DUMBO day

Some shots out and about in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. It was an especially good day for some very textured grafitti.
 

If I ran the world

I would definitely make e-flux my economics director, and make currency based on Time.

I Know All There is to Know About the Kerning Game

Flying around the internet, twittersphere, and my classroom is the kerning game, where you get to try out your kerning chops. Some final kerning solutions I don't agree with, but what a fun idea, and some great technology.

More on the reason for sad Mac

While our posts contain lots post-its re Steve Jobs, here's another bit / byte taken from a great The New York Times article by James B. Stewart.

The entire article embodies the goal of great design. Two paras in particular struck me:

1.
“Steve Jobs and Apple never—ever—wanted to be a low-margin commodity producer,” Donald Norman, a former vice president for advanced technology at Apple and author of “Living With Complexity,” told me this week. “Even the Apple II had some charm to it. It was the first personal computer that had professional industrial designers. Before that they were designed strictly by engineers, and they were ugly. Steve was always, if not an artist, then someone who was charmed by style. He had this dream of something beautiful. If it was going to cost more, it didn’t matter. This was in his genes.

2.Mr. Jobs “had an exceptional eye for design, and not just an eye, but an intelligence for design,” Ms. Antonelli said. “We don’t talk just about the looks, but how objects communicate: The specific shape, how it feels in the hand, under the fingers, how you read it in the eye and the mind. This is what Steve cared passionately about.”

The phrase "If it was going to cost more, it didn't matter" puts me in mind of my purchasing a case for my phone on the street a few weeks ago . A sign touted, "Phone cases $5." (Yay! Less than the $40 at the Apple Store. I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes price does matter to me, but that's not my point here.) I chose a funky design and pulled out a 5 dollar bill. The salesguy gently corrected me.

He: "It's $7.
Me: "But the sign said '$5.'"
He: "Design is extra."

I've been using my street epiphany ever since. Design makes a difference. It's extra.

Photo is a screenshot from The New York Times article.

Sad Mac

Before it's too late,  I wanted to post this "sad mac" sign I saw on the 14th Street Apple Store.

Thank you, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, from a 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

In-Game Entertainment

To commemorate the last weeks of baseball season, here's a bit of what I enjoyed during last week in the Pittsburgh Pirates' PNC Park. The Pirates aren't at the top of their league. But PNC is a lovely park, my favorite Pittsburgh fan is a lovely man, and the Bucs won 2 out of 3 games. The big surprises to me were the short videos played prior to each Pirate's at-bat. The videos were sophisticated, witty, and showcased the home team's town. There were even a few different visual styles in the rotation. From my brief exchange with someone at the Pirates.com site, I learned that the videos were created by the In-Game Entertainment department; unfortunately, I don't have specific credits.









Although the trick of aged paper or graphics to make new books "look" old is itself old, the screen for the Pirates player stats were amusing. )Maybe it was the atmosphere.) They must have a custom font, too, for the swash initials.

The most memorable part of the days out at the ballgame was the sports propaganda. At a crucial point in the 9th inning in the best of the three games, a clip from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean," featuring the battle cry "Hoist the Colors!" whipped every Pirates fan into a frenzy. Hoisting the colors/waving those symbols (not to mention the night's free tee shirts) did the trick. The Pirates won.

Every Spring's a new season. Let's go Bucs (and for this season, Good Luck, Yankees (big payroll and what we've learned from "Moneyball" aside).





Sorry about all that extra, uncropped, possibly redundant branding for PNC and PNC Park!