Posted July 23, 2010 6:01 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, process, school
Tags: legacy, Modern Dog, past, present, Robynne Raye, Seattle
A modest collection of phrases and images for this Friday’s roundup post. I was in the office just four days this week after returning to foggy and cold San Francisco from a week-long trip to the hot and sunny Pacific Northwest.
01. While in Seattle last week, I stopped by and visited with friend of the studio Robynne Raye of Modern Dog in their studio. She was very kind for taking a few minutes out of a busy day to show me around. It was also awesome that only half of our conversation was about design—the other half was about, get this, dogs! (I like dogs, so this was win-win.)
02. “This is going to be my legacy to you.” While working in InDesign with Christopher next to me directing me on a particular edit for a client, I began to replace an element on the page with another, forgetting a shortcut technique that he had shown me several weeks before. This was his friendly comment to me before reminding me of the shortcut.
03. We were silently working the other day when Christopher suddenly told us of a thought he had that morning while getting ready for the day. It was about the saying, “the past helps us understand the present.” He offered up the reasoning that it might be, in fact, the opposite that is true; that the present helps us to understand and make sense of the past. I eventually concluded that there is no such thing as the present; that instead we exist in a rapid sequence of “pasts.”
Such are the conversations that randomly occur every now and then here at MINE™.
Posted June 21, 2010 6:00 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details
Tags: activity, inspiration, productivity, tasks
It was pretty busy last week here in the studio. A lot of small, fast-turnaround type projects kept popping up and keeping us on our toes. As soon as we’d finish one of them, another would have to be turned around in an hour or two. For a while there it was like a non-stop carousel of fun. Those are the moments when you know you’re alive. [more]
Posted June 18, 2010 5:25 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, inspiration, school
Tags: art, books, inspiration, learning is FUNdamental, moma, museums, school
Last week Christopher’s oldest son finished his school year, but that doesn’t mean the learning has to end.
I send you on your weekend way with
Bounty from the Bottom of Baker’s Book Bag.
Posted June 11, 2010 5:25 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, inspiration
Tags: cinthia wen, coupon, deep thoughts, future, insight, lists, quotes, spa
Today’s entry consists of a few brief quotes/phrases/insights collected over the past week or so. Listed in no particular order except the one you see here, with limited additional commentary.
05. “Going to a design conference is like going to a spa.” People are in a good mood. Ideas flow; inspiration is abundant. Everyone is a winner.
04. A new MINE™ website is in the works, and during a recent discussion surrounding the “Clients” page, it was offered that visually-inclined people might like seeing a big grid of company logos rather than a big blocks of company names. In response, it was reasoned that a huge list of names is “in itself a visual.”
03. “If everybody did this, would the world as we know it still be able to exist?”
02. “I’m not a coupon” —During a discussion partially related to this.
01. “I want to color in the future.” —Proclaimed this morning by Christopher’s three and a half year old.
Posted June 9, 2010 6:03 pm.
Filed under: clients, daily happenings, field trips
Tags: ames research center, irobot, mine™, nasa, robots, Singularity University
What did you do at work today?
Went to NASA and talked to a robot.
The end.
Actually, that is indeed what happened. We took a trip this afternoon down to NASA’s Ames Research Center to meet with Singularity University (see red circle). The branding we’re working on for their 2010 Graduate Studies Program is almost finished, but we needed to finalize a few last details. As we were sitting around a conference table, I heard a mechanical whirring sound slowing increasing in volume in the adjacent room to my right. From where I was sitting, I could see past the doorframe into this room, and a little further into the hallway. Suddenly a mechanical “thing”—I couldn’t tell exactly what it was—maybe four feet tall and on wheels, rolls past the open doorway and starts down the hall. I only saw a second or two of it. Christopher, seated across the table, heard the whirring sound as well but didn’t have the same view. The Singularity folks were oblivious to it, as I guess it’s a regular thing there.
