Chip O'Toole's Blog

Tim Thomas reconsiders and decides to visit White House

2012-01-24T15:04:00.001-05:00

Tim's Press Agent added that Thomas wanted all his fans to know that he "burned ya" or that they had been "burned", citing his obsession for the Jon Benjamin Has a Van segment, You Got Burned.

Boston's WBZ Makeover Enters a Cold Sea of Blue

2011-12-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

Boston's local channel 4 news station, WBZ recently underwent a $750,000 makeover that includes a new set design and revised logo, reports the Boston Globe. The changes were made in an effort to better compete in a market where other stations are gaining viewership. In addition, the station is continuing to solidify their brand evolution from NBC to CBS in an affiliate change in 1995.

WBZ general manager Ed Piette says, "How do you contemporize a legacy television station? What we have here is no different than Cadillac, which was born in the 1920s, which is still very 21st century. Our look and our feel was getting a little long in the tooth."

At first glance, the set's new look – a slick, blue, purple, and metallic grey palette feels clean and contemporary. The logo, which looks to be the same art, just converted to a one color semi-transparent white knockout treatment, compliments the set nicely and pops off the dark blue backgrounds. All in all, a fine execution.

But after looking at the sea of blue competitive landscape, it begs one to ask, why change from a warm, inviting color palette to an undifferentiated cold metallic look. The set may have needed some updating, e.g. the dated wood veneer, riveted paneling, and lighting, but this feels like a change for change's sake, as Piette says, it "…was getting a little long in the tooth."

What set WBZ apart (visually) from competitors, is it's friendly and bright color palette including a vibrant yellow and cyan. The same warm tones were also reflected in the set that used wood accents and warm lighting. And although becoming a bit dated, the old set felt more inviting and human while this new set feels more like a 21st century version of the game battleship or a scene from the next Bourne flic – cold and mechanical. And what looks like an effort to "contemporize" the station ends up feeling like a half-step back in time, just with better technology.

I would have loved to see the same technological steps taken to update the set, i.e. the HD monitors and smart lighting, but with the bright color palette. Here's to hopes that viewers enjoy the new set, and don't jump ship just because of the look and feel.

Wikipedia Redesign

2011-10-21T12:35:00.000-04:00

Although Wikipedia was not officially looking to redesign their site, a social search web startup, Greplin, was. Greplin hosted a Wikipedia redesign contest in an effort to get designers and devs to help them design their own search functionality. The goal - rethink Wikipedia's search results with an interactive visual solution. Here was my submission.

Check out the full project on my website here.

YouTube Player PSD

2011-08-24T16:48:00.005-04:00

Download my free YouTube Player Photoshop file (1.8MB)

Hello my fellow intertubers. In many of the designs I create, I often have to show an embedded YouTube player. For each project, I end up going to YouTube, screenshotting the player, then crudely chopping it up in Photoshop to fit the video size I want. Welp, I've HAD it. So I took some time and recreated the player from scratch and I'm making it available in cyberspace.

I chose the 640 x 385 size, but the file is easily scalable since all of the objects are vectors within Photoshop. I've included a couple nice extras like the large play button overlay, a pause button, and the reduced progress bar.

Hope this helps. Enjoy!

How to Eliminate Gradient Banding in Photoshop CS5

2011-03-21T16:33:00.011-04:00

Ever create a large gradient in Photoshop and notice the banding as it transitions from one color to the next? This is a common occurrence when you have a very large area that you're covering like a desktop background or TV frame in 1080p. Since it's so large, the eye begins to detect each step of gradation in single color bands.

By default if you're using the Gradient Tool in a layer or using the Shape Tool and applying a Gradient Overlay Layer Effect, Photoshop will not prevent any gradient banding. There are a few ways to eliminate banding, but the quickest that I've found is by making sure Dither is checked while using the Gradient Tool. Voilà! This will add noise to the gradient, undetectable to the eye, that eliminates the those distinct banding lines.

The obvious drawback to this technique is that it's not easily editable. Once you've created that gradient, it's set in stone. Adobe does not give us the Dither option in the Gradient Overlay Layer Effect. Very unfortunate for when you just want to tweak the gradient by a value or two. The best option may be just saving a Gradient Preset in the Gradient Editor and making changes from there.

Happy dithering.

The Photoshop Etiquette for Web Designers

2011-03-21T11:23:00.004-04:00

One of the best guidelines for web designers and art directors I've seen out there. Dan Rose did a great job with a simple "Do this, don't do this" way of presenting the many ways designers can execute their artwork and get it ready for handoff to dev teams. Cheers Dan, art directors across the globe thank you.

InDesign Object Effect Shortcut - No Drop Shadow

2011-02-01T18:12:00.005-05:00

Ever apply an effect in InDesign like a drop shadow, inner shadow, or glow by using a keyboard shortcut? Well, then you're probably familiar with this common problem Adobe has never addressed in any version of InDesign, even before CS1!

For some reason, the default shortcut for an object effect is the Drop Shadow property by hitting command option M. Did Adobe assume that everyone would want drop shadows on everything therefore making it the default? Or was it that engineer's life long dream to force drop shadows upon every designer who's just looking for quick access to an effect menu? Or is it just simply that the drop shadow effect is the most popular and therefore deserves the default setting?

The answer is none of the above. The problem with the current state of the shortcut is that it automatically applies the drop shadow effect to the object. If the user wants any other effect, they have to first turn off the drop shadow, then turn on the desired effect. It's always a two step process (god forbid we have 1 extra click right?).

But what happens when you want a different effect than a drop shadow, and still want to use a shortcut? Well, if you were to change the shortcut, Adobe gives you a list of effects to choose from, in turn, just changing your default effect to let's say an outer glow instead of a drop shadow, but still automatically applying the effect. Obviously, this doesn't change the root issue.

The solution is a shortcut that opens up the Effects dialog box without automatically applying any effect at all. In a perfect world, it would be a button or menu item that opens up the dialog box, e.g. "Effects…". This solution would provide the user with all the effect options without forcing automatic application. Adobe does not provide this for the user.

But there is a workaround!

For the Effects dialog box to appear without automatically applying any effects to the object, assign the keyboard shortcut to the top item, Transparency. This will allow the user to choose which effect they desire and it eliminates the turn off, turn on process. So there you go! Of course you can customize this shortcut to whatever you want, it doesn't have to be the command option M, hell, you could keep the default drop shadow shortcut and just add your own to the transparency setting, go nuts.

Hope this helps anyone in their quest for InDesign keyboard shortcut domination. Enjoy!

We're in Boston!

2011-02-01T13:47:00.002-05:00

Forge has made the move to beanville from Waltham! (Nevermind the windex and moving bins). Big changes going on that's for sure. Good tings, good tings. The space is pretty sick, thanks to the people who were here before us who put a ton of cash into making it look amazing - nevermind putting in a massive bar including kegerator. The creative room's pretty tight, but cozy (I think). Joined the gym downstairs and I'm hoping to bike into the office once we unbury ourselves from 1000 ft. of snow. My commute has gone from 12 minutes to 45, but I can't complain (except for the MBTA's shotty service). Overall I'm pumped for the space and everyone here at Forge. Stop by for a beer on the house.

Rounded Rectangles in Photoshop

2010-11-24T15:33:00.008-05:00

Ah, the rounded rectangle. Beloved by designers loathed by developers. This is not a post to delve into that age old debate, but an informational guide to understanding the how and why.

The rounded rectangle tool in photoshop is one of the most heavily used tools in a digital designers toolbox. Many designs require this tool to produce call-to-action buttons, content buckets, navigation elements, the list goes on. True that rounded rectangles may soon be replaced by CSS3 to achieve this effect in the browser and eliminate the need for images to construct them, but designers will always need the tool for visual comps and final pixel perfect designs.

Before I go into how these are constructed, I want to answer the why first (skip this if you know the answer). In many cases, rounded elements in digital design represent buttons. Designers create buttons with rounded corners to mirror the real life physical objects that we have come to know: buttons on vending machines, dashboards in cars, kitchen appliances, remote controls, etc. This is also the reason designers often use gradients, highlights, and reflections to show dimension. If industrial designers created most of those physical buttons with hard corners, you'd see that correlation in visual design. Rounded corners also allow users to differentiate elements on the page. Content blocks can be treated with hard corners and buttons with rounded corners to clearly communicate to the user "look, this element is a button, it looks like a real button, and it has an action, click it!"

