Today's FBI. Its for you.

On the bus ride in to work I saw a bus with an ad for the FBI. It read:

Today's FBI. Its for you.
Become an FBI Special Agent.


(He looks serious.)

Today's FBI? So, um... not Eliot Ness? Clarice Starling? I have a feeling that, if the FBI needs to have an advertising campaign to recruit agents, today's FBI isn't like the Untouchables or Silence of the Lambs. Its probably more like working at Intel. Or Innotech.

Of course, I've always thought the CIA was way cooler. Sure they got a lot of heat for the whole 911 thing, but there is something alluring about the possibility of some kind of Alias/007/Mission Impossible action. My fantasy is that some straight-faced dude gives me a card and tells me to meet him...

Ok, wait. My fantasy is basically MIB. You know what I am talking about. Then maybe a couple years down the road I find out that my black ops unit is really an evil organization and that my father trained me from birth to be the perfect assasin.

So... yeah. An ad on a bus. :-)

Adult Swim Fix

I'm not going to predict the fall of television or say this is a sign that television is finally pulling its head out of its collective ass, but it definitely means something.

Diggnation mentioned this in their podcat from Reno. Adult Swim (via Cartoon Network)is streaming selected shows on their site. I don't have cable and nor do I want it. Stations like Adult Swim, Comedy Central, History, and Sci-Fi would probably ruin my life if I had access to them. Therefore, I watch selected shows, like Battlestar Galactica, via iTunes (and my video iPod). This kind of on-demand access is frickin awesome and will definitely become my main source of television in the near future.

I discovered a new show too. Which is just what Adult Swim wants us to do, right? I tuned in for Sea Lab 2021 (or whatever year it is) and Aquateen Hunger Force (Yeah!) but once I'd seen those I watched Samurai Champloo. Holy! Incredible. Animation, story, characters... holy shit. It rocks. Watch it.

The mention of my iPod made me think about how much I hate the accessories made for it. The Airplay Extreme sucks (I lost it though, and that sucks even more). The remote is lame. Why can't I navigate and select songs and videos with the remote?? I also got the AV Cables. First, why can't my AV cables for my digital vid cam work? For some reason they don't. Second, the jack developed a crack in the plastic after a couple of uses. And third, although they look cool, they got a little cute. Putting the color coding on the ends is inside of the ends as opposed to the outside. This looks good, but it means you have to peer inside inside the end to see what color you have. Irritating.

Didn't mean to go on a bitch session. I guess I just expect more from Apple. Doesn't really change anything, but I hope it isn't a trend.

Cool article from my friend Megan

My thoughts exactly. I sent this link on to a client of mine. We've been going back and forth on re-branding his company for a year now. It has been an extremely frustrating process and has almost ended our professional relationship. This article might show him what I have been trying to say.

Thanks Megan!

CMYK RGB

In the latest issue of the gotoandplay.net e-mail I read an announcment about an upcoming event here in P-town. Stefan Bucher is coming to town to talk about his 344 thing. The glowing description and list of awards and accolades intrigued me so I went to his site.

I enjoyed the site and was impressed with the messaging. I've been struggling with the message on my site so it was good to see an example of how to be, "Hire me now!" without seeming too desparate. Anyway, one of the things I loved was how straightforward it was. No beating around the bush, no barriers. An open invitation to call him up or e-mail him. So that is what I did.

I sent him an e-mail saying how much I enjoyed the site and that I would be attending his talk on the 12th. I guess I didn't want to sound to fanboy or groupie so I added a PS with a critique about the site.

From an interactive standpoint the site is not at the same level as Stefan's work. I mean, for god's sake, he's using frames! So I asked him when v2 was coming out. To my surprise, Stefan e-mailed me back. He was glad for my comments but wondered what issues I had with the site. He said that I was the first person in 3 years to give negative feedback.

At this point I felt like I had overstepped my bounds and offended him but he didn't seem offended. I have a feeling that I'm not the first person to look at the site and critique it. I might just be the only person to tell him about it. I didn't really give him a critique, I just asked when V2 was coming out.

ANYWAY, he invited me to take a whack at revising the site. I'm a little nervous about trading on sacred ground, but it will be cool if it works out. I think this all boils down to the fact that print designers aren't automatically good interactive designers. There are always exceptions, myself included, but even then you're always going to be better at one than the other.

Its not a question of talent. Its experience. I live the web. I'm always thinking about it and how to design for it. A print designer lives in print. This experience gives the designer the material or context for what they are designing. I'm not thinking about print, immersed in new techniques, ideas, and trends. So my work won't reflect that.

In the end, we're all doing the same thing, storytelling. Our clients tell us a story about there business and we help them tell that story to their audience. I guess collaboration is the key. The best work I have done was in collaboration with people fromo many disciplines. Sure, I can make incredible things happen by myself, but not always. And even when they are incredible, imagine how much better they would be if I had input from others.

Art

This was originally poster on Interruptions.org but I thought it was really cool so:

Looking through a book of drawings by Holbein I realize several moments of truth. A nose (a line) so nose-like. So line-like. And then I think to myself “so what?” It’s not going to solve any of my problems. Then I decide that at the very moment of appreciation I had no problems. Then I decide that this is a pretty profound thought. And that I ought to write it down. This what I have just done. But it doesn’t sound so profound anymore. That’s art for you.

Interruptions.org is brilliant. Check it out.

Good news... I'm back.

Okay, so I didn't get the whole blogging thing. I'm an interactive designer but I wasn't excited about the internet. This is a problem. But lately, I have rediscovered the internet.

The love began back in 96 when I put my first image in the internet with Telnet. It was amazing. Fast forward 10 years and I'm going through the motions. It took Amanda Congdon at Rocketboom to snap me out of it. Actually, I guess it started with my video iPod. Video podcasts are awesome. Its kind of sad because there are a lot of really good audio podcasts but once you go video you can never back.

Anywhoo, the Rocketboom podcast opened my eyes to a whole new world of internet content. Diggnation, Wired, TWIT, etc. spawned more content links. And so on and so on. I realized that the web had come along way. I think this is why we're seeing a new boom. The real technology of the web is being applied to simple yet brilliant concepts and changing our lives. Suddenly, I saw my work in a whole new light and became inspired.

So thats why I'm back. I have something to right about! I'm having all these incredible ideas and I need to put them down somewhere. Sharing them helps. It takes fleeting inspiration and records them.