When they realized we were intrigued by what was making this sound, they called it over! Turns out it’s a robot used primarily for video conferencing purposes, currently being controlled by a human somewhere in the building. A person can log-on from anywhere and gain access to the robot’s controls via webcam. The person’s face appears on the LCD screen, and they can see and hear everything that the robot “sees” and “hears.” They can then control movement using two cameras that give them a view of the robot’s surroundings. It didn’t look like this or anything, but it was pretty sweet and less eerie. The greatest part was that they gave us guest log-in access so that we can assume controls of the robot—from here in San Francisco—during our next meeting with them. Nice.
Posted June 4, 2010 6:44 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times, process
Tags: 1000 fan giveaway, Brett MacFadden, facebook, fans, ipad, jelly beans, Kate Earhart El-Bizri, Omar Dbeis, posters
Some of you may have noticed over the past couple months on Facebook that MINE™ has been looking for suggestions on stuff to give away once the 1,000 Facebook-fan mark is reached. There have been a handful of suggestions—a few being a jar filled with 1,000 black and white jelly beans (from Brett MacFadden); an ipad (totally reasonable request by Omar Dbeis); each of the posters the studio has printed (thanks, Kate Earhart El-Bizri)—all equally excellent suggestions, no doubt.
Well, earlier this week we hit the magic number (woo hoo!). We decided against the ipad route and spent some time scouring the archives to pull some posters, stickers, and a few surprise items; it was a pretty fun task. Today we finished picking all of our lucky winners by way of a random, but highly structured, process. It was even more entertaining selecting the winners. The first thing we did was open the Fans window in Facebook. This window only shows a small portion of the total number, so we figured out how many of these subsets existed that made up our total fan count. Based on those figures, we began a scholarly, well-respected technique for determining number pairs. It went like this: Justin, pick a number between 1 and 10. Okay, now pick a number between 1 and 100.
After several rounds of this we had our winners, but in number only. The next, and longest step, was to use our previously identified window subsets and manually find out exactly who 3, 44 and friends were, and then getting a mailing address from them. If we encountered any problems—like the person not allowing any emails via Facebook—rather than simply choosing the next person on the list, we would use our 1-thru-10 number and move down that many steps to the next person. Needless to say, it was a very exciting system, and the suspense kept building as the number of available prizes dwindled. As we were selecting, an interesting thing happened. The fan count began to increase fairly significantly in a short amount of time, dropping people into different number slots. This just made it more exciting—like hitting a moving target!
So to all you winners out there, the faster you reply the faster you’ll get the goods!
Posted June 2, 2010 6:11 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details, process
Tags: answers, goodness, mine™, technology, the internet, website redesign
Smells like the Internets up in here (said in this manner). All kinds of discussion today about MINE™’s upcoming website redesign. Questions (and some answers) about user experience(s), specific work to highlight, integration with other channels of info (social media, blogs)… goodness in the works!
Posted June 1, 2010 5:50 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times, school
Tags: breakdance fighting, cca, cinthia wen, class, noon, Photoshop, professionals, school, sleepwalking, spam, tim belonax
After the long weekend, MINE™ was back in business today, sans Tim. Well, kind of. The morning consisted of some standard studio maintenance tasks—breakdance fighting, file organization, spam email deletion. Then, about mid-day, the doorbell rang. It was Tim and he was sleepwalking, his muscle-memory kicking in and leading him to the office! When he woke from his deep sleep he decided to stick around for a few minutes and take care of some last minute odds and ends.
There are a few upcoming design competition entry dates, so I took some time today compiling all the pertinent entry information in preparation for our potential submission. I finished off the day doing a little Photoshop work on a file for Christopher, and am now finding myself having to cut this post short to head out to the first day of my summer Transitioning To Professional Practice class at CCA, taught by Cinthia Wen of Noon (and CCA’s newly appointed chair of the Graphic Design program). The class meets twice a week in the evening, so I will have to start my blog posts earlier on these days! Until tomorrow…
Posted May 27, 2010 5:47 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details, thursdays
Tags: christopher simmons, House of Air, mine™, tim belonax, tuba, websites
The first few times the phone rang this morning I was fully expecting a callback from our friends from yesterday. Luckily that feeling didn’t persist too far into the day, as Thursday turned out to be a rather uneventful one. I spent a few hours in the morning combing through samples of MINE™’s previous work. I first saw some of the studio’s pieces a few years back, and it’s been an interesting progression, first viewing the work as an outsider, then getting a different perspective having Christopher as an instructor and him bringing in and discussing work in class, and now getting an inside view of the operations behind the work.