So how does Photoshop construct these manipulatable miniature marvels of bitmapped beauty? Photoshop's Rounded Rectangle Tool uses the Radius setting to determine how "rounded" your rectangle will be. The amount can be defined by pixels, inches, centimeters, millimeters, points, or picas. If you're a digital designer you'd be using pixels mostly likely. Adobe uses their proprietary software to calculate the proper anti-aliasing (extra pixels with varying levels of transparency to show soft edges) for each corner radius setting.

Below is an example of the differences between a 1 pixel to a 6 pixel corner radius zoomed in at 1200% and at actual size (72ppi). You can see how photoshop uses anti-aliasing to create the rounded corner. The radius setting (distance from the center of an imaginary circle in this case) is the amount of anti-aliased pixels it takes for the corner to get to the first solid pixel (including that solid pixel). Of course, you can enter in any radius number you choose, but if the number is larger than half the height of your rectangle, the ends will become circular. If the radius is equal to the half the height of your rectangle it will be a pill shaped element (often, a desired effect).

A Note About Pixel Perfect Design & Aligning to the Pixel Grid
In each of these examples, the rounded rectangle was created while aligning to the pixel grid. More specifically, snapping to a 1px x 1px grid with the grid visible. This will guarantee that each of the rectangles will have straight hard edges on the top, bottom, left, and right. This is a technique used in Pixel Perfect Design, a topic that I'll cover in detail in a later post. It ensures that the artwork being created eliminates "loose pixels", basically unwanted anti-aliasing that Photoshop often includes when designers don't align to the pixel grid.

In addition, here is an example showing the rectangle with a stroke layer style in the various corner radius sizes. There are 3 options for positioning the stroke; inside, center, and outside. Photoshop uses the outside position and at a size of 3px as the default. In this example I'm showing the stroke size at 1px. The inside position places the stroke on the inside of the rectangle, obviously, and doesn't change the original dimensions of the rectangle (ideal in many cases). As you can see, the center position causes the stroke to not align to the grid, there is unwanted anti-aliasing, and the dimensions have increased by a visual half pixel. The outside stroke position adds 1px all around and changes the final dimensions to be 2 pixels wider and taller, in this case, 27px x 27px. Keeping this in mind is helpful when designing to a pixel perfect wireframe, e.g. if a button needs to be exactly 40px x 20px, then adding a stroke to the outside (default) would make the button 42px x 22px thus breaking the bounds of the design.

I hope this helps anyone in their quest for pixel perfect rounded rectangle creation. If you have corrections or additions to my post, please feel free to comment below.

Number 10 Envelope USPS Guidelines

2010-09-30T14:49:00.004-04:00

Click the image for enlarged view

Finding specifications for such a common of a thing as a #10 envelope (normal letter size envelope) is harder than you think. I was able to track down the guidelines after visiting multiple sites and piecemealing the specs together to help me draw the guidelines you see above. Google was not good at finding relevant results either. As soon as you type in "envelope" you get thousands of results from printing vendors. Sorting though the results for the information I needed was taxing to say the least. So, I created this simple graphic to help anyone in their quest for number 10 envelope answers.

A couple things to note: The Barcode Clear Zone is exactly that, a clear zone. No text or graphics can be in this 4.75" by 0.625" area. Also, in the OCR Read Area, OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, a machine operated sorting process. Robots score another point against the humans. Nothing but essential addressee information should appear in this area.

In addition, the US Postal Service has a website with all of it's guidelines, but the user interface and information architecture is down right atrocious. It's close to impossible to find anything especially if you don't speak "mail". Most everything has a specific term so nothing is easily searchable. How would someone guess that this information is in the "DMM 102 Elements on the Face of a Mailpiece" page? Their "Postal Explorer" needs a much overdue major overhaul. Good luck to the people who take on that task.

iTunes 10 Icon Design

2010-09-08T19:58:00.009-04:00

Well, the uproar from the design community regarding Apple's redesigned logo for the new version of iTunes has inspired me to do one of my own. Also, Wired Magazine was running a photoshop contest on their Gadget Lab Blog and I could use a new iPod Shuffle. I've seen the outpour of self proclaimed designers take their stab at their own iTunes 10 logo, and most are mediocre at best. Why? It's because most designers don't or can't produce the level of sophistication that Apple does. Apple creates things at a high level of reality and detail which requires more time than the average designer will put into a project.

Now, I wasn't going to spend more than an hour on this, so I'll call out myself on being hypocritical, but wanted to throw my hat in the ring to see if I had what it took to be an Apple icon designer or at least have this hold up against the icons in the family. And for the record, I happen to like the icon and don't see why players gotta hate (here's a Forbes article to back me up). I take issue with the typographical treatments on the website more than anything, but that's another convo.

I first started with what I thought iTunes was in the first place, and therein lied the challenge: iTunes no longer exclusively represents music (and hasn't for quite some time). With music, movies, tv shows, books, podcasts, radio, and of course apps, even the iTunes name doesn't make much sense anymore, let alone the icon with an eighth note over a CD (see below).

Before and After

My attempt was to focus on iTunes' and media consumption in general's most basic function, the play button. I used Apple's signature OSX Aqua Human Interface Guidelines, the photo-illustrative style, as the foundation for the design by incorporating bevels, gradients, reflectivity, translucency, and bright color. Added a beveled play button, a burst effect in the center for some pop, a slight drop shadown, and viola! Hey, it's no cyberduck icon that's for sure, but I like it, maybe I'll hack into my system and use it who knows. And some may still scoff at the practice of the gloss, glass, and gradients of the Aqua style, but you must admit, it's worked just fine for Apple.

Creating an Icon Set

2010-08-20T14:56:00.014-04:00

Here is a small group of icons that I'm currently developing for a software client. Although I've created hundreds of icons in my days as a designer, I've never really done a full fledged icon set for a client. The client gave us the choice to either just purchase a series of icons that would work with their existing site design, or create them from scratch. Instead of rushing to open a new tab in istock, I opted to push some pixels around, get my fingers dirty, and do them myself.

Note: I typically do this for any artwork, I never buy stock web graphics, EVER.

As you can see they all follow a similar look and feel; the reflections, the gradients, the rounded corners, color palette, etc.* They match the aesthetic of the dark themed website quite well. Of course I also made sure to fit all graphics to the grid and have pixel perfect lines whenever possible. What do you think?

*(Disclaimer: I don't condone excessive use of reflections, the web 2.0 look, etc., I was just following the preexisting site design haha.)

Dragon Billboard

2010-08-17T08:57:00.006-04:00

So I drove past a billboard I designed here in the Boston area, and in my 7 or 8 years of designing, it's my first billboard! Well, there's actually 30 of them around Boston with 4 different variations. Obviously not a mind blowing concept or design, and I would've been happy with the copy being short enough to read in 3 seconds, but hey, it is what it is and I'm proud of it. These are the smaller "eco posters", short for economical (not ecological). I did one of the larger ones you'd see on the highway, it's up somewhere, and the software box breaks the top boundary of the billboard, no big deal. Just one more billboard and I'll achieve total design consciousness.

Email Signature Guidelines for the Peoples on Intertubes

2010-07-08T13:46:00.014-04:00

Yes, it's been a while since I've posted (again), but I was designing two websites and whatever.

Email signatures
Email signatures are an issue, straight up. Most signatures cause some serious problems across the intertubes and the ever passive aggressive world of corporate america. So here are some do's and don't's, some best practices, and a quick guideline to making the best friggin email signature EVER!

Number 1 - No images, seriously
Yeah sorry, nope, no images. That means no image of your actual hand written signature, no company logos, no kitten pics, and no animated gifs (which I do love and are hilarious, but only in IM's). There are several reasons for this. First and foremost, you run the risk of having your email blocked by spam filters. Spam filters are just not that great and they see an image and freakout and will put your address on the junk list which is the modern day equivalent of being blacklisted. You don't want that. Second, images take up tons of space over time. A 2K image sent one time is no biggie, but thousands of times by thousands of employees can equal up to 2 gigs a day of transferred information, almost a terabyte a year just because of that little image.

