quick simple design solutions

I love simple design solutions.  I came across this one in Key West, Florida.  As I was purchasing coconut juice form a mom and pop style convenience store/ kitchen, the water bag over my head right across the cashier grabbed my eye.  A light was shining directly on it, and I could see only a penny resting at the bottom inside the clear plastic bag filled with water.  I wonder what it was and asked the cashier.  He told me it is the easiest solution to get rid of flies.  This got me even more interested.  He said flies have many eyes, by directing a light on the bag, and making sure the environment has objects with different colors you can thereby drive flies away from the area.  Sure enough the surrounding objects had a mix of cool and warm colors, and the copper penny added more to the spectrum array of colors which made the flies avoid this shop.

Definitely a million dollar idea.  He told me a Haitian man suggested the water bag with penny idea to him to get rid of the flies. It is apparently an all natural fly repellent used by Haitians for centuries.

People like me (and probably like you –since you’re reading this) in the creative field have an odd pressure during the holidays.  You can’t just give gift, gifts. Sending a basket of edible fruit or a box of crackers and chocolate says “ho hum” not “ho-ho-hold on a second! What’s this??”

You can always play it safe with a particularly creative holiday card.  But again, you risk a certain level of blah-ness there. I know some companies in Los Angeles think it’s cute to send a slick photo, on expensive card stock, of the Santa Monica Pier washed in a bright orange sunset to their NYC peers.  The point being, “hahaha! You live somewhere COLD. Happy Holidays.” Heh.

And still, I give in to the madness, willingly. It’s that special time of year, time to dig deep into the creative toolbox so I do not have to send out lumps of coal to everyone. Then again, a lump of coal molded into the shape of a hamburger or IBM Selectric Type ball could really make an impact. Less IS more, right?

Happy Holiday Daze Y’all.

Thanksgiving Day, known informally as “Turkey Day,” is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving was a holiday to express thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation to God, family and friends for which all have been blessed of material possessions and relationships. Traditionally, it has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. This holiday has since moved away from its religious roots.

Now, don’t forget to sign in to motioncore and blast an awesome Thanksgiving day to your friends and family.

Back in the early to mid 1990′s, Ace of Base “Saw the Sign” and people paid $500.00 for each page on a website. Knowing how to build a website for the “information super highway was major. To put together the most basic, static web page, you had to know HTML, how to use FTPs and to some extent even how to work on a server.  You needed to know fancy programs like Photoshop.  And how about that gif builder?
CSS wasnt read by browsers, it was almost considered something similar to HTML 5 of today – a lot of people were excited that in the near future “sites with CSS are going to be really fancy, neat, awesome!”

It’s crazy how we take for granted how super fast and easy it is to build a website now.

Today you can make a basic, dynamic website, one that gets the job done and doesn’t embarrass you, with exactly zero technical ability. You can literally click and drag your way to a nice, custom site.

If you’re about to go some kind of networking event or pitch for a project and want to refer people back to your site or blog, but you don’t have a site or blog, it’s not a problem. Because you can make one in minutes. Just log-on to a hosting platform (like oh I don’t know, how about Motioncore) and snap into place all the pages you want. And if you decide that you also want to start selling widgets you love, like t-shirts you can do that too. Just scroll over to “add shopping cart” click and you’re in business. With the flick of a wrist you have an ecommerce website.

Since everything is done with web-based applications now, there’s no need to tear your hair out over various fixes. If you don’t like where a page is or you want to move anything, it’s ridiculously easy –just like moving cups and saucers around on a table until you like the arrangement.

It used to be that if I didn’t like where something was on a website that it might have required a major reconstruction. It took hours if not days. People came out with solutions like tables within tables to line up things since they didn’t have CSS.  And eventually, when all the Minority Report, technologies are here it will be even easier. I’ll just draw smiling face in the air and send people into a space portal.

I find it funny thinking about the 1990′s. Even not long ago in early 2000, the net was in its infancy, regardless of the hype and the bubble by today’s standards, it was quite silly. I was never much of an Ace of Base fan but I did like my pager in 90s and my Pentium III. And don’t get me started on raves and wide baggy pants….

Pop star Justin Timberlake is to be the latest design star for Target. It was announced today that Timberlake will work with Target to have William Rast jeans in stores, by December of 2010. William Rast is a contemporary clothing line started by the Grammy winner and his childhood friend Trace Ayala. Their specialty is distressed $200.00 denim jeans.

What does it tell the general public about design when they can push a giant, red, shopping cart down the aisle of the second largest retailer in the U.S., behind Walmart, and snap up some Philippe Starck lawn chairs, a Michael Graves coffee pot and now an affordable pair of William Rast jeans? That design can be accessible and not just for the wealthy elite? Hopefully.

But am I too romantic to believe that it should be great designers who are celebrated on a mass scale rather than the boys and girls that can win the popularity contests?  Answer: “Yes!” I find “celeb-turns-designer” stories irritating.

The problem is that once you blur the line between respected-in-certain-elite-circles designer and guy-who-sells-iTunes-downloads-and-also-invested-in-a-fashion-line “designer” it gets a bit hazy. It’s a friendly, boyish, conseratively stubbled reminder that getting fame as a designer is more about shaking hands and kissing babies than it is creating something that excites and inspires.

I am, in no way, knocking Justin Timberlake or Trace Ayala for their success. May Target shareholders enjoy a very merry, prosperous fourth quarter!

In fact, I encourage people to do things that are in any way creative –even former New Mickey Mouse Club millionaires. All of us struggle with the initial blank canvas, blinking computer screen cursor or fresh block of unmolded clay. I want more people to pursue their talents and push forward in sharing.

The more earnest designers put themselves out there and push against the ignorance and apathy, the more innovation we can all enjoy. Part of the creative process involves introversion but the other, very critical part, is getting the word out about yourself and your work. And that, in turn, helps support the current surge in design appreciation (even if it’s just “LUUVing everything in the IKEA catalog). If designers, both professionally trained and self-taught do not put themselves out there, we all suffer. Design will be seen not as giving form to art but, instead as just some lame marketing tool.

Now I am waiting, impatiently, for the next fully-loaded Batman movie, Dark Knight. After all, director Christopher Nolan has proven he can spit out good movies on tiny budgets. Memento, which rocked, was shot over a year during weekends. For an independent movie it was one of the most intriguing.

Attention Environmentalists

Keep your SUV. Forget organics. Go nuclear. Screw the spotted owl.

Live urban, crank the A/C

Wired magazine is breaking down what is to be real green.

There are a lot of misconception out there. People love the idea of a paper bag. Everyone believes its more eco-friendly. Unfortunately, the plastic bags are cheaper and more green to produce than your eco-friendly paper bags. Paper bags cost so much higher to produce, and on top of that it pollutes your environment more than the plastic bag production would produce. What is more is that having hybrid car will achieve the carbon savings a hundred thousand miles later. And a tree’s ability to absorb carbon starts to decline fifty five years later. Some scientist believe going green is hyped, and public is misinformed about global warming.

Well, that’s the inconvenient truth.