In the afternoon Dave and Paul from House of Air came by to talk about the website design Tim and Christopher have been working on. They were really digging it, and it sounds like a few small tweaks here and there is all that is needed. It was a smooth meeting. They also made some decisions regarding furniture—café tables, picnic tables, and the like. No $3700 Belgian picnic tables this time around, but that’s okay.
To wrap up the day, Christopher, being extremely involved in the education of young designers’ minds across the land, headed out early to the Academy of Art Spring Show. I continued making some changes to the grid/layout of the intern binder, and Tim was busy burning some project files to CD. Every third disc made this weird tuba-esque sound as it spun in the drive. Sort of like this.
Other than that, at the end of the day I made a few things on the scanner with stuff lying around the comp room.
For example,
something dark
and something light.
Posted May 25, 2010 5:45 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times
Tags: bloody motherf*****, fake yellow pages, scam
If you happened to be in the studio today around 4pm or so, you would know that today’s blog post can only be about one thing: the phone conversation that went down between MINE™ and the Fake Yellow Pages scammers.
In retrospect, it all began earlier in the day when I fielded a call from someone purporting to be from the Yellow Pages’ online directory. I immediately had feelings that it was suspect, but decided to listen for a minute in case it was legit, especially as the guy on the other end simply wanted “confirmation” on the studio’s “business information”—phone number, address, etc. Basic info that anyone can find out and that makes sense being in a business directory. As soon as the guy wanted me to start giving him new information, I declined and suggested we just stick with the basic info. He said okay and then thanked me for my time.
Done, right?
Nope. Around 4pm, I get another call from the same guy. I already spoke to you, I tell him. He replies with some business about a problem with a server and having to redo it all. Whatever. The thing that changes on this call is that now he wants me to create some “easy to remember 4-digit password” in order to secure the information. I told him that I didn’t feel comfortable creating a number and that we would decline, and that it doesn’t even make sense for me to create a password for a free business listing. So basically, for the next few minutes, after I keep telling the guy no and hanging up, he calls back about 4 or 5 times. Rapid-fire style. Christopher is on the other line and is hearing what I’m saying, so when he gets off, he tells me to put the call through to him.
The rest of it plays out more or less like this:
Christopher (CCHS) tells the Fake Yellow Pages Guy (FYPG) that he’s the owner. Christopher sits through the same “information verification.” Then he stops the guy short.
CCHS: So let me ask you something. Is this ever going to cost me anything? (his voice starting to raise)
FYPG: No, it’s free.
CCHS: So this is never going to cost me anything? Ever?
FYPG: Totally free. Forever. All you need to do is create a passcode and confirm blah, blah, blah and (speaks this last part fast—think Micro Machine Man from the 90s style) you’ll be upgraded to the elite listing for $39.99 a month, which you can cancel within two weeks.
From here on out, Christopher’s voice, tone, temper gradually accelerates with each second.
CCHS: Wait a minute. You’re telling me I have to cancel after two weeks or I’ll have to pay for it? That’s not what you said a minute ago. When I asked you if it would ever cost me anything, you should have said yes.
Fake Yellow Pages guy starts talking.
CCHS: Stop talking. Stop talking and listen for one second. I don’t want you calling here ever again. Do you understand?
Silence.
CCHS: Do you understand?
FYPG: No.
CCHS: What? What don’t you understand? Never f****** call my office again. (voice especially raised)
FYPG: (pause) You bloody motherf*****; You are a motherf*****.
CCHS: Are you serious? (laughs) Are you serious? Let me speak to your manager.
Hears phone rustling.
Same guy gets back on; changes voice to different pitch: Hello?
CCHS: Yes, i just spoke with your associate who called me a bloody motherf***** after i told him i didn’t want to buy his services. Is this how you’re operating your business?
FYPG, part II: You are a bloody motherf******. I will f*** you in your a**, you motherf*****. I can take more than you can, you motherf*****
CCHS: (very forcefully without hesitation) Don’t ever call my office again.
(hangs up phone)
END SCENE
This Fake Yellow Pages Guy either needs to take the advice on my tea tag and act a little greater, or he took the advice too far and was feeling a little too great about himself.