Number 2 - K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid)
Since now you can't have any images, all you're left with is text and special characters to style your signature. Don't take this an an opportunity to use a hundred asterisks to separate your name from everything else or taste the rainbow and OD on color to the max. Ideally you probably shouldn't use color at all. Any links you have may show up underlined in blue and if your name is in red, bam, you're halfway over the rainbow (not good in this case). Stick to using black and shades of grey to help establish visual hierarchy. And don't use more than one font. The typeface you use in the body should be the typeface used in the signature. Use bold or all caps to give weight, stay away from italics, they're bad, berry berry bad *finger pointing*.

Number 3 - Keep it short (stupid)
Eliminate every extraneous item of information that you can. If you don't fax things anymore, get rid of your fax number. If someone REALLY needs to fax you, they can call or email you. Get rid of your networking links, nobody cares really, and if they do, they'll ask. So that means your twitter account, linkedin profile, facebook url, skype name, aim name, etc. Quotes, delete those immediately, it's embarrassing just mentioning quotes, ewgh *shivers*. Really keep it to your name, title, company name, address, number(s), the url, and THAT'S IT. If you need certain information that pertinent to your profession like your twitter account cuz your're a social media expert (which is a fake job btw - UPDATE - ok, not a fake job, just a very new one ok?) then fine add it, but only if you really need to.

Number 4 - Follow the rules
If your company has specific instructions for how to create and use your signature, FOLLOW THEM. This is not your big chance to stick out in the world and make a stand against the unjust evils of corporate slavery. If the company signature is black, don't make yours blue. Don't bold your name if it's not supposed to be. Don't grey out your title, even if it IS Waste Allocation Technician (pretty sure garbage men don't have emails, nevermind). Just stick to the damn rules, even if it means that the email signature is long and has an image, there's plenty of time to showcase your unique and delicate personality in passive aggressive emails about refilling ice trays. More important that you and your company show consistency. It communicates that you're an organized, collaborative, responsible company that would never put their clients on mute in a conference call to bad mouth them.

Example of a great email signature

Other little tip nugglers:
Don't use a VCard, that's just lame, nobody does that anyway. HTML, don't do it, half the time it won't be read and you don't want your emails to look like 100 lines of code. Use web safe fonts. You really only have the choice of these fonts: Arial, Georgia, Lucida, Tahoma, Times, Trebuchet, and Verdana. Don't use Times, it looks like crap, and don't even joke about Comic Sans, he'll git cha.

So, if you follow these guidelines it'll make for probably the most BORING email signature in the world, but if you're using an email signature to express really anything, you've got much bigger problems. Hopefully this helped you create your email signature, and if in the future, if we're allowed to have supertastic swirling video exploding email signatures while avoiding seizures and spam filters, then nevermind.

P.S. If you've got extra time, read the email in the image above, I wrote it, pretty sweet crazy cat lady story imo.

Setting up a "real" subdomain with Go Daddy

2010-04-26T11:47:00.007-04:00

If you've searched online for this, you won't really find a clear answer. At least that was my experience. After a few days of searching and speaking with 4 different techs at Go Daddy, I was finally able to get my subdomain up and running.

Disclaimer: I'm not a developer and some of this info may be a little off, take it with a grain of salt haha. Plus, this is more helpful if you have both your domain and your hosting with Go Daddy.

How Go Daddy treats subdomains:

If you go into your hosting manager on Go Daddy, and Add a Subdomain, this really doesn't create, what I refer to, as a "real subdomain". It's really a faux subdomain that just forwards users to a folder of your main site, e.g. www.mobile.example.com will take you to www.example.com/mobile, not keep you at www.mobile.example.com. Technically, I guess it's a subdomain, but this is not what I wanted.

Go Daddy's help pages on setting up your subdomain don't really tell you this. They say, go to your hosting control center, click domain management, choose your domain, click Add Subdomain, and you're done, hooray!

Not really. At least not if you want people to stay on that particular subdomain, like www.mobile.example.com. If you're fine with having it forward to the /mobile folder of your main site, then fine, you're good. I wanted to track my subdomain as it's own unique url or domain. Plus, I wanted a dedicated google analytics page set up for this domain (which I'm sure I could set up a condition on there to track). This was more just a personal preference thing. I wanted people to stay at the subdomain address.

Go Daddy can't do this with an ECONOMY plan, you must have a DELUXE hosting plan. It took 4 of their techs to realize why my subdomain wasn't working right. One of their more knowledgeable guys finally found the problem and walked me through, setting up a "real subdomain".

Setting up your "real subdomain" with Go Daddy:

First, make sure you have deluxe hosting account. Even though they say that you can have up to 25 subdomains with a economy plan, those are the "faux" ones I'm talking about. According to them, I wanted "multiple web sites" on the same hosting account and I needed to have the deluxe plan for that. Cost me $20 more a year and they gave me 20% discount.
Go to your Hosting Control Center. Click Domain Managment, click Add Domain, enter the address (without the http://www), e.g. mobile.example.com and the folder name, e.g. /mobile, click Ok.
After that's set-up, go back to the Go Daddy account homepage, click Domain Manager, click your domain, then click Total DNS Control in the lower center column.
Here you'll set up a new A Record for your subdomain. Click the Add New A Record button in the top right.
Under Host Name, enter in the name you want for your subdomain, e.g. for www.mobile.example.com, just enter, mobile.
Under Points to IP Address, enter the same IP address you have for your main site.
Bam, your done! Now just wait 4-6 hours (possibly up to 24 hrs) to propagate, and you should be live.

Another dumb thing I couldn't find online either was:

Where do I put the html, css, and image files for my subdomain?!

And what do I call the html pages?

Create a sub folder on your root level of your site.
Name it the same name as your subdomain, e.g. /mobile
Put an index.html file in this folder, that will be your "homepage" for the subdomain.
Create a images folder within this folder hold your images for the subdomain.
Create a stylesheets folder as well if you'd like to put your css there too.

So, now when someone visits your subdomain, they'll STAY at that address, it'll look for the files in your e.g. /mobile folder, and they should see your site! I hope this helped you. If anyone has corrections to my post, please, by all means put it in the comments. Good luck.

My website is live wha whaaa!

2010-04-13T09:49:00.005-04:00

Yes! Finally. Feels so good to have this up and running at last. I was up until 1 last night working out the last couple pages. It was an insanely long design process, as any designer knows when putting together their own portfolio site.

I was able to teach myself an intro level of xhtml and css to code the site and make sure everything is up to web standards and googleable. Overall, I'm pretty pumped about it and I feel a great sense of accomplishment knowing I created the site from scratch and without the help of any template or web program or anything. Just my noggin and some keystrokes.

So, check it out. If you find a bug, ignore it, that's nothing sir.

www.chipotoole.com

Next, my mobile site :D (as my wife's sighs)

Firefox 3 Elements Template (Minimal) PSD

2010-02-23T10:35:00.007-05:00

Hey guys, here is a template I created for showing sites using the Firefox 3 elements, but keeping it minimalistic, getting rid of the bookmarks, navigational toobars, and the status bar. This is to show the most of your site without using up valuable pixel real estate while still giving the impression of a browser window. I based the frame off a site dimension of 1000 x 768, but you can move the elements around to customize that if you want.

Feel free to download the PSD from my site here:

Firefox_3_Elements_Minimal.zip

Word.

Lemonparty T-Shirt

2010-01-20T10:44:00.005-05:00

Yes, it's a lemonparty t-shirt. Printed exclusively for our boston volleyball team. When the other team serves you lemons . . . have a party. If you don't get the joke, I'm not going to explain it here, that's what urban dictionary is for haha.

It's been a while since I've burnt a screen, so my first try was BACKWARDS! I was pretty pissed at myself. No biggie though, washed it out, burnt another one, and voila the pollo.

I've destroyed the screen, but it you'd like you own you can always order it from my zazzle page at http://www.zazzle.com/chipotoole

Go Lemonparty!

Energy Efficient Light Bulb Vector Art EPS PDF

2010-01-05T21:43:00.005-05:00

I needed some vector art of an energy efficient light bulb for an icon on my new website, and couldn't really find a good one out there. And plus I didn't want to use an istock icon or some clip art off the web.

When you want something done right, do it yourself.

So I did. If anyone needs it, it's here on my website, free to download to the masses. It's not perfect curves or anything, I didn't spend to much time on it since it was going to be using at about 20px wide.

