Quick Sand

Tar sands damage in Canada.

Interested? Follow me on twitter, or at The American Prospect tomorrow for protest coverage of the final State Department hearing.

Cool Girls in Sunglasses

Hiding behind that fact that I haven't posted in a long time. In honor of summer and feeling like hiding, here are some cool girls in sunglasses-




Browsing for these photos reminded me that anyone trying to look this cool will inevitably look ridiculous.

Nature Made

Being trapped inside while snow and thunder fill the atmosphere outside is a constant reminder of the power nature has over us. Watching people fight with snow shovels and pick halves of trees out of the road is frustrating, but it is really quite beautiful outside. I recently discovered the unbelievable nature photography of Carsten Peter, who frequently works with National Geographic. He goes to amazing places, like these unbelievable crystal caves-




And the huge cavern in Vietnam with an entire world inside....






Every photo is mind-blowing...startling images of beauty carved out by nature alone. They just have such a sense of adventure and mystery to them. Makes me dream of exploring...

New Year

It is several weeks into the new year and I'm working for a more mindful and powerful role in my own existence. One of the things that goes with that is trying to post more. Another thing to expect is more original writing. Short and experimental, toying with different genres and ideas, trying to explore being a more creative force. I hope this will make this blog more dynamic and interesting, as well as yielding some (hopefully) good selections to read.

More to come...

About (Type) Face

Read an article about Roger Excoffon and started thinking about the importance of font in the totality of design. Obviously the visual look of what we read imparts both a clear and subconscious element of influence, but it is still amazing to think about the power of Excoffon's work on contemporary French design.



It just looks like France. I suppose it depends on the designer as to whether they consciously put their own conceptions of what the design is representing, or if they are just trying to put an interesting face on a product or image. In the case of the former, I like the idea of the desinger as a filter in a symbiotic relationship between past and present-France represented something to Excoffon, he designed something new, and it fed back into what France was becoming. Here is one of his fonts-



Is there anything today that represents us in the same way? If the answer to that is comic sans we have probably reached the death of positive innovation. I want to pay more attention to the styles I see dominating the words and messages out there.

In the vein of exploring how graphic design works and the power it holds its clear that there really isn't an area which is untouched by the visual. (You can read Anna Karenina printed in Lucina Sans and get the same content, but you might get a bit flinchy in the process.) Plus, as we saw in the Nabokov post, the package informs the contents. I am committed to exploring things which are well conceived and designed in all areas-artwork which supports the message of the music, branding and logos representing their clients, tags and supplemental for clothes. Food can still taste good even if it looks like a mess, but if you're really trying to say something you need a fully realized creation. In the process of learning about this, I'm really excited to get this book.

Is the look of the modern world the result of an infinite mirror, only existing as a reflection of the past? Are we filtering the present and, knowingly, or unknowingly, influencing the future? If we are, I want to be aware of what design can do.

Judge a Book By Its Cover

Love the Vintage International reissues of the works of Vladimir Nabokov...gorgeous and intelligent covers.




Especially these two...


Nabokov was an enthusiastic entomologist, and the frames around the content are meant to be butterfly cases. Nice to see attention to detail, color, and space still means something. I could go on about them, but I think they speak pretty well for themselves.