Posted May 21, 2010 5:20 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details
Tags: bathtub, insert coin, pac-man
…your bathtub.
This phrase was uttered a few days ago, and was shortly followed by I would like to make a volcano in your office.
04. Sometimes I take screenshots of my workspace at different points during the day. Sometimes it’s for a specific reason, to keep track of something, and other times it’s just because I like screenshots.
05. Fun fact: Last Monday somebody visited the blog on an iPad and stayed for 0:00. Horray!
06. Happy birthday to Pac-Man (tomorrow).
07. Happy birthday to the Empire Strikes Back today (courtesy of College Humor).
[more]
Posted May 20, 2010 5:58 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, thursdays
Tags: cassecroute, chicago poster biennial, mohawk, vanilla ice
When I arrived at the studio this morning, I had a pretty important email sitting in my intern inbox. I knew it was important by the subject line. It’s amazing how much urgency one can convey with just a few words. The subject began, “For Mr. Intern…” Before I could properly respond, my attention turned to an even more important matter of the day: packing and shipping a few design competition entries, particularly for the 2010 Chicago International Poster Biennial and the Mohawk 11 show. It was my first experience filling out the entry forms, printing all the necessary labels, and properly packaging the work for safe delivery, so I took extra time to make sure it was done properly. It’s the type of thing that, once you do it several times, probably becomes second nature. In the early afternoon, a few folks from Mohawk stopped by and chatted with Christopher, and then took our entries to delivery for us. Convenient.
For the past couple of days I also have been doing some image research for a few projects, and even some furniture research for House of Air. I was looking into picnic tables that can be used for the kids and families that will be populating their facilities in the near future. I came across this especially nice set of tables from Belgian designers Wim Segers and Ronalde Mattele, also known as Cassecroute. After spending some time browsing their site, I decided that I really want one of their tables. I just have to figure out how I’m going to find one and pay for it. I’d use it in my house, even if it would take up the entire living room. Those are some nice picnic tables.
We finished the day out by listening to some great music provided our newly created Vanilla Ice Pandora station. Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Marky Mark, Will Smith and Right Said Fred all in the span of 20 minutes. Quality.
Posted May 18, 2010 5:42 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times
Tags: book, logos, model, photo shoot
Today I took part in my first photo shoot of the summer. One of the projects underway here at MINE™ is a book of the studio’s logo and identity work. Tim and Christopher have been discussing possible front and back cover options over the past few days in between work on the Stern Grove, House of Air, The Energy Project, and other jobs, and it’s been fun listening in and seeing the progress each day. There are a few spreads in the book that still need images, and so today Christopher asked if I would do some modeling for a few of those spreads. We grabbed the camera and headed upstairs. The first task was to do a little hand/ring modeling for a Singularity University project the studio did a while back. I had to look super sophisticated, of course, so somehow I managed to contort my long arms just enough to slide on one of Christopher’s button up shirts and jackets. Actually, it took two jackets because the first one’s sleeves only made it down to my mid-forearm area. We had to grab a second one so I could slide my right arm in to give the impression in the photograph that it was one, super-sophisticated garment. I have to be honest, I had flashbacks of this clip with the coat(s) on (video after the jump): [more]
Posted May 14, 2010 2:15 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details, inspiration
Tags: business cards, family, House of Air, lists, obituary
Throughout the work day while carrying out my various intern duties—whether it’s filing away print samples, conducting image searches, or even just being a part of conversations that pop-up—there always seem to be little moments of humor or inspiration or just general interestingness that reveal themselves (grammatical correctness pending on that last one). Sometimes it’s a funny phrase or comment said by someone here in the studio (I’ve noticed that the best phrases get written down by Christopher on a post-it note and slapped up onto a vintage Denoyer-Geppert wall map). Other times it’s just an interesting image that prompts me to construct a whole backstory for the people/places/things in the image.
So anyway, I figured that every now and then I’d post a few items from my list. Here are five to start out.
