When thinking about spaces that inspire creativity, this seemed like the opposite of one of those spaces. It reminded me of a print I bought back in 1994 at the Park City Arts Festival that I found rather comical entitled “Cubicle-ism”. I don’t remember the artist name, but his art mainly consisted of pasting different found pieces of art, illustration, and print work together to make a statement or story.

For this particular poster he had taken many of the master painters and stuck them in a cubicle farm, some working at what seem to be very old computers. I’ve always thought the statement he was making both comical and quite thought provoking.

I myself work in a cubicle at my 9-6 job, but unlike those at that dismal basement location, I only have to turn 180 degrees to see beautiful Mount Timpanogos. I took the following picture from just behind my cubicle this afternoon.

I always find it refreshing to take a moment at my desk to look outside and get re-inspired to be creative again.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s a rare commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design he/she will have.”
Steve Jobs, co-founder Apple Computer, Founder NEXT computing
Wired Magazine, February 1996, page 163.

“Understanding the human experience”, wow what a great statement.

This last September I had the opportunity to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. This destination had been on my to-do list for some time and recession-related financial issues had kept me from doing so. In the beautiful ruins of this ancient Incan city, I found numerous points of inspiration not only in fine craftsmanship, but in the ancient people’s love of their Gods and the land. I have some specific examples that I’ll share in the near future; I still need to get an opportunity to organize some of the photos I took from the trip.

Links:
Wikipedia: Machu Picchu
Wired Magazine: www.wired.com

I understand that businesses have to shift focus as the Internet changes from one technology platform to the other, funding is lost and hard decisions have to be made. But proclaiming the death of RSS? Is this true?

In a statement issued by Ask.com (who owned Bloglines, a fact I didn’t know), said, “…Flash forward to 2010. The Internet has undergone a major evolution. The real-time information RSS was so astute at delivering (primarily, blog feeds) is now gained through conversations, and consuming this information has become a social experience. As Steve Gillmor pointed out in TechCrunch last year, being locked in an RSS reader makes less and less sense to people as Twitter and Facebook dominate real-time information flow. Today RSS is the enabling technology – the infrastructure, the delivery system. RSS is a means to an end, not a consumer experience in and of itself. As a result, RSS aggregator usage has slowed significantly, and Bloglines isn’t the only service to feel the impact. The writing is on the wall.”

In other words, social experiences such as Twitter and Facebook have replaced the RSS aggregator? I disagree. Social media has enhanced the experience of getting to the best stuff in a crowded online world, but the RSS feed is the “subscription” to a constant flow my favorite stuff. There’s a difference there for me. Maybe that makes me old-fashioned?

I’ve already ported over my feeds to the Google reader which seems to be the leading next best thing, which is hard to say considering their terrible interface (I tell people with a scowl on my face, “it sucks!”). Perhaps Steve Gillmor (quoted in the Ask.com statement) is just upset because he was using Google reader.

I will miss Bloglines and thank the folks that ran it for providing me a daily feed to my favorite places online.

Links:
Bloglines: www.bloglines.com (at least for a few more days)
Ask.com’s Statement: Bloglines Update
TechCrunch Article: Rest in Peace, RSS

Lately much of my inspiration has been linked to my new toy, Apple’s iPad.

After hearing that I had purchased an iPad, a coworker mentioned that I try Flipboard, an application that turns your Facebook, twitter, and other new streams into a new, more consumable format. After downloading it, I’ve found that I can hardly view my regular twitter stream in any other format versus the more compelling view that Flipboard has created. Just this simple “redesign” of information has inspired me to think of other things in my world that can be looked at in new ways. It’s a product where the aesthetic design and enjoyable interactions have clearly improved the experience.

Links:
Flipboard for iPad: www.flipboard.com
Apple iPad: www.apple.com/ipad

Thanks!
Brad

Repeating backgrounds for HTML have been around as nearly as long as I can remember. I first fell in love with the concept years ago while creating some for my desktop. (I had just discovered the wrap-around functionality in Photoshop and thought I was a genius). Most recently – if you call 2006 recent – I blogged about pixel patterns being used as wallpapers, as I played around with them for a couple of my site’s holding pages. (Like Tweet Sweet!)

