The Snub: Is this News-worthy?

Was yesterday a slow news day, or what? I've never seen so much media analysis of a potential snub. Did Obama intentionally turn away from Hillary (I'm doing it: that first name thing) or was he focused on something else? Maybe he was just zoning out or thinking about how badly he needed a very dry martini. I can imagine him as a CIA operative (remember those great early days of Alias?) listening intently to his earpiece: Boy Scout, target within handshake range; move out. Is this news? I was extremely disappointed in Hillary when she commented that she hoped to have the opportunity to shake Barack's hand in the near future. Why even dignify such nonsense with a passive aggressive response? Again, issues people: can you talk about actual issues instead of petty would-be snubs dreamed up by idiots who spend way too much time analyzing non-events? Those of us trying to select a presidential candidate worthy of our vote would really appreciate it.

Books Organized by Color

Over the past few months, I've read numerous articles on arranging one's books by color. Initially, I rejected this notion as a decorator's conceit. A bit too designerly, I thought. I mean: shouldn't one's library be arranged alphabetically by author? But, then what to do with fiction versus nonfiction? Should biographies be shelved together? Maybe Library of Congress is the way to go and at least I'd know that the art books are somewhere in the N's. After a way too long hiatus in my garage (we moved into a new house back in July and still have unpacked boxes in the garage; it's shameful), my beloved cookbooks emerged over the weekend.

Well, I cannot tell a lie: those pretty images of bookshelves organized by color got to me. I decided to try it with my cookbooks and, low and behold, I love it. Somehow I know intuitively that the spine of In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs is Pantone 490 (or some similar burgundy, reddish brown, for those of you who don't think in Pantone colors). Visual people really do have a better memory for color than for words. I think I'll re-shelf the books in my office by color. Then I might take a look at my toiletries. Perhaps the pantry. Once my life is totally organized by color, I'm sure to find than elusive state of calm, blissfully zen, calm.

Candidates Spin the Sushi

I noticed this hilarious take on the candidates by Clyde Haberman in Friday's NY Times. This tongue-in-cheek article arrived on the heals of Wednesday's High Mercury Levels are Found in Tuna Sushi (at the likes of Nobu Next Door, no less) and Thursday's Warnings Don't Deter Lovers of Sushi.

All this talk of mercury and tuna got me to thinking: why don't the candidates ever mention their plans for tackling the debacle (impending crisis?) that is our food supply. "Safe" growth hormones used liberally in dairy production. Eggs from factory farmed chickens that bear no flavour or colour resemblence to actual, well, eggs. E. coli outbreaks in bagged spinach and, of course, ground beef.

Last summer, I had the good fortune to work on a design project in Jamaica through the Farmer to Farmer program. While in Jamaica, I collaborated with Dr. Deacue Fields, an Ag Business Marketing specialist from Auburn University. In addition to being a real southern gentleman (the man raises quarter horses: how cool is that?) and all around nice guy, he was a wealth of information on farming, community sponsored agriculture programs, etc. He told me about a study at Auburn that analyzed ground beef. Evidently, the average packet of supermarket ground beef contains DNA from over 40 cows. Imagine the horrific process that could result in such a product. Deacue told me that he has not purchased ground beef from the supermarket since learning about the findings of this study. In turn, I have not purchased a single pound of ground beef since Deacue told me of his boycott of mass produced ground beef. Every time I hear of another E. coli beef scare, I'm not the least bit surprised.

Of course, beef is just the tip of the iceberg. I know our economy is a mess, our healthcare system is corrupt, and the war in Iraq is a quagmire, but what about that basic stuff that keeps us alive: food. I wish the candidates really would address the sushi crisis and the meat crisis and the dairy crisis and the pesticides/produce crisis. After all, how patriotic is a juicy grilled burger on the 4th of July? Too bad this is now an impossibility, as it it unsafe to eat ground beef cooked any less than well done, and we all know that that burger ain't gonna be juicy.