It's in a pdf form, but with the vectors intact. You can grab the eps if you want too.

Energy Efficient Light Bulb PDF
Energy Efficient Light Bulb EPS

2010 for Chip

2010-01-05T17:57:00.004-05:00

One of many new year resolutions, blog more. I was doing well there for a while and like many personal bloggers, got lazy and stopped posting. Hell, we all know there are like 2 people following me, so what's the point? Just tweet? It HAS been proven in the past to be useful for tips people are searching for on google, like my polaroid dimensions post :) So I'm gonna try to write stuff up like that.

Couple posts com'n up - my patio installation story and my website launch. More to come peoples . . .

The Funk Old Gregg T-Shirt

2009-08-21T14:52:00.006-04:00

I'm old greeeeeeeegggggg!

Ah, the classic legend of Old Gregg. If you haven't seen it, block off an hour of your day, plop yourself down and watch. Keep an open mind and enjoy :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dp1qrUt6Ps

Anyway, I loved that episode of the Mighty Boosh so much I ended up making a t-shirt featuring one of the key characters - The Funk. If you want to know the story of the Funk, click ahead to about minute 7:45. I did a one color print, hand drawn from starring at a screen shot for an hour, and added a backside (not seen here yet) that reads, "Never forget, June 2nd, 1979 the day the Funk died".

I did an extra one if anyone wants it. If you'd like to custom order one, I'd be happy to print and send one to you, just lemmie know at chipotoole@gmail.com

UPDATE: I've washed out this screen (which I shouldn't have), BUT since I've had so many requests for The Funk t-shirt, I've created a zazzle page so that people can order it online. Here is the link:

http://www.zazzle.com/chipotoole

You can pick the size, color, style of t-shirt, etc. I'm not a professional screen printer, so it takes a while for me to print these in my bathroom haha. Now you can order it and have it within days. Not a bad deal, enjoy guys!

Megaman Shoots a Lacrosse Ball

2009-06-05T15:08:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I've been a little obsessed with 8-bit graphics lately (nintendo look'n stuff), and in particular, Megaman. I just think he's cool, whatever.

Anyway, I play lacrosse here in NE, and there's a team that we play against called the Megamen. They use megaman on their helmets and shorts and stuff. So I thought I'd be funny to have him playing lacrosse against a couple of his enemies in the game.

This is also just opening a big can of worms for me too, cuz I can just see myself getting addicted to these animated 8-bit gifs. Hmm, what can I do next with megaman?

My Abacus Computer

2009-05-07T16:17:00.004-04:00

This is how fast my computer at work feels sometimes. Multiple times a day, I sit there for minutes on end waiting and waiting for things to process. Sometimes I just get up and go get coffee or go to the bathroom to pass the time. Sometimes it's not done when I get back! So sick of this. It's been almost 6 months, the time has come.

It's a Mac G5 tower, and you would THINK, that would be enough, but no, it's not. A few years ago, yes, but today with the Adobe products I use for work and websites that use flash 9 and 10, this just doesn't cut it. We can still repurpose it for account managers though - they just use office and the intertubes 98% of the time.

UPDATE: I recently got the nod to spec out a brand new iMac here at work. I'm looking at the 24" 2.93GHz. I have the same one at home and it flies. I've worked from home a couple times and it's night and day, the speed difference. Can't wait.

2009 Boston Marathon

2009-04-24T14:39:00.005-04:00

Welp, its over, finally. This year, I finished the 113th running of the Boston Marathon in 3:29:31. Not the 3:10 I was going for, but I've got plenty of excuses for that, see the quick list below. But, it was for a great cause, I raised over $3000 for people with liver disease and I completed a marathon, not bad in anybody's book I say. Can't wait to get back to seeing people though, jeez.

Excuse List:
1 - I was injured during training with shin splints and some tendonitis in my feet (which originated from me ramping up my training too fast in December - mistake 1)

2 - The injuries forced me to do 75% of my training on the elliptical machine and 25% on the roads. The elliptical can not prepare you enough to qualify. And I didn't have access to water jogging. Basically, I wasn't in shape to run a 3:10, period, but I lied to myself and told myself I could do it. High hopes.

3 - The crowd was too thick to get out of. This year, the field was it's largest since the 100th running of Boston which in turn made it very difficult to break free of 6 or 7 thousand slow charity runners across just two lanes of road. It was a constant fight, lots of stop and starts, sidewalk/front yard running to finally get to a comfortable pace without other runners cutting you off. This killed my time.

4 - There was a 10mph headwind that just pushed you back, just enough to feel it and pick away at your spirit.

5 - I had the sophmore blues a little bit. There is just something completely amazing and heart bursting about running your first marathon, especially Boston, and especially in the sun with hundreds of thousands of people screaming your name. I just didn't have the fire in my belly like last year.

Whaaaaa, cry baby, right? RIGHT. I'm actually pretty pumped I ran another Boston, and hope to maybe qualify in the future. I wanted to thank all my super generous friends and family who donated to make this goal possible, you guys rock, thank you so much.

3:10:00 Boston Marathon Goal

2009-04-15T14:03:00.002-04:00

Ok, I'm do'n this. Gonna start slow, keep a solid pace, end strong and run a solid 3:10. Not gonna think too much about it, even though I already have, and try to remind myself that running 26.2 is NOT A BIG DEAL, so relax. *Chest pound with fist*

Twitting Again

2009-04-03T16:13:00.003-04:00

Ugh, so I'm back in the twittersphere even though I hate it now, I do think it could evolve into something useful like how news feeds work right now. I have to say it IS a fast and easy way to receive up-to-date in the moment news.

For example; a University closes down for a snow emergency, they send out the tweet to everyone listening, it updates people on their mobile devices on their nightstands and they can go back to sleep. That I like. "I'm doing the dishes, ugh", I hate.

UPDATE: When iPhone software update 3.0 comes out late June, Twitter, Facebook, AIM, and other similar apps will be able to have Push notifications so you won't have to launch the app to find out you have new updates.

This will significantly change the notification experience. It may also drive you crazy if you're hearing sounds for every phone call, voice message, text message, email, facebook notification, tweet, IM, and more. *Bling, ding, bunk, tweet, bring, bonk, zoop, burp*

My blog is not quite dead yet

2009-01-26T11:13:00.005-05:00

Although I still believe blogs are dead and that no one cares about personal blogs anymore, I have realized something about social networking lately and in particular, Facebook. Plus, I've seen some responses to the dimensions I provided for a polaroid picture and felt like I could keep posting some useful design information to help people.

Ok, Facebook is lame-o! It's a complete exercise in narcissism and self absorption. Andy Warhol said that "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes". Pretty damn close Andy, but instead of 15 minutes, it's more like 5 seconds everyday. You scroll down on facebook and read someone's status or your read someone's tweet, and for about 5 seconds, every person you know is famous.

Just as people don't really care about a personal blog (like this one), they don't REALLY care about your myspace page or facebook wall. They really just want to post about themselves and have other people see it. Many use it to draw attention from others about their own problems. Posting things like "John is depressed right now", begging for others to respond and offer help or support. Hey John, no one cares that you're depressed, and no one wants to help ok? Call your mom or get a girlfriend.

Ok, so this is all very obvious, I know. So what are we supposed to do? Quit facebook because it's totally egotistical? Yeah, maybe. I believe that social networking is actually the direct opposite of what it claims to be. I think "being connected" actually DISconnects us from a true-er real-er reality.

When was the last time you had a phone conversation with someone? (I'm speaking to the "screen people" here). We've resorted to basing all of our communication to a non-verbal, non-confrontational, facade of blather. Guess what a synonym for blather is? Twitter! It's all pointless drivel. Don't even get me started on Twitter either. I'll save that for the next post.

Emails, texts, posts, pokes, tweets, the list goes on. But maybe it's not all that bad right? Well, I guess not if you don't mind being bombarded more and more by advertising and having more and more personal information available to the public and government agencies.

Sounds like conspiracy theory crap right? Well, just try to put a list together of every website that has your information saved on it. See what number you get, cut it in half, then double it. Haha, jk, but seriously, that list could be pretty long and scary. I know it is for me. I start to realize how easy it would be for a low level hacker to steal my identity and royally mess up my finances and life.