1. Your work is successful like an obituary is successful. It’s probably not a good thing if someone says this to you.
2. I went to file some business cards the other day in the studio’s growing collection. One particular card had a thin layer of what looked like a blue cotton coating, clearly not part of the original design. (The small tuft of cotton on the back set it off.) I went to file it but stopped short when I saw an identical (save for the cotton fur) pristine white card in a protective sleeve. It made me wonder about the blue-ish card in my hand. Where had it been? What adventures might it have gone on, and what stories might it have to tell? Instead of filing it, I placed it on my desk with a few other items. I planned to take a picture of the two cards the next day, but when I came into the studio the blue-ish card was gone. Vanished. Off for more adventure, I guess.
3. Because the physical studio space of MINE™ is located on the first floor of Christopher’s home, there are brief moments in the morning and afternoon when his kids come bursting through the door and fill the place with joy (and sometimes crying). I feel somewhat fortunate (privileged, even) to be a part of this home/office routine and the chance to get to know his family.
4. Time-lapse videos are soothing. Poetic, even, in that the busiest, most chaotic activity amounts to a slow crawl over an extended amount of time. Here’s a time-lapse video from the House of Air folks:
5. MINE™ is a small studio in terms of square footage. I’m 6′7″ on a good day, but this doesn’t phase me one bit, because for the past few years, I haven’t been able to stand up straight while showering at my apartment. Compared to that, MINE™ is an auditorium.
Hmm, that’s interesting.
Posted May 12, 2010 6:08 pm.
Filed under: clients, daily happenings, process
Tags: Amelie, birthday, quilling, stern grove festival
I know you’ve seen the new Stern Grove poster. It’s sweet. If you haven’t yet, visit that link for a moment. The technique Yulia Brodskaya is flexing her superior skills with is called quilling. We had a brief history lesson today courtesy of the Internets, and learned at one point in Europe quilling was thought to be one of the “few things ladies could do that was thought not too taxing for their minds or gentle dispositions.” Hmm, I wonder what Yulia would say to that statement, because from my seat her illustration looks like it would take the mind of a razor sharp paper-ninja.
When I got in this morning, I completed some typical early-morning intern tasks: printed some labels, filed away some print samples, churned some butter. A good chunk of the day, however, was spent by all working on various aspects of the Stern Grove Festival project. Tim was busy working out the type for large signage, several versions of some shirts, and about a hundred other things. About midday Christopher and Tim had me trace the edges of paper within the Stern Grove poster. At first I just did one section to give them an idea of whether it was working and whether or not I should continue. It looked pretty nice, so the plan was for me to spend the next hour or so finishing off the rest of it. But I tell you what, those paper lines just kept coming and coming! It took slightly longer than an hour. The process of tracing became almost a meditative one as I located each edge of the pieces of paper and tried to match its path. I then passed it off to Tim who began integrating into the work he was doing. It looked pretty sweet; hopefully the client thinks so as well. Time will tell!
Happy birthday to Amelie today!
Posted May 11, 2010 6:32 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, process
Tags: frustration, lunch, t-shirt
Today was a humbling one for me. At the end of the day yesterday I found out that I would be working on some graphics for a t-shirt; a project that previous intern Reena had begun. The client responded to the first round of submissions and we had some feedback to move forward with. It’s not an overly complicated project by any stretch of the imagination, but I found myself struggling to work fast and just get it done. It’s insightful to see the differences between school projects, where you might have a big chunk of time dedicated to brainstorming, then sketching, then revisions, etc. Here “in the real world” that process just has to be condensed into a much shorter timeframe, and after working most of the day today, I just need to get better and faster. That’s why I’m here. Theme song for my ride home.
Posted May 7, 2010 8:00 am.
Filed under: daily happenings, thursdays
Tags: last day, pizza, Reena
Yesterday I mentioned the futuristic-nature of my new camera and its photographs. Here’s how that works: Let’s say I take a photograph on a Monday. Well, this camera is so scientific, so futuristic, that the world just isn’t capable of seeing or comprehending the photograph on that same Monday. We have to wait another 21 hours before we’re even ready to view it. Our human minds essentially have to play catch-up. So I was pretty excited, to say the least, to see what gems we took with this thing on Reena’s last day yesterday. I was not disappointed. Here’s a beauty, taken just as we were leaving the office for pizza:
Here I am trying to get help stepping over the caution tape, but Reena is too busy laughing at the suits Tim and Christopher decided to eat lunch in. (We set the camera up on the shelf and Hailey the cat pushed the shutter release for us.) I think to bypass the whole 21-hour time restriction thing moving forward I’ll just take photos with a regular DSLR. You never know when I’ll want to post a photo the same day I take it; that might come in handy.