The Candidates: By Design

Is anyone else out there feeling completely overwhelmed by this year's presidential election? I simply can't keep up with the various platforms, especially given the candidates' seeming collective aversion to addressing actual issues. In these situations, I can do one of two things: either curl up in the fetal position and take a news fast, or seek out an environment over which I have some control. In this case, that environment is the visual. So, here is my take on just a few of the candidates, based on the design of their websites and identities:



Let's start with Huckabee. There are so many different typefaces and type styles on this page that it creates an overall sense of clutter and visual pollution. And are those letterforms in his logo bastardized? Especially offensive is the design of the Help Mike Today box, in terms of typography, use of color and copy editing. Are you serious with "Become a Ranger"?


Moving onto McCain. Hmm, liberal use of military iconography; I can dig on that, since I'm an Air Force brat and unrepentant fan of Top Gun (ah, the halcyon days before we discovered that Tom Cruise is a babbling lunatic). I don't hate the use of Optima in his logo, but I'm not sure that I would have gone with the bold version. The black and white flag behind the logo is a bit moody and subtle; I appreciate the somewhat toned down color palette. But, again, type styles: way too many. The italic on the right sidebar is the worst.



Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with Romney. For God's sake: his photo is horizontally stretched on the home page! The eagle/flag hybrid seems like an over-the-top addition to his logotype. You're patriotic: we get it. Really, would a non-patriot actually run for president? Isn't that a given. Although, compared to McCain's and Huckabee's sites, the designer was positively restrained when it came to typefaces and type styles.



Just to prove I'm not all about Republican-bashing: here's Edwards's all about bold typefaces site. And what is it about that red: it's not quite right. A bit too muddy. I might be able to handle it were it not for the use of the green accent colour. That green is just terrible, especially when juxtaposed against the red. Why, why the green swoosh on the blue star? Why a third color? Aren't red and blue enough?



If I were Hillary (have you noticed that everyone calls her Hillary instead of Clinton: I'm sure this is due to a desire to avoid confusion with Bubba and not related to sexism in any way), I'd want The Eurythmics's Sisters are Doin' it for Themselves to be my theme song. Damn: Aretha Franklin AND Annie Lennox. I'm playing it right now and I feel strong and empowered, like I could be comin' out of the kitchen to be leader of the free world. Let me tell you, Hillary, sisters don't select logos with skinny, lame, waving flags. Three stars? I know it's iconographic, but it just looks weird. However, like Romney's site, at least there aren't a bazillion different typefaces. But, Hillblazers has got to go.



Then there's Obama. I don't know what kind of president he'd make, but this man knows how to hire a designer (or, at least his people do). The typography is, dare I say it: sophisticated and actually pretty. I'm not gradation crazy, but the soft blue gradients are used quite well throughout the site. The sunrise over the stripes of the flag: okay, not earth-shattering, but the logo is not offensive in any way. Check out the Make a Difference sidebar. I love these different iterations of the logo. If you click on States, you'll see that each state has its own logotype that incorporates the rising sun logo within the name of the state. I cannot tell a lie: this website makes me happy and gives me hope for the future of our country (from a design standpoint).

Just to be clear, Juiciful does not endorse Barack Obama for president, but we do endorse the designer of his identity and website. Nice work.

Your Toothbrush's Carbon Footprint

On Saturday, I attended AIGA's Compostmodern conference in San Francisco. The conference was organized by the S.F. chapter of the AIGA and AIGA's Center for Sustainable Design. It's exciting that designers are talking about sustainability even though the concept of sustainability seems at odds, or downright antithetical, to a lot of graphic design. Afterall, don't designer's love itty bitty type surrounded by white space, glorious white space? Certainly, the AIGA has sent out its fair share of multiple page publications with florescent inks and vellum overlays. But, change is good and change is progressive and I do think that AIGA and designers are trying to change.

One of the speakers at Compostmodern was Valerie Casey, the founder of The Designer's Accord: "a call to arms for the creative community to reduce the environmental impact caused by design, and to work collaboratively to inspire sustainable change." Her talk was impassioned and quite inspiring, although, there were multiple mentions of purchasing carbon offsets, which seem like a big sustainability boondoggle to me. Can matter, once created, be eliminated, oh, I mean, offset? Wouldn't it be better to reduce business travel, given that we are living in an age of easy and inexpensive global communication.