Right now, I'm on Facebook for work purposes really. I'm a designer and need to follow trends to know what's contemporary. A little hypocritical, but know your enemy. All I'm saying is, be careful online, be aware of the ever evolving internet, don't become dependent on that light box in front of you, read a book, get outside, call someone, talk, and get together.

Blogs are dead

2008-11-14T13:03:00.003-05:00

Blogs are dead. Not the good ones (professional ones), just the personal ones. Nobody cares anymore, and rss feeds are a pain to check. I know this isn't cutting edge news or anything, I'm just taking the time to write my last blog entry and to pay homage to my own rss page.

We know the usual suspects too, the infamous social networking sites; Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, the list goes on. For this case of blogging homicide, the guilty party is Facebook. I joined a few weeks ago, I have the iPhone app for it, and I must say, it's 10 times better and more interactive than writing a lowly blog entry that no one will read (except for you Jamie). There is just no comparison.

Personal blogs are dead, low traffic corporate blogs are dead, and professional blogs are the new magazine. Print's death will be a slow and painful one, a lot like a bullet shot to the belly - umph . . . But a digital hero will emerge victorious, in the form of mobile applications, e-paper, or some futuristic contact lens display, littered with ads and spam, blinking in your face, first thing in the morning, and for the rest of your life. Enjoy!

The Future is Now!

2008-11-03T13:59:00.001-05:00

Erica's style has always been ahead of the curve, innovative, on the
cutting edge. This is just one of the many examples of proof that you
can STILL be a trendsetter.

My new job at Forge!

2008-11-03T13:43:00.001-05:00

Good news, my unemployment stint only lasted a few weeks, and I'm happy to say that I'm the newest addition to the creative team here at Forge. I'll be doing some design and art direction here, and after my first week, starting last monday, I'm very excited for the caliber of work we do, our client list, and most of all, the great people here. More to come . . .

WWF Ad

2008-09-29T22:09:00.004-04:00

No, not for the old wrestling show, but for the World Wildlife Fund. Found this on the "I believe in advertising" blog here by agency Lowe GGK out of Warsaw, Poland.

The ad obviously speaks for itself, I just thought it was a great way to communicate how such a simple idea of buying a souvenir in a foreign country could be at the cost of killing an innocent animal. I know this struck a cord with me even though I've never thought about buying an ivory sculpture, or some kind of bone necklace, or monkey hand, or something crazy like that.

I'm not necessarily a fan of the style of photography or the excessive photoshopping done. I feel it could have been a bit more "raw" if they laid off the airbrush a bit, but that's not the point. It grabs your attention with the blood, and hits home with succinct copywriting.

Well done.

Metallica Rebranding

2008-09-17T10:47:00.005-04:00

Here's another great nugget from our friends at Under Consideration and one I should have caught. With the release of their new album, Death Magnetic (which rocks!), Metallica went through a rebranding effort with agency Turner Duckworth whose work has included such clients as Amazon, Palm, Dolby, and Coke. Here's a quote from the band:

"This time, we wanted to work with professionals who understand iconography," said James Hetfield, Metallica's lead singer. Lars Ulrich, drummer, said, "We wanted somebody who commanded respect in branding but were not jaded by the music business. Someone who would bring fresh ideas. Enter Turner Duckworth, Enter happy days."

Along with the packaging, TD altered the original logo designed by Metallica's front man, James Hetfield, by widening the mark, bringing the x-height down, centering the 'A', and redrawing the 'C' for a more balanced, clean, aggressive look.

I've also posted their past logos, first used from 1995-2003, second from 2003-2008, both of which strayed from their original successful design, much like their music did during those periods. This rebrand not only brings back the glory of their first logo, but mirrors what the band achieved in their latest release of Death Magnetic but going back to what they know best, thrash metal: galloping power chords, double bass, face melting solos, and whaling vocals. Rock on!

Check out the packaging effort by TD in the full post at Brand New by clicking here.

SNL - Jar Glove

2008-09-15T14:54:00.002-04:00

I had to post this one, when I saw it. "The studying and appealing!" Hahaha, love it. SNL has been pretty good for the past few years, you have to admit

Stop & Shop Logo Redesign

2008-09-04T13:43:00.002-04:00

Since I'm only at Stop & Shop 3 TIMES A WEEK!, I felt I should comment on there latest rebranding effort (couple weeks late, I know).

So they went from the highly recognizable red and green traffic light which dates back to the early 1960's to a unrecognizable assortment of slices of fruit? bowls? fruit on top of a TBS logo? Whatever it is, it represents Stop & Shop's direction towards providing healthier, fresher, more nutritious food to it's customers.

They opted out of the heavy capped typeface to a sentence cased new san serif font with an annoyingly chopped terminal on the 't', and a dangerously close ampersand that screams "Here is your visual tension of the day!" They kept their two complimentary colors, red and green, and added two more, yellow and purple, which actually provides for a fun, energetic, bold color palette.

Honestly, when I first saw it, I thought, wow, what a fresh new look. Then I got pissed that they ditched the traffic light completely instead of just modernizing what they've had for so long. But then after walking into my local Stop & Shop here in Brookline, Mass (which is notorious for dirty isles, even dirtier employees, and even rats), I started to feel different about it. They cleaned up the store in general, added their new signage and packaging to everything, and gave the employees new yellow and purple uniforms. It works very nicely all together.

So I started to think, why the hell not? You're a creative agency, you could just refresh the traffic light, call it a day, and have a successful rebrand, OR you could say f-it, and just scrap the whole thing, and do something completely new and fun.

I like it, it takes some balls to erase a logo that's been around for so long, that so many people have come to recognize and love. I just hope it works out for them. Not that people have a choice in the matter most of the time. Usually grocery stores (not in the city) are miles and miles away from each other, and which ever one is closest to you, you end up going to.

We'll see if this one sticks around for next 50 years or so. Something tells me it won't though.

Reverse Graffiti

2008-08-22T13:28:00.002-04:00

Here is another cool guerilla marketing/message post on Environmental Graffiti, that my brother Patrick found of this guy Alexandre Orion (cool last name) who "painted" skulls on the inside of a tunnel in Sao Paolo, Brazil by wiping away dirt caused by car emissions to create the art.

The point was to get people to think about the impact they have on the environment. Brazilian authorities didn't charge him with anything, but washed that side of the tunnel. Then Orion did another mural on the other side, they washed that too, then they ended up washing all the tunnels in the city.

Although it may not have had a huge impact on reducing green house gasses, at least it got people to notice and made the authorities clean all the tunnels (with tax payer dollars I would assume). Not bad for just one guy, a towel, and water (and a gas mask).

Image Metrics: Emily

2008-08-20T13:28:00.002-04:00

Ok, I just had to post this one. Yes another one you've seen on Giz, just thought I'd also share with the rest of you. This is an example of some CGI that interprets video into animation using a proprietary software that I'm sure is way less complex than, hmm, let's say Microsoft Word? Ha, I'm sorry I just love bashing Word whenever I have a chance.

Anyway, it's a look into the future of animated films and of course the gaming world. And then you can see how maybe the two could somehow integrate into an interactive movie experience. Watch the movie and play it too!

The Archive

2008-08-19T14:07:00.002-04:00

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

This was an interesting post I saw on giz about this guy, Paul Mawhinney, and his massive collection of over 3 million vinyl records which he is trying to sell due to his age and failing health.

Paul's collection estimated worth is around $50 mil and he's asking 3 because as he puts it, "No one gives a damn". It's a heartbreaking short film about a man who's realizing his life's work may be worth nothing. I hope for his sake, this recent exposure will spawn a few serious offers. Good luck to you Paul.

3rd Place in Gizmodo Photoshop Contest

2008-08-08T10:43:00.006-04:00

This month's photoshop contest on Gizmodo is to take your favorite gadget and put it in a video game. Here is the link to the post:

Gizmodo

So here is my submission. It's Woz (Steve Wozniak) on his segway when he had his infamous segway polo match that got so much coverage on Giz because it's just ridiculously hilarious. And so I placed him in one of my favorite video games, Mike Tyson's Punchout, and in one of my favorite scenes where Mac is training after his minor circuit title bout win against Piston Honda and before his first major circuit fight, running behind his trainer who is on a bike, and in this case, Woz on a segway.

