Crowdstorms is Live!

After months of hard work, Josh and I have finally launched Crowdstorms, a new online tool that uses the power of words and people’s associations with them to inform the creative process. Registration is on an invite only basis and will likely be for sometime, so if you want in be sure to apply for an invitation here.

For those of you without an invite, we would love some feedback on the top level messaging of the brand, homepage, FAQ, etc.

Announcing Crowdstorms

Senior year is in full swing and I have a lot of pots on the stove. The time has finally come to start publicizing one of the most exciting projects I have in the works, which is a comprehensive and (hopefully) unique web service that I will be building with my good friend, Josh.

The name of the project is Crowdstorms, and it will be a tool that helps designers, illustrators, writers, and other creatives form and develop ideas. It will use the power of words and people’s unique associations with them to fuel the creative process and encourage unconventional solutions to visual problems. Details are still fuzzy, but the site will allow users to create “topics” and then ask the community to populate them. It will carefully track all of the relationships different people form between words and ideas, building an associative reference tool unlike anything currently available.

I will keep this blog updated with the major news concerning Crowdstorms, but for all the behind the scenes action, check out the development blog Josh and I are maintaining. If you are interested in the private beta, sign up to be notified when it is available.

Cycling Culture Branding: Logos

I have a very exciting new branding project on deck right now, and it has permitted me to pretend that all of my looking at pictures of bicycles online is research, and not merely pornography. To provide the best possible service to my client, I aim to become an expert on bicycle branding, and I am bringing you all along for the ride. Special thanks to Boutique Cycles for a nice starting point for this search. This is part one of a series on the branding of cycling, and I will be showcasing some logos:

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Specialists vs. Extremists

Some thoughts on extremists vs. specialists, with a few little diagrams.

I will now make up a person for the purposes of illustrating what has been bouncing around my head for the past couple of days.

There is this guy I know named Jerry. Jerry is a very passionate person, especially about one subject in particular: lighting fixtures. Jerry’s job is to sell and install lighting fixtures, in his spare time he reads his favorite lamp blogs, and he surrounds himself with other lighting enthusiasts. By all quantifiable measures, it would seem that Jerry is an expert in lighting: the guy you would want to have around when making lighting decisions in your own home. However, for the sake of this story at least, Jerry is an extremist. Though he may know all there is to know about these fixtures themselves, he has no interest in your family, your home, or your specific lighting needs. When you ask him a question about lamps, his answer is so full of jargon and the snobbery that all to often comes with expertise that he is no help to you. Despite all of his knowledge, he is useless and irrelevant to you and your lighting woes.

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Unlikely Inspiration: Sports Logos

I recently watched Field of Dreams for the first time in a very long time; and while I felt the movie was a bit overdramatic and sentimental, I was captivated by the White Sox logo that “Shoeless” Joe Jackson sports on his old school jersey. This prompted me to dig into some other vintage sports logos, and I was surprised by how many are truly beautiful. I wish more modern day teams would use marks with as much character as the old school ones. I have collected some of my favorites, all from www.sportslogos.net, to share with you here. Enjoy!

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Observed: Chewing Gum Packaging

I happened across these packs of gum in the Charles Village Safeway and thought they were particularly beautiful. They have a great, simple, retro style to them that pretty effectively sold the product to me. INSPIRED! Check out the Wikipedia article on Beeman’s Gum to learn more about this sweet vintage product.

Happy Birthday Bill Watterson

Today is Bill Watterson’s 51st birthday. I have been waiting for an excuse to gush about Calvin and Hobbes, his masterpiece, for some time, and his birthday seems like as good a reason as any.

I have always been completely enamored with Calvin and Hobbes. When I was a little kid I was drawn to the strip, and now that I am nearly 21 years old, the comic is even more dear to me. Something about Calvin’s antics, his innocence, his explosive imagination, represents the way I hope to move through the world. Really, what more could one ask for than to set off everyday in search of fun with a best friend. Watterson has a way of tackling some serious issues, like those of death, faith, and war, from a beautifully simple angle: the innocent perspective of a child. His beautifully illustrated strips have always helped keep me centered and never fail to put a smile on my face.

I shall consider myself lucky if I am able ever to create something that affects somebody the way Calvin and Hobbes has affected me. The strip is like a warm blanket, or a slice of my mother’s homemade cake.

Bill doesn’t consider himself a celebrity and refuses to sign autographs or make any kind of public appearance, something I admire him for. He probably wouldn’t even want me writing this little bit about him on my modest blog, but I wanted to spread the love about him and his work. So today, get out your books and read some Calvin and Hobbes, and if you some how are not familiar with the strip, buy yourself a book and delve into its glory; you won’t regret it.

Though it may make me seem a plebeian, there are few facets of culture I hold in the same high regard as Calvin and Hobbes. Happy Birthday Bill Watterson, and thank you for your fantastic work.

Permission and Forgiveness

“Sometimes it is easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

Words uttered repeatedly by Joe Arscott, my high school art teacher and one of my greatest inspirations to this day,  and repeated tonight by Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, someone who has just begun to affect me deeply.

Cameron Sinclair and Architecture for Humanity

I was fortunate enough to attend Cameron Sinclair’s lecture at MICA tonight, something I have been looking forward to for a very long time. His lecture did just what I thought it was going to do for me: he was amazingly inspiring while simultaneously overwhelming me.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with him, he got fed up with the world of Architecture with a capital A catering to the designer crowd and not the common man, or as he calls it “the other 98%”. So, one day after seeing the refugee situation in Kosovo in the late 90′s on the news, he just straight up called the United Nations and asked to speak with whomever was in charge of refugees. Long story short, they actually patched him through to whomever is in fact “in charge of refugees” and he talked his way, quite accidentally, into presenting housing solutions to the UN, who had not spoken with an Architect with an implementable plan in some time. This really kicked Sinclair’s drive to put architects and designers in situations where they could be a part of real change in real time into high gear, and he co-founded Architecture for Humanity, an open source community of designers and architects that give a damn. He throws all of the preconceived notions about what it means to be a designer to the wind and focuses almost entirely on how to use one’s skills to be a positive force in the world. The program has grown immensely over the last decade, but don’t take it from me, check out what they’re up to: www.architectureforhumanity.org

I am immesely impressed and inspired by the man. He is a big “If you are not part of the solution you are a part of the problem” kind of guy, and I am going to be trying very hard in the future to be an integral part of the solution, instead of just polluting the world with classy boardgames and my own personal philosophies set in Clarendon.

Young & Freelancing: The Blog of Designer Bryan Connor

My blog is more or less an unprofessional mess, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But, that’s mostly because I do not possess the dexterity, concentration, or dedication that is required to author an informative, focused blog. Bryan Connor, however, possesses all of these things, and his blog Young & Freelancing has been a long time coming. Bryan has been a very good friend of mine and a partner in the chaotic, often stressful, world of young freelancing for almost 2 years now. Few people I know show the brand of maturity and composure Bryan carries himself with when dealing with floods of emails, frustrating clients, and all the other fun stuff that comes with being an creative individual in today’s freelance market.

If you are young, or freelancing, or have an interest is the behind the scenes of design, be sure to check out Bryan’s Blog. Despite its infancy, Bryan has already stocked the blog with some pretty incredible and helpful articles. I am sure my habits have made/inspired some of his “what not to do” lists, so if you want to hear from the best, click on through.

Vices & Freelancer Bad Habits to Avoid

Getting Things Done – To-do Lists & Priorities

A Freelancer’s Starter Ethics – 20 Guidelines

Be sure to subscribe and read, I know I will.