We were out of the office all day today, so on Monday I will fill you in on a bit of what we were up to.
Posted May 6, 2010 5:43 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times, school
Tags: Christopher, first day, Reena
“Hey Young World”, Slick Rick, 1988
This is Justin Holbrook, broadcasting from Putnam Planet 190. As Reena mentioned yesterday, I will be assuming control of the blog-writing duties for the summer. I am very excited and grateful to begin my internship here at MINE™. I applied as a joke after losing a bet with a classmate this past semester. It wasn’t even my fifth choice.
Actually, the truth is that I knew I wanted to be a part of MINE™—even if only for a few months—after I took Christopher’s GD 2 class a few semesters ago at CCA. I learned a lot that semester and figured that it could be an even greater learning opportunity if I had the chance to see how he runs this ship from a closer view. So here I am.
My first official day, I think, was yesterday. Reena, of course, was in and I spent much of the day familiarizing myself with the studio and getting the lowdown from her on various tasks/procedures. We all went out and had a nice little lunch up the hill, and I figured out my bicycle route for the upcoming days. Today Reena was in for just half of the day, so we ate some delicious Indian pizza and saw her ride majestically into the Mission sunset, onto BADder things (BAD = Bigger And Deffer).
To top off my glorious first day of blogging, I got to take some photos with my brand-new, futuristic, top-of-the-line camera of our eventful day. This camera is so futuristic, in fact, that the world isn’t ready for the pictures that were taken with it. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow, but trust me, it’ll be worth it!
Posted April 13, 2010 7:28 pm.
Filed under: clients, daily happenings
Tags: Christopher, Enitrat, House of Air, socks, Tartine
House of Air and I are totally besties. At least for today. I worked on their wristbands, made penguin feet to scale and designed socks! You know you’ve made it as an intern when you’ve designed socks.
Besides House of Air and some scanning, I also brought Christopher a chocolate cake for his birthday. I made it from the Tartine cookbook. Enitrat lives on. You might think, “Why would you go to Tartine if you have the recipes?” I now know why. Baking is hard, and their baked goods are way prettier.
I would write more, but I started the blog late today. Also the rest of the team is heading out. Until tomorrow.
Posted April 8, 2010 5:37 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details, lessons learned
What do penguin tracks look like?
Check out link
How tall is the railing on the second floor cross ramps at House of Air?
3.5 feet
How many things can you make out of a circle?
A lot.
Who won an Oscar for best short film this year?
H5 for Logorama
How do you make a photograph look like an engraving?
Engraving II – A Photoshop filter
Where is Tiburon, California?
37° 52′ 25″ N, 122° 27′ 24″ W
Are there any more Post-its in the office?
Christopher might have some.
When is Christopher’s birthday?
Saturday
All these questions and more were answered today.
Posted March 29, 2010 3:50 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, ffffound!
Tags: ffffound!, House of Air, Monday
Today was definitely not a manic Monday. We’re waiting to get feedback from clients or quotes from printers, so there wasn’t a ton of stuff to do. At least that statement is true for me. I spent most of the day researching about competitions and about projects that we haven’t even begun yet. When the time comes to begin, it will be good for me to have that background knowledge though. After that, I continued working on stickers for House of Air.
In between tasks, I did some visual research by taking advantage of my ffffound account which Ethan, the previous intern, gave me. MINE™ has a tradition of keeping the ffffound invite in the family. Each intern gives their invite to the next intern. Looking at work is important for us as designers to notice trends and because we get ideas by looking at visual things. I’m not saying that looking at other work is the only thing we should look at, because inspiration can come from anywhere. But it’s fun to discover new techniques and store the idea away in your subconscious until it drifts back to the surface when it will work well with one of your own projects. Christopher keeps a kind of physical “ffffound” in the office. In the comp room, we have binders full of examples with good type and interesting formats. By having a frame of reference to work from, we are able to push the boundaries of design and hopefully make new meaning that has yet to be revealed.
Posted March 24, 2010 5:11 pm.
Filed under: clients, daily happenings
Tags: House of Air, Puppycam, signage
We had to take a little extra time today, but we did it. We put in a few more hours this afternoon and finally finished our sign design proposal for House of Air. Last night I worked until 8:30 and Christopher continued on until 2:00 a.m. Like I said yesterday, environmental design can be a long, tedious process. Now we just hope everyone approves the designs and that the signs adhere to building code.
As tedious as it was, I really enjoyed doing it. You have to think really hard for a minute, then your brain gets to rest and wander while you’re recording your information and basking in the glory of your success. In my younger years, I enjoyed math. The thing that was enjoyable about it is that there is always a definite answer. But I guess that’s what is boring about it as well. Because of my very left brained background, I had to learn that there is no right answer in design. I realized that it’s all subjective. Though this is the case there are definitely better, smarter answers than others and figuring it those out is highly gratifying.
And for anyone who was afraid of losing Puppycam, I gave out some misinformation. The little ones are still there!
Posted March 22, 2010 5:35 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details
Tags: blog, Christopher, everything is ok, Idea-ology, Motown, Pandora, Stanley Hainsworth
The blog is looking good. There are still some things to work out, but the list is getting shorter. Christopher did a lot of work on it over the weekend and fixed some things I was complaining about in my last post. I made some minor changes today, but they still took some time for me to figure out. My biggest victory was getting the “more” button to not give the user an epileptic seizure.
Other than making sweet love to code (Sorry. We’re listening to Motown and R&B hits on Pandora.), my day was sprinkled with intern duties such as making packages, opening packages and filing samples. One pretty rad thing we received is Stanley Hainsworth’s new book Idea-ology: The Designer’s Journey: Turning Ideas into Inspired Designs in which Christopher is featured! There are some pretty cool photos of Everything is OK Action Kits in use. The book is full of big ideas and talks about the implementation of them. Some of the stories are pretty inspiring because many of these big ideas came out of personal projects and were not funded by any particular client. It just goes to show that doing the thing you love, whether or not you know the outcome in the end, can lead you on a spectacular, unexpected journey and makes all of the tears, sweat, and blood totally worth it.
Posted March 19, 2010 5:46 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, details, lessons learned
Tags: Christopher, Puppycam, Tim, Typekit
Who knew coding could make one feel so emotional. I’m not even doing anything really difficult, but my trials of the past few hours are weighing down on me a little bit.
As you can see our new blog is up and kicking. Christopher spent some time after hours coding things that he couldn’t stand to be left unfinished overnight. When I came in this morning, there were only some minor things left to do. Or so I thought. I changed some colors of things, but I also set us up with a Typekit account. If you aren’t aware of Typekit, check it out. I hadn’t heard of it until Tim sent me the link. Christopher said he wanted to embed a font into the blog some how and apparently this is how one might go about it. It’s magic! Well, not really. There is some coding and servers all over the world involved, but you can look it up on your own.
Earlier in the day, when I was figuring things out and making things happen I was on cloud nine. But for the past few hours, I haven’t been able to do anything exactly like I wanted to. I even went down the list of tags in the stylesheet and looked them all up. I gained a lot of knowledge about CSS, but nothing actually happened on the blog post lunch.
[MORE]: Why do you do that crazy jump thing when I click on you?!
GREY ABSCESS ON MY CATEGORY BAR: Which tag controls you?!
TITLES: How do I get you to not follow the style for all the links?!
STICKY POSTS: I will figure out how to customize you if I need to.
Happy weekend! Watch Puppycam!
Posted March 18, 2010 5:38 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times, lessons learned
Tags: blog, Christopher, css, House of Air, html, Puppycam
So we’ve finally made the switch over to the new blog theme. Pretty rad, right? I have some things to tweak and type to finesse before everything is in ship shape. Since Wordpress sites go live as I update it, you’ll get to see changes in real time. It’s like watching Puppycam, but not as cute.