I've also posted here the original shot of Woz that I based my artwork on and the original Punchout screenshot. Hahaha, too much fun, I hope I get top 10.

UPDATE: I received third place in the contest and a lot of the bloggers thought I should have gotten first, oh well, I was happy with taking home the bronze.

Arnold Schwartzenegger in Coolidge Corner

2008-08-07T10:15:00.003-04:00

Here's a banksy-esque graffiti stencil my brother Patrick pointed out to me by the corner of Harvard and Stearns near Coolidge Corner, just a block away from me. I loved it, not only because I'm a huge Arnold fan, but also because it's been there for a while and it hasn't been painted over or sandblasted yet.

And it questions whether the authorities haven't noticed it and so it hasn't been removed or if people notice it, but don't mention to have it removed because they don't mind it or even like it as an unexpected little nugget of street art.

It's nice to know Arny (it's what Maria and I call him sometimes) is watching over us way over here on the east coast as well.

Smart People and Dumb People

2008-08-06T13:38:00.003-04:00

Here is a great quote from George Lois about collaboration that Paula Scher had featured in her book, Make It Bigger. It's funny how you end up running into situations either at work or some wine tasting party or something where people start falling into these categories.

"There are smart people and dumb people. There are people who have energy and people who are lazy. They exist in combinations. If you work with a smart person with energy, that's your best collaborator. If you work with a smart person that's lazy, well, that's a bit of a waste, but it does no harm. If you work with a dumb person who's lazy, that's sad but not problematic, because they will simply be ineffectual. But if you work with a dumb person with energy, therein lies the seed of disaster."

Clever Oreo Ad

2008-07-22T11:43:00.004-04:00

I love creative outdoor advertising that takes advantage of the existing environment, here is one of many from www.ibelieveinadv.com - great site. I love how one of the guys actually rubs his belly. Somebody wants a cookie! Now there's effective advertising.

Exoskeleton Walker

2008-07-22T09:22:00.002-04:00

Here is a clip from our friends at Gizmodo c/o Medgadget of a man who has been confined to a wheelchair for the past 20 years now using this exoskeleton to walk around, sit, go up and down stairs, pretty amazing. And Giz points out that this will be going into trials here in the US soon and if this is available now, could you imagine how it'll be in 10 years?

Black Sabbath Typeface

2008-07-17T12:34:00.005-04:00

I thought this was a cool, funky typeface to use in an ad or an invite to party or something. I'm thinking about buying it from You Work For Them for $40, not bad.

Here is the link: Black Sabbath

Saco River Birthday Trip

2008-07-17T12:23:00.003-04:00

So Erica and my two brothers Lawrence and Patrick took me up to the Saco River in North Conway, NH for a lazy river tube ride thing and then camping. It was awesome - plus our campsite was double booked so we ended up getting a private beach site where, as you can see, Lawrence and Patrick took full advantage of the cool river and the hot rays.

"Daddy, why are those boys sitting in the water like that?"

Thanks again guys, it was great. (Wish you were there Chew, again)

10 Color Heidelberg Press

2008-07-01T16:05:00.006-04:00

Here is a shot of the massive 10 color Heidelberg press brand new at DS Graphics in Lowell. We are some of the first ones to use it - and for my latest job, an internal communications magazine, News & Views (see next post for cover).

The cool thing about it, is that for a normal 4 color or 5 color job, you don't have to do a work-and-turn. You can print a 5 color sheet and then it can flip it "in-press", midway through, and then print the other 5 color side! The guy standing in blue in the middle of it, is where that happens. It's got glass you stand on right there so you can see it happen, pretty cool. And all the other technology and installation and perfection that goes into it, is just mind boggling, not to mention the multi-million dollar price tag.

You could also do some ridiculous 8 color job with 2 varnishes or something if you wanted to. Or maybe a hexichrome, plus PMS's, plus varnishes, ah, the possibilities. Anyway, my job came out great, a few changes by my boss, Paul and I (he's on the left there), and it should be bound and done by Thursday, just in time to put on the fridge for July 4th weekend. And for my brother Patrick's 24th birthday. Happy Birthday big guy!

I'm done!

2008-06-27T09:40:00.004-04:00

I finally finished my latest project, News & Views, an internal magazine for TAC. It took me a couple of months to design it, and now that it's done I feel kinda empty inside, like what the hell do I do now?! Where's the proof damnit?! When do I go on press?

Here is a shot of the cover which took a good 8 hours for the illustration with the custom street lined typography (there's a lot more detail than you can see on screen btw). I'll put the rest of it up on my website when I get it back from press (DS) on Thursday. I want people to see it first in their hands than in a PDF or on the web – it just doesn't do it justice, ya know?

Polaroid Dimensions

2008-06-19T10:53:00.002-04:00

I was putting together a page in a magazine I'm designing that had a number of polaroid images 'thrown' about the page and I needed to know the dimensions because I wanted to create the art for it in InDesign.

I googled it first and was looking and looking for the exact dimensions and then looked on my groovicle wall and saw a polaroid of my brother Patrick from '06. Duh, look right next to you dummy!

Anyway, I figured somebody else could use this info if they didn't have a ruler and a polaroid staring them in the face everyday.

Beached Whale at Nauset Beach

2008-06-16T09:29:00.004-04:00

On Saturday at Nauset public we noticed something floating in the water about 100 yards off shore. At first I looked like a capsized boat, but when the lifeguards paddled out to it, avoided it, and told the surfer to get away, we figured it must be a whale.

It eventually beached and I got a some shots of it. It definitely had a few good bites taken out of it - which always helps the surfer's psyche the next time he gets in the water (won't tell mom about this one). From the looks of it, it was a humpback calf about 12 feet long. We didn't stick around for the removal. Sad, but it was the first time we all saw a whale up close like that, it was pretty interesting to say the least.

HOW Conference 2008 Michael Beirut Interview

2008-05-20T19:11:00.006-04:00

The Michael Beirut lecture was a little different than all the other presentations in the fact that it was in an interview format, which in someways was much more educating and entertaining than the typical speech, here is my work, this is my script, here is my keynote (powerpoint for you windows users).

He touched on topics than ranged from the boring minutia of what he eats for breakfast and his daily 3 mile run, to the obsure and offensive topics of hitler and an unfortunate email mishap of referring to a client as a skank. And in an early question on whether he would accept the Cooper-Hewitt Design Mind Award at the White House, Beirut answered that for personal reasons he will NOT because of the decisions and actions of the Bush administration, which evoked nearly 30 people to stand up and leave the lecture only 10 minutes in, publicly expressing their own support for our current President and in protest of Beirut's appearance.

As side from that, the rest went rather smoothly, answering questions from selected bloggers handpicked from the interviewer, Debbie Millman. Beirut spoke about his start at Mossimo Vignelli and his success at London based agency, Pentagram, noting that Mossimo limited himself and others to just five typefaces including Bauer Bodoni, Garamond, Century, and of course Helvetica.

Beirut then offered up a few tips on dealing with clients and having a better understanding of the designer/client relationship.

1 - They're scared. The client has admitted just in seeking out design, that they have a problem that they can't solve, they're defensive and concerned that they won't be listened to, and they're concerned the creative agency will force their own views and ideas that may or may not mesh well with theirs. They may physically looked frightened, but in most cases be over confident and dominant. Beirut's advice - listen, listen, listen. Listen so much that they come out of the meeting thinking, 'Hey this guy really gets me.' The client will feel better they got their message across and will have lowered their defenses.

2 - Wear them down. Keep a particular concept going for a while with revisions, meetings, calls, etc., get them almost sick of all of it, and then just close to the end, present the real design that was in the back pocket the entire time. At that point, the client has been drained and will enthusiastically accept this new and incredible solution. (Beirut referred to the great Foreman - Ali fight, when George Foreman allowed Muhammad Ali to pummel him against the ropes for 10 rounds to drain his energy, only to come back with one devastating blow to knock him out cold, in what Foreman called, 'Rope and Dope'.

3 - It's all political. Beirut mentioned the political mantra of his co-worker, Paula Scher, who sees the political dynamic of clients, committees, and meetings. That everyone at that desk has a role whether that be the aggressor, the kiss-up, or the silent powerplayer. And it's up to the designer to recognize that larger list of characters, how they play off each other, and how to manipulate the situation to their advantage.