Another thing that came up in Ms. Casey's talk was the design of the toothbrush and how horrified one of her coworkers at IDEO was to see his design wash up on the beach five years later almost perfectly preserved in its original sparkly plastic glory. Which got me to thinking: why can't industrial designers come up with a reasonably designed toothbrush? Toothbrushes are now so bloated and over-designed that older toothbrush holders (the kind with little holes in a closed container) cannot accommodate them. The design of such toothbrushes has long annoyed me given the ephemerality of this product. Isn't it just the bristles that need replacing every there months, anyways? Imagine the carbon footprint of our country's collective toothbrushes. Here's my call to arms to all you product designers out there: for the love of God, please re-design the toothbrush!! I, for one, would pay big bucks for a sustainable alternative to this:

What's Missing from Project Runway 4

My good friend Jason at DoodleWhore just sent me this clip of Santino's signature Tim Gunn impersonation. I remember Santino being such a jerk, but so hilarious that I never wanted to miss an episode of PR Season 2. There's something about this season's PR that lacks the lightness and exuberance (to use some of Tim Gunn's favorite descriptors) of the past seasons. I hate to face the possibility that PR is growing tired and old and that Tim's "Make it work" is coming out a bit half-hearted, but I fear that this very thing may be happening. Tim, you are my pedagogical idol. Your mix of encouragement and brutal honesty strikes the perfect balance between support of your students when they are on the right track and stern warning when they are about to falter. Please don't continue to do PR if it's getting lame: you have far too much quality, taste and style for that.

MacBook Air Debuts

For the low price of $3100, you can get your very own MacBook Air with a 64GB solid state (hmm, solid state, that sounds cool) hard drive and a 1.8GHz processor. Looks sexy and it only weighs three pounds, although there's no optical drive (old school) or ethernet port (big ugly ethernet cords would only ruin the aesthetics of this pretty baby). Steve Jobs referred to the "environmentally-friendly" nature of the MacBook Air, with its aluminum housing and pvc/bromide-free motherboard. I wonder if the packaging of this little cutie will be eco-friendly (iPhone: not so much). I remember way back when: Apple actually used raw cardboard with white spot ink (no slick, full bleed images on black—a quadruple hit, I'm sure) for its packaging. It was simple, beautiful, and truly eco-friendly.

Mirko Ilic and Design of Dissent

Last spring, at the AIGA Y-conference in San Diego, I had the good fortune to see Mirko Ilic give a talk on The Design of Dissent, a book that he co-authored with legendary designer Milton Glaser.


Imagine my excitement, when I was able to bring the exhibition The Design of Dissent, and Mirko himself, to Cal Poly. Mirko is wildly intelligent, slightly subversive, really funny, quite bawdy and totally un-P.C. In other words, he's a breath of fresh air in academia. He managed to both inspire and demean my students—California softies—who are in need of a good demeaning once in awhile. I wish I could hang out with Mirko on a regular basis, so I could soak up a little of his brilliance, talent and charm. Thanks for making the first week of my quarter the best ever, Mirko.

Animal, Vegetable, Mmm, Marshmallow

I know it's a new year and we're all about healthy resolutions. I just read Barbara Kingsolver's brilliant and eye-opening, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. If you love food and care about its provenance and the impact of corporate farming on our bodies and our earth, this book is a must read. I'm inspired to start my next batch of heirloom tomatoes from seed and to take up canning all manner of sauces, chutneys, and pickles (a fantasy, I'm sure).

But, even after the wake-up call of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I can't help my decadent ways. For Christmas I made marshmallows from scratch after seeing this charming instructional video, courtesy of Readymade. It's actually quite quick and easy to make these little glorious sweeties. With an amazing consistency when melted, they are a revelation in s'mores.

This year, I will try to make less sweet indulgences and more things with chard.

How It Should Have Ended

My little Iain loves to watch anything related to superheroes on You Tube. Lately he's been especially taken with the How It Should Have Ended series. We can both watch Spider-Man 3 HISHE over and over again. [Was Spider-Man 3 a franchise killer or what?] I love the part where Superman and Batman make fun of Peter Parker's strut. Hilarious!