I worked on House of Air for a few moments, but most of my day was spent working on the blog. There’s nothing better to kill your self esteem like trying to figure out how to code things for the first time. I spent an hour or more trying to customize our header. Christopher walked up and the task was completed in minutes. It seems as though I didn’t close my tag. After I cleared that hurdle, Christopher and I spent some time trying to figure out other pieces of code to change color and column width. I have a long list of things to change still, and it’s going slowly. Once I get more familiar with it though, I hope the process will pick up the pace.
Coding is a tedious task, but it’s a fun thing to do. It’s kind of a like solving a puzzle and is really gratifying to see something start working how you want it. I’m excited about doing this project, because working with css/html was one of the things on my list of things I wanted to learn at MINE™. Two and a half months into the internship and I’m pretty sure I’ve already done most of the things on my list.
Posted March 17, 2010 5:58 pm.
Filed under: clients, daily happenings, process
Tags: beer, blog, bloggery, Christopher, Emily, House of Air, OED, Puppycam, Tim
I was just telling Christopher that working here is the only job I’ve ever had that has been more fun than my stint as a server. Oh, I guess teaching was pretty fun too. But I digress.
Have you noticed the blog? It’s new and improved! Now with more visuals! Today I spent the day adding images so it will look totally rad when we make the switch to the new format. It has been fun because with each picture, I get to choose the message I want to communicate for the day. So sometimes I had a picture that worked perfectly, and other times I had to make something up. They are just blog photos, but it was a design task. We make messages with words and images, and hopefully create new meaning and context. I can’t say that all my photos live up to that statement, but I enjoyed doing it nonetheless.
After my morning of bloggery (No, that word is not in the OED…yet.), Christopher, Tim and I brainstormed about signage and graphics for House of Air. I recorded notes on a giant notepad with a sharpie while trying to contribute to the conversation. We came up with some really cool ideas for the space in which we will pitch to our clients on Friday. So after the meeting and watching Puppycam (Thanks, Emily!) for a few minutes, we started adding our signage, color, and graphic ideas to the architectural renderings. They’re starting to look pretty sweet, or maybe it’s just the beer goggles.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, friends!
Posted March 16, 2010 5:36 pm.
Filed under: clients, daily happenings
Tags: Christopher, House of Air, Tim, Wordpress
My big project of the day was to start rethinking and reformatting our current blog to prepare it for a theme change. To do this, I have been going back to older blogs and adding photographs. I wrote those blog entries only two months ago, but I sense a certain naivete in them that I don’t feel now. Reflection is an interesting feeling. As a teenager, I set fire to my old diaries so that younger person didn’t exist any more. But I can’t exactly burn the blog down, so it’s here to stay.
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Posted March 11, 2010 6:13 pm.
Filed under: clients, daily happenings
Tags: C+, Christopher, Coalition of Essential Schools, d.School, Levi's, Opening Ceremony, Private Schools with Public Purpose, Stanford, Stefan Hemmerle, The Engergy Project, The Good Design Book, The Haiti Poster Project, The Nature Conservancy, The Stern Grove Festival, Tim, Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo
Everyday that I come to work is a surprise. I feel really lucky to be here. Not only because I am learning a lot from Christopher and Tim, but because MINE™ has amazing clients. Since I’ve been here MINE™ has worked on projects for a trampoline gym that will open this summer, an education movement called Private Schools with Public Purpose, Coalition of Essential Schools’ education conference, Levi’s and Opening Ceremony, The Stern Grove Festival, The Good Design Book, The Energy Project, C+, Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo, The Nature Conservancy, The Haiti Poster Project, and the Stanford d.School. I am amazed by the breadth of clients and how awesome everyone is. I feel like I am going to get spoiled and think that this is the way every design office is run.
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Posted March 10, 2010 6:27 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times, visitors
Tags: Anne, Christopher, d.School, Hemlock Printers, Keynote, The Haiti Poster Project, Tim
My firsts included using Keynote, dusting, and meeting Ann from Hemlock Printers.
Christopher informed me that I was the first person to dust the cabinets. For some reason, I feel a little proud about that fact. But as you can see, I was desperately seeking something to do at the moment. Today was a little slow around here. We’re waiting for client feedback on a few projects so that we can proceed with them. It’s just the normal ebb and flow of things.
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