Beirut offered one more tip to designers looking to create more business for their own agencies. He suggested sending out 15 copies of the latest piece produced (an impressive one). Five to the press, five to existing clients (past or present), and five to new prospective clients. Beirut also touched on when a mid-project termination of the client relationship is absolutely necessary, add up the internal costs incurred thus far, communicate that, and then ask what THEY think is fair for payment. Banking on the natural tendency of the client (and people in general) to give more or at least be fair when having the power to determine compensation or debt.

Finally he gave opinions of a few recent corporate rebrandings - AT&T, UPS, Kodak, mentioning his blog post on AT&T as simply being - 'I wish I were dead', which got a few laughs from the audience. All in all, a very informative and humorous look inside the mind of one of the most prominent and successful graphic designers today, and a definite highlight of this year's HOW Design Conference.

HOW Design Conference 2008

2008-05-20T14:13:00.000-04:00

Second day here at the 08 HOW. Its been great so far. I've seen a few
great lectures and some not so great ones. Michael Beirut and Stefan
Bucher both had informative and inspirational presentations. I'll go
more in depth on the Beirut interview in my next post with some shots
of Michael.

Stay tuned.

Stefan Sagmeister Lecture

2008-05-02T09:33:00.004-04:00

Here is Stefan last week (excuse the crappy cell phone photo and he lifts his leg a lot like that) at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). He spoke about his latest project, 'Things I've learned in my life so far'. Unfortunately I had watched a TED talk of him just a week before which was almost identical to his speech.

Personally I was amazed at the fact that these magazines and companies actually paid him to do the work for 'Things I've learned in my life so far' which basically consists of him creating a word using found objects, photographing it, and putting in a full spread or something like that. I thought it was great as an exercise in typographic art inserted into a sea of corporate ads and smiling faces. Although the viewer may not understand the message or the point initially, it forces them to question what it is and why it's there, ultimately raising their awareness of art around them in everyday life.

I was also particularly interested in Sagmeister's identity system for the Casa de Musica in Portugal. It represents the shape of the building's architecture designed by Rem Koolhaas by using the external planes as graphic elements. By itself, it's not that impressive of a logo, but it's the application that's intelligent. The logo is able to rotate, flip, turn, be on it's side, upside down, whatever. It can exist in outline form, with opaque sides, it can be made of glass. And the color of the sides can be customized based off a photo or painting of the musician playing that week.

Here is a more indepth review of the Casa de Musica system from Underconsideration, in their 'Brand New' section:

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/the_17_sides_of_a_cultural_ide.php

Boston Marathon 2008!

2008-04-24T09:46:00.004-04:00

It's hard to describe in words the feeling of crossing that finish line on Boylston Street. It was an amazing experience that I'll never forget. 3:20:37 was my official time, here is a brief breakdown of my race:

MARATHON RECAP

• Mile 1-3: Was packed in pretty tight and had to maneuver for position. (aka, run around slow people).
• Mile 4-12: Settled down into a steady 7 min pace. Felt good, strong, fast (not for long).
• Mile 13-15: Pain started to set in, but amazing crowds in Wellesley and Newton kept me going. Having thousands of people screaming your name constantly (cuz it's plastered all over your body) helps quite a bit.
• Mile 16-20: Pure hell up the series of hills through Newton - aka Heartbreak.
• Mile 19: Saw Erica, Mom, Karen, Jamie, Lawrence and Nicole, all in bright orange, screaming at the top of their lungs and jumping up and down like crazy people to get me over the next two hills.
• Mile 20: I tried to take my mind off of the road and thought about who I was running for: the liver patients, Erica's father, my family and friends, myself. I focused on that instead of hoping for it to be over.
• Mile 21-23: Started to slow down near Boston College and had an intense cramp go up the entire left side of my body while I held on dearly to a lamppost. (thank you lamppost!). Shortly afterwards heard from a spectator, "Chip, if you start running now, I'll chug a beer!". I started running and pointed back to call him out.
• Mile 24: Saw a couple friends, Vic and Tiffany in Coolidge Corner for another motivating boost.
• Mile 24-25: I could barely stand the pain and started to run with my eyes closed just to get through it. I knew I was close, but hearing '2 more miles!' from the crowd sounded more like '2 more excruciating miles that will take forever!'.
• Mile 26: More pain and delirium.
• Mile 26.2: Took the last turn onto Boylston Street and just kept chanting to myself outloud, 'All heart, all heart, all heart' over and over and over cuz that's all I had left. Caught Uncle Kevin, Dad, and Patrick at the last second to push me through those last few strides.
• Crossed the finish line with my arms to the sky and my head high.
• Afterwards, met everyone with hugs and kisses and I got some dust in my both of my eyes.

Here is the link to the rest of the images from Marathon Monday,

Boston Marathon Photos

TAC Creative Identity

2008-04-17T12:50:00.003-04:00

Here is an identity I put together for our own creative department here at TAC. Not only will we be servicing TAC of course, but all of our sister companies owned by our parent GWPI. This will put us in a position to be able to expand our design capabilities and hopefully make a couple extra bucks doing it too.

Erik Spiekermann Lecture Review

2008-04-10T09:14:00.004-04:00

Here's Erik, last night at the annual William A. Dwiggins Lecture at the Boston Public Library. He got about 30 second in and the fire alarm went off. So the entire building was evacuated for only about 5 minutes and we went back in.

The presentation was excellent (he used keynote of course). He talked about his history, his studios now, great typography, the complexity of creating a typeface and the team of people he has to do all the work for him after he designs the first few characters (must be nice).

He talked about creating custom exclusive typeface families for clients and the complexity of creating 4000 characters in 4 different languages. Spiekermann went into detail about the Bosch brand, the amazing work they've done for them, the beautiful typeface Bosch, a massive san serif family including a custom serif body copy font. He also hit on designing more members of the type family than the client initially asks for, and then when they ask, his team has them ready (but of course asks the client for more time and money anyway, haha).

It was an inspirational talk on design and typography and what it's like to be a self proclaimed Information Architect. Spiekermann's galloping german accented diction was as entertaining as it was educational. It was a great presentation and I can't wait to use Meta again, thanks Erik!

My photo page is up

2008-04-07T16:24:00.002-04:00

I've put some photography on my website, just 5 shots for now. I'll be building this as a get more time to get out there and shoot. Click here to see them on my site.

Somewhere in Framingham

2008-03-31T15:43:00.005-04:00

Here's a shot of me on my 21 miler this past Saturday. My beard is getting unruly - can't wait to shave it off after the marathon.
Anyway, I had no idea where I was and was starting to feel tired around mile 9. Immediately after this shot I rushed for an emergency bathroom stop. Thank god for gas stations, that's all I have to say.

Saturday's 21 Miler

2008-03-31T14:52:00.002-04:00

Hopkington to Newton 21 Miler
Find more Runs in Hopkington, MassachusettsUm, yeah, it was, lemmie think, uh, long.

Holland Website Up

2008-03-28T12:45:00.006-04:00

Ok, so my newly designed Holland Group site for work is up for viewing on a temporary page. Check it out.

www.hollandgroup.com

Typography Animation

2008-03-21T09:59:00.004-04:00

Cool animation using typography and an audio file from a the movie V for Vendetta. Here is the link for some others with other movies - e.g. Fight Club, Ocean's Eleven, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction.

Typography Animations

Totally Bibastic

2008-03-19T12:53:00.004-04:00

So, it's official, I got my bib number today for the marathon. Number 21411, yeah! I LOVE the number 21411, used to be one of my favorites before I switched to 93709 which is so much better, but I still miss good 'ol 21411.

I'm assuming you can plug this number into a website while I'm running to see how much I'm dying along the course, stay tuned.

Tennis Ball Launcher to Wiener Dog

2008-03-18T09:39:00.002-04:00

Is there anything funnier and lazier than a robotic tennis ball launcher that records the number of launches and when? I couldn't help but smile throughout this whole video - something about that dog looking at the camera waiting for the ball to launch is just priceless!

Animated Logos

2008-03-14T16:38:00.001-04:00

Here is a cool animation of a hundred logos design by Ivan Chermayeff and his studio, impressive.

Holland Group Website

2008-03-07T16:28:00.005-05:00

Here is a concept design for a website I'm designing for work. It's for a company that we bought. My AD developed the identity, so I'm basing this off the standards he set up. The 'on' state for the nav is seen for the MPO Solution tab and the 'over' state would be seen on the Careers tab.

What do ya think peoples?

UPDATE: My AD loves it, and we briefly showed it to a couple of the Holland people and they love it as well. No changes, gotta love that!

Foster Farms Transformation

2008-03-06T11:01:00.002-05:00

Here is a great ad from ad agency, Grupo Gallegos. Foster Farms is a western US based company, so we never get to see their ads. Apparently this 'natural chicken' character has been around for 15 years. I have to say, I loved him from the start. He's just so natural. Ha, ha, enjoy.

Improperazzi!

2008-02-28T10:51:00.003-05:00

Patrick, Lawrence and I are featured in the current issue of the Improper Bostonian. Here's us at an Improper event acting very improperly. Click the image to enlarge our goofy faces.

The Wind

2008-02-27T15:34:00.002-05:00

Here is an ad posted on Gizmodo for for Epuron Wind Power and it won the prize for best film advertising at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes this past summer. I laughed, I cried, I ate a bag of M&Ms. Enjoy.

Thriller's 25th Anniversary

2008-02-21T09:09:00.003-05:00

I heard on NPR this morning that today is the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller and in honor of Mike's chart busting hit, here is a classic Indian version of it. Note the authentic voice sound effects in the beginning and of course the moves, oh the moves. Enjoy and goli mal.

Saturday's 16.7 Miler

2008-02-18T09:29:00.001-05:00

Natick to Boston
Find more Runs in Brookline, Massachusetts
Um, let's see, it was long. Yeah.

Mouse Awards

2008-02-15T16:30:00.003-05:00

[From our friends at UnderConsideration]

If you've never heard of the [deep breath] Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions Creative Awards it may most likely be because — if you reside in the U.S. like yours truly — it's a European competition, or because it's only two years-old, or, possibly, because its six-word-long name is downright forgettable, if not obnoxious — or maybe, by default, you just stop reading anything after the word "Microsoft".

Also, the criteria for entering is somewhat limiting: Advertising that appeared only in a Microsoft-run web site like MSN or XBOX Live. The one uptick to these awards is that the first-prize winners in each category get automatically entered into the Cannes Cyber Lions competition — a big deal if there ever was one. Seeing that a coveted "Lion" award was the ultimate bait, Brand Guardians and johnson banks (who are the firm responsible for the playful identity), focused on fauna-influenced naming and arrived at "Mouse" as a better, catchier and more memorable name for these awards.

I haven't expressed sheer effusiveness about a logo on Brand New before, but I think this warrants it: I love it. I would even call it "brilliantly executed" and stand behind it 100%. I suspect many will disagree but that's the least of my worries. The biggest compliment I can pay this logo is that it makes me smile as the details are revealed: You read the word mouse… you see the white mouse… you see the big, pink ear… and finally you see the copyright symbol, the punch line to this sophisticated design joke. I can go on and on about this logo: From the colors, to the type selection (Avenir Next), to the overall composition: It all works. It's embarrassing to compare this to the old non-logo, with its faux-brush stroke arrow, so I won't even go there.

And, to boot, the identity program is equally clever and playful while emphasizing that winning a Mouse could earn you a Lion.

Nike Ad: Excuses

2008-02-13T15:13:00.002-05:00

Here's an inspirational spot from the folks at Weiden+Kennedy with a great twist at the very end.

TEDTALKS: 10 Ways the World Could End

2008-02-13T14:21:00.002-05:00

He is a very interesting talk by scientist Stephen Petranek who reveals the question that occupies scientists at the end of the day (and the beginning of happy hour): How might the world end? He lays out the challenges that face us in the drive to preserve the human race. Will we be wiped out by an asteroid? Eco-collapse? How about a particle accelerator gone wild?

Saturday's Run

2008-02-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

OBS to Cleveland Circle
Find more Runs in Boston, Massachusetts
Saturday's run was good, about 10 miles at an 8 min pace. The sun was out and it wasn't too cold. It was nice to get the run in before the armageddon we had this weekend.

Purell Hand Glove Ad

2008-02-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

Here is an ad from the people at JWT in Sydney, Austrailia. Some great photoshop work leads us to the idea that putting Purell on is like having a protective rubber glove on at all times, but better because it's completely invisible. Great concept. What people don't know is that constant hand washing and hand sanitizing can actually decrease your bodies ability to combat the small bacterial microorganisms that you typically would encounter and naturally eliminate. So overuse can actually increase your chances of becoming sick. Don't stop washing your hands though, that's just gross.

Audi Super Bowl Ad

2008-02-04T10:42:00.000-05:00

Audi R8 Luxury Sports Car Super Bowl Commercial Ad

Add to My Profile | More Videos
I must say I felt goosebumps when I saw this car. Just sick.

Paul Rand Quote

2008-01-30T15:07:00.000-05:00

Here is a great quote from the legendary Paul Rand, just thought it'd share . . .

TRAJAN is the movie font!

2008-01-30T14:29:00.000-05:00

Funny clip here about how Trajan has dominated movie poster design the past few years, take a look see.

This morning's 7 miler

2008-01-30T12:12:00.000-05:00

This morning's run was great! It was about 40º at 6am and no one on the roads, very peaceful. I ended up averaging a 7:32 minute mile - getting faster :D

Saturday's 16 Mile Run

2008-01-28T09:33:00.000-05:00

Saturday's run was long to say the least. I ran the 16.5 in 2 hours 20 minutes - not as fast as I want it to be, but I'm getting there. Afterwards when I ate, I think the food was hitting my stomach and just disintegrating on contact.

Tonight's Win 23 - 11

2008-01-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

Here's a shot of Lawrence (my brother) from last nights win, score 21-11. Lawrence had 5 goals, Patrick had 6, I had 5. That puts our team at a phenomenal 2 and 5 and puts us in the playoffs. How? I have no idea. Good game though.

2008 Election InDecision?

2008-01-23T15:14:00.000-05:00

Here is a great website that'll help you figure out who you should vote for. You take a quick 2 minute survey and then it'll list out the candidate that best matches your decisions. You may be surprised on who you match with best.

I think this is a great tool to also figure out what they all stand for cuz god knows it's impossible to know from their commercials, PR, and the debates. This will break it all down for you, nice and clear and simple.

Here is the link:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Quiz.htm

Lawrence's Last Day

2008-01-22T12:27:00.000-05:00

Here is a shot of Lance on his last day at MSN. He starts soon at his
new job at KSV, a branding/creative agency in Boston. Congrats Lawrence!

Erica's New Scooter!

2008-01-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

My fiance just got a brand new IZIP I-500-CD Electric scooter. She rides it to work everyday now.

Just kidding, this is a shot from her visit to Texas to see her Aunt Beth and her family. It's her cousin's scooter, just thought it'd be funny to post this.

Winter Shots

2008-01-22T11:37:00.000-05:00

Here are some shots I took at Jamaica Pond and Beacon Hill a few weeks ago. The fresh snow looked amazing. The light could have been better, but I still think I got some good ones.

Classic Chris Farley Clip

2008-01-22T10:59:00.001-05:00

Here is a hidden jem that my brother Patrick found of Chris Farley and Tom Arnold trying to pick up women at a mall. Chris is apparently the expert here while Tom is in a van communicating with Chris via earbuds. Too funny.

Grandma Krause's 80th Birthday Party

2008-01-08T15:48:00.000-05:00

We took grandma to the big apple! We walked the streets of nyc, saw the famous holiday rendition of the Rockettes at Radio City Hall, and enjoyed good eats at P.J. Moran's Irish restaurant.

We topped it off (without Grandma unfortunately) with a crowded walk through Times Square. What a day! After that, it was back to Penn Station for the train back to NJ. And due to poor public announcement technology in the train, Grandma, Gary, and Fran missed their stop and had to get off, turn around, come back, and then get off. We made it home safely after that.

Then, we enjoyed a delicious birthday cake that Erica was so kind to bring. The rest of the next was spent watching Malena and Sophia laughing and tubbling on the floor while the Patriots ended their season with a perfect record.

Testing Testing 1 2 1 2

2007-12-19T13:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, so here is the first test for my blog. This is mostly just a test for work, so here it is.