I don’t care what you do — this commencement address by Neil Gaiman, given yesterday at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, is well worth hearing. First off, the man can really write a speech. But secondly, it’s measured and good-humored advice from someone who started off like every other one of us.

(Neil Gaiman, in case you’re unfamiliar with the man, is one of two or three “Great Modern Creatives with Whom I Disagree Philosophically But for Whose Talent and Abilities I Have Nothing But the Highest Respect.” I call them the GMCWIDPBWTAIHNBHR, and they are a rarefied crowd.)

That said, there’s also plenty of forgettable design that runs on the page. Action movies tend to look like action movies, and you can spot a rom-com or a buddy comedy a mile away. But a little while back, I mentioned that I was surprised by the art direction in the trailer for Snow White & the Huntsman, stating that it managed to promote something at really looked fresh.

On that note, Snow managed to pull the same trick on me again today — pleasantly surprising me with something I hadn’t seen before. Take a look at the  promotional image below. You can read it instantly (which makes it very commercial, not obscure or confusing), but the more you look at it, the more disturbing it becomes. Look at the eye on that crow. Raven. Whatever. That is not a bird eye.

This is some good design. (Not to be confused with horrifying, nightmare-inducing bad human-eye-on-animal design of the past.) This is memorable, iconic, appealing, and disturbing.

Already inclined to be happy with them, I opened their trailer page, and was happy all over again. The stark black-and-white aesthetic continues, with an image that was designed with expert care for the iTunes preview page and no other location on earth. You just love to see this kind of craft go a piece of work.

Look how that owns the page. The trailer page demands a white top and a black content area … but this design takes that requirement and makes it classy, epic, and exciting. I think the key word here is restraint. Instead of filling the promotional images with a lineup of leads, explosions, magical creatures, or what-have-you, they’ve reduced their design to a stark, minimal, and memorable set of images that stand out head and shoulders on the page, while filling them with enough richness of detail to reward closer inspection.

To be clear, this isn’t an endorsement of this movie or any of its leads (none of whom are my favorites) … but it’s a ringing endorsement for the art direction choices made thus far. However the film pans out, this is one beautiful bit of fully-concepted and restrained design.

Okay, the whole Santa Claus shtick was fake, but this is pretty amazing. Disney Research has come up with technology I definitely don’t understand that can recognize a world of touch gestures … and not just on a screen. They call it Touché, and it’s one of the most incredible technologies I’ve ever seen presented in a very un-incredible video.

Watch the video. Be amazed. Also, be amazed that the best application they could come up with was teaching kids not to eat cereal with chopsticks.

(Via Wolff Olins)

This infographic is pure money — and informative to those of us who dream of someday being published! Props to Weldon Owen for the great work.

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:

1. Focus more on some things (design? branding? music? movies? What do you want to hear more about?)
2. Focus less on other things (what do you hate when I get into? What do you never read?)
3. Write more full reviews (of movies, music, etc)
4. Post more original art
5. Add a list of suggested resources (for various categories, like design, drawing, etc., with links to Amazon)
6. Add a small, tastefully-placed ad block (so that I can fund things like contests and give-aways)
7. Offer prints of my work for sale (would anyone buy any of ‘em? Would you? What would you pay for one of my sketches?)
8. Link to other people whose blogs I love
9. Have more regular features (and less total randomness in how/when/what/why I post)
10. Add a regular feature of interviews with other creatives and/or guest posts from bloggers I love
11. Never ever change, keep that breathless charm, because I’m lovely just the way I am
12. 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!!

This is in a box somewhere at home … I need to find it and re-tape it to my wall here at work. I love this piece of paper.

It’s hard to beat Alan Silvestri composing for an old-school American action-adventure. “Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear.”

Anyone out there love writing for young adults but just can’t come up with a good story? Let’s team up. We’ll make a cool two million, split it 50/50, whaddyasay?

There is no excuse for not loving Jason Wade’s You Belong To Me. None whatsoever.

“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry. Design broadens perception, magnifies experience, and enhances vision. Design is the product of feeling and awareness, of ideas that originate in the mind of the designer and culminate, one hopes, in the mind of the spectator.”
Paul Rand

Happy Monday Morning thoughts for those of us sipping coffee, cracking knuckles, and clicking Creative Suite icons in the dock.