Today I discovered a great link with a lot more resources than I had mentioned, and wanted to send you there to check it out: 27 Best WebSites to Download Free Seamless Patterns Some are graphic, a few are pixel, but all seem to be pretty high quality. Enjoy!

Here are some of the logos I’ve designed that are either soon to be no more (e.g. Omniture) and others that only live in my portfolio:

	Omniture Inc Entered into a definitive agreement for Adobe to acquire Omniture in a transaction valued at approximately $1.8 billion in Q4 2009. Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives.
	Powerschool Inc Acquired by Apple Computer for $62 million in Apple stock in March 2001. Powerschool is the leading provider of web-based student information systems for K-12 schools and school districts. It’s online software gives school administrators and teachers the ability to easily and cost-effectively manage student records and gives parents real-time access to track their children’s progress.
	SkyDisc Acquired by Skymall Inc for $2.3 million of SkyMall common stock in October 1999. Disc Publishing’s “SkyDisc” is an interactive CD-ROM targeted to the business traveler that integrates highquality print, broadcast and online media designed to provide a mix of topics that entertain, inform and enhance the business travelers’ life. Every other month a new “issue” of SkyDisc is available free in airline seatback pockets to more than 400,000 SkyWest Airlines passengers.
	Serus LLC Acquired by Netopia, Inc for $3 million in cash and 409,556 shares of common stock in December 1998. Serus LLC, developer of Java-based web site development and web page editing technologies including its “SplashSite” web site builder.

While I’m sad to see my brands go, I’m excited to see the companies that they helped to gain enough attention to get acquired.

We’ve long passed the half-way point of 2009 (only 4 months left), and I was curious at how trends predicted for this year in logo design were panning out. After looking at an article on LogoLounge.com talking about 2009 Logo trends, I noticed links back to their previous years trend predictions. So I clicked on 2004 (5 years ago) and looked through the samples.

Surprised to see many of these past trends are still current, I thought, ‘I should blog this’. So here’s the first part in my series of logo trends from the past. Are these concept still current or just that, trends of the past? Old is new?

2004 Logo Trends from LogoLounge

	Glassine Glass-like or crystal-capped		Bubbles Representing motion, clean and refreshing
	Dialog Boxes Word balloons and speech bubbles		Substitutions Swapping letters for other font elements
	Letter Bars Stripes of a different color		Implied Letting the user get involved with the design by telling part of the story
	Universal People Giving a meaningless symbol meaning		Handmade The antithesis to computer-rendered design
	Arm Sight Human-like figure with arms up		Human Nature Human and environmental concerns
	Cave Rings Control of chaos through consecutive circles		Particle Fields Grid or repeating dots
	Prism Greater use of translucency, colors		Mezzotint Handcrafted, non-corporate, textured look

How big is glassine these days? And did the handmade look ever go anywhere?

All of this content was summarized from Logolounge.com. For many more samples, and better explanations (with credit who created the logos) visit their 2004 Logo Trends page.

I recently noticed that traffic to my blog article entitled IKEA is Coming to Utah and My Logo’s On It! increased, so I investigated why. I found it was because there was raised interest in IKEA based on this Time article The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana published last Friday.

IKEA has always been one of those places that has been pretty clear on their brand. Buildings with their strong blue and yellow palette on the outside lead way to the inside where everything is labeled with unfamiliar names in a customized version of Futura. But all designers, and lovers of fonts are surprised to find out that IKEA has changed its catalog font to Verdana. Yes, VERDANA. (Oh the shock and horror of it!) Verdana which was specifically designed in 1996 to be readable at small sizes on a computer screen, it seems was never meant for print in the eyes of true lovers of type. It’s a ‘web’ font that’s clunky and outdates, especially in our new CSS world.

I for one (among many) mourn the loss. I understand that there are probably more issues involved (such as localization) that I may not know about, but Verdana in print? It’s a sad day for typography everywhere. And for corporations everywhere, note the outcry and remember that when you make the effort to develop a brand, your customers care.

IDSGN Article: IKEA says goodbye to Futura
Petition: Online petition against the change
TIME Article: The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana