Free Magenta!

Check out this article about T-Mobile apparently owning the color magenta so that no other telecommunications companies can use it.

"Don’t worry trademarks only apply to the industry sector that they are registered under and since DT applied for their trademark in the tele-communications sector you just can’t use the color magenta around anything to do with phones, digital media… oh and just about anything on the internet."

And also check out this site (in German I think?) about "freeing" Magenta.

Paula, what are you doing?!

Famed graphic design icon and Pentagram partner Paula Scher has designed a series of free business templates for HP. Suits have a choice between 5 styles- "Bold", "Friendly", "Elegant", "Edgy", and "Modern."

The templates are, as all templates are, boring and generic. There is not a stint of creativity in these stale, one-size-fits all molds. These fonts are nice I guess, but lend nothing to the individuality of a brand. I mean, what is the difference between these "designy" templates and any old Word template? Also, if anyone has seen the documentary Helvetica, Scher comments that she actually hates the font and never really uses it in her own work, even though she chooses none other than Helvetica for two of the styles here. In that light the templates almost seem sarcastic on Sher's part.

In Scher's defense she says “No template is a substitute for hiring a professional designer,” and also gives a link to the AIGA website. “But at the very least, I hope we can stop a few innocent people out there from using Comic Sans.”

Uh, I'm not buying it. That's nice on the surface, but think about it- these templates do more harm than good. This makes the design process (choosing a font or an image) seem as easy as picking out a pair of socks in the morning. No: easier. Is this really what small businesses need? What does this really do to make people understand what designers actually do and how important building an original brand is to the success of their company? This seems to go against everything we stand for as designers and diminishes our value.

Paula, I'm disappointed.

We Feel Fine

Check out this amazing database of feelings (We Feel Fine) by Jonathan Harris & Sepandar Kamvar:

It's such an amazing and diverse way to gather and map out information. I would love to do a project like this someday.


Excerpt from the site:

"Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

"The feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on."

THE INTERVIEW (dun dun DUN!)

To quote Sarah Erin's comment on my "Portfolio? What's that? By Myself?" post:

"Hope it went well!"

ummm. If by "well" you mean that I flawlessly finished my book (and actually liked the way something I did came out for once), set aside everything I needed the night before- outfit, directions, and all (which is something I obviously never do if you know me at all), set my alarm, was totally psyched...

...and STILL almost slept through the interview, woke up at 8:30 when I was supposed to catch an 8:51 train, called the creative director's cell phone, lied and told him I had forgotten about a doc appointment at 9:15 and could we please reschedule?

Then yes; it went well.

haha but seriously it did go well. Even though that really did happen. But the CD was really cool about it, told me to come in at 3, and he really liked my work! I'm not sure if I'll get it because I think he's looking for someone with a little more experience, but we seemed to "get" each other. It would be cool if I did get the job because it would basically be just me and the CD which means I'd have my hands in everything, and probably even be "in charge" of certain projects, go to client meetings, and get tons of experience.

I also have an interview at MRM Worldwide next week, which is really cool because Tatz works there now and really likes it. Which reminds me that I better get to sleep because I'm meeting up with him for the Yankee game tomorrow!

Night! :)

Portfolio? What's that? By myself?

That's what I was thinking when I actually got a call today (or since it's almost 5am, yesterday) from a potential employer who wants to interview me for a Jr. Designer position. He said "Bring an extra copy of your resume. Oh and your portfolio of course."

Gulp.

I sent them my portfolio website so why do they need a book too? Ahhh so I had to make one, and I can't believe I did it all by myself! No Greg, no Melissa, and no Adam- and it's so late I couldn't even call them. I'm really tired, but I'm so glad I told this guy I would interview tomorrow because it FORCED me to get this thing done that I've been avoiding all summer. I'm thiiiiiis close to finishing and I really hope I don't fuck it up at this point. I stayed up all damn night. This guy is going to think I'm sleepwalking into his office.

But on a better note: Could it be I'm capable of doing things myself? This actually gives me a bit of confidence walking into this interview. I think I just might finally be ready to work.

Sigh.

Andy Pratt Design

Andy Pratt Design makes some really fun greeting cards! Great funny quirky little illustrations. I want em!

good design resource

excellent sites on here

www.forestyoung.com

I especially like Rebecca Ross's page under "yale sites"

A Day in the City

So today I had an interview- for a job I don't really want. The company is down by Wall Street (ugh) and they do background checks (ew). The people there do seem nice though. Today was the second part of my interview where I read through 70 pages of court records, articles, and other junk and wrote a summary of it. I was there for two and a half hours to do a "short writing sample."

I decided before I got on the train this morning that since that would probably bum me out terribly, I needed some inspiration. I visited the Cooper Hewitt to see their exhibition Design For The Other 90%. I was a bit disappointed to find that it was outside in the garden and it was quite small. Not worth going. Honestly the website is better than the actual exhibit. However, I got a second look at Cooper Hewitt's Design Triennial, which was excellent- again.

Then I subwayed over to the Art Director's Club where they had their 86th Annual Awards Gala. I really enjoyed it. My favorites included a book called Miscellaneous Crap. Basically this person has a box of junk, photographed it, and then categorized it all in the book. The book is dedicated to "the [however many] millions of Americans with OCD." I also enjoyed Icons for 42 Below Vodka. (shown above) They're wonderfully dirty and hilarious. Plus, I just freaking love icons.