happy that my article was of interest to Holgrave and his readers.
So, here’s the review on their site. Thanks Holgrave, and the whole gang at THC, for the kind re-publish!
May 10th, 2012 | Filed under: Branding, Notes, Sketchbook | Add a Comment »
A little while ago, I hosted a brand intervention for the poorly-designed Coastal Sunbelt Produce. Since then, it’s occurred to me multiple times all of the great possibilities afforded them by such a vivid name. So, I’d like to offer the following as proof of my goodwill.
Coastal Sunbelt Produce, please take this design concept for free, and use it if you like. Just drop me a heads-up if you plan to do so, or if you need any help implementing it. A buddy of mine used to work at you, so I truly wish you nothing but the very best.
May 3rd, 2012 | Filed under: Branding, Notes | Tags: rant | Add a Comment »
If you’re going to make a blasted minimalist logo, it has to be perfect and grid-based.
Okay!? Okay.
SHEESH.
//Edit: Please pardon my rant.
May 3rd, 2012 | Filed under: Notes, Writing | Add a Comment »
about last night, as I walked to the Metro, and I heard a reedy and mostly off-key rendition of The Beatles’ Eight Days a Week being played on the recorder.
I can’t tell you much about the musician. I chose to listen rather than look. But I know that he was shabbily dressed and tall, with long dark brown fingers that covered holes on the hard plastic recorder without much sense of rhythm. I wasn’t sure it was Eight Days a Week at first, because the tune was being stretched to its limit. But as I walked down the long, sloping escalator into the man-made dark of the Metro, the notes followed, one after the other in careful — but wrong — tempo.
The funny thing was, you could hear it better at the bottom of the escalator than in the middle. So it was loud for a moment as I passed him, then drowned by shuffling footsteps and grinding of machinery, and then sweetly clear until it faded out of range.
Don’t ask me to pull a point or a moral out of this. I can’t, and I don’t want to. All I know is that, for a few seconds, there was a triangle between me at the bottom of the Metro escalator, the long-fingered and lonely musician at the top, and a teenage boy from Liverpool who couldn’t have imagined the world I live in.
May 3rd, 2012 | Filed under: Notes, Writing | Add a Comment »
Some days everyone looks like someone else you know
and some days nobody looks like anyone
and some days each person looks exactly like
themselves.
May 2nd, 2012 | Filed under: Notes | Add a Comment »
From The Grapes of Wrath:
The tenant pondered. “Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it’s part of him, and it’s like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn’t doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he’s bigger because he owns it. Even if he isn’t successful he’s big with his property. That is so.”
And the tenant pondered more. “But let a man get property he doesn’t see, or can’t take time to get his fingers in, or can’t be there to walk on it—why, then the property is the man. He can’t do what he wants, he can’t think what he wants. The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and he’s the servant of his property. That is so, too.”
Especially interesting insight in a digital age, where everyone has property he can’t see. Are we the servants of our digital property?
May 1st, 2012 | Filed under: Film and Video, Notes | 2 Comments »
A trailer should not just be a shorter version of a movie. If you put the entire plot, with all its twists and turns, into the trailer, it makes me feel like I’ve already seen the whole thing. Then I don’t go pay to watch the movie, because I kind of already have. See what I’m saying?
Sincerely,
David
April 29th, 2012 | Filed under: Notes | Add a Comment »
5
April 27th, 2012 | Filed under: Branding, Notes | Add a Comment »
I’m reading the 2012 LogoLounge.com logo trend report, and enjoying it immensely. You should definitely check it out if you’re involved with logo design or branding in any way — or even a passive fan. It’s good stuff.
Anyhow, I was glad to see the following:
Quote from the trend report:
It will be no surprise if this direction evolves forward with more dimensional strands.
Happily, the Tapestry of Grace logo is already there. I’m glad to know that they’re carrying a strong identity into the next few years.
