It has been a fascinating week for me in social media and I am still dizzy with the implications. So, fellow travelers, I pose a question:

• Is it better to be completely dugg, make it to the front page and have more traffic than you can handle?
• Or is it better to make the top of the heap of upcoming stories and get more targeted diggs and traffic?

I recently had occasion to be voted on in the magical world of social media. I created a fun resume, just as an example of creative stimulation, and it went semi-viral.
All Data From Feb. 10th, 2009 - Chart from Feb. 20th, 2009 (more…)

We are met once again, dear friends, not for what I would prefer we talk about, but what we must. This week I would like to take apart a well know recognizable logo and not just see whats under the hood, but analyze how one could go about reconstructing it. We start Here:

I don't know if Cyan has enough experience.

This is the iconic letter from a certain presidential campaign, we have seen it around somewhere…mO’cain? Maybe. (more…)

Update: I’ve been Tweeted, Reddit-ed and Dugg(sort of). I am monitoring my analytic account and will post specific details later. Yes, I know there is a misspelling, thanks.

There are many ways of displaying information, as the info aesthetics blog shows, some are just lovely. Well, in that spirit, I decided to update my résumé with a different perspective on the typical time-line theme. This is just concept art, as there are almost no real metrics represented except for time. There is no energy expenditure unit of measure, nor tics to delineate percentage or otherwise. In the fun multi-variable intake / output chart, there should be unique units per each (and a few are almost unquantifiable). (more…)

The great state of West Virginia is know for colorful characters, and I was aware that UFOs made frequent visits to our cornfields, but I had no idea how deep in our history they went. In the 1950’s Gray Barker was reporting-some say inventing-strange events around the state, and crafting some of the most well-know mythology surrounding it. From Men-in-Black to the Mothman and his presence at the collapse of the Silver Bridge to the Philadelphia experiment. Gray was willing to go to great lengths, believe the eye-witnesses and co-op a good story for print in his magazine or others no matter how outrageous or incredulous it may sound. (more…)

I finished my latest business card this week, without exception, it never fails to be a gut-wrenching experience. There are many ways that I can define myself, but my business card never captures any of them. This time the decision was made that Silver ink would be used as a 5th color. It was a natural fit, as it holds a special place in my heart and I am trying to sell the idea of the extra ink to every odd client. Note: Silver edge and text.

The ubiquity of silver in most forms of commercial design makes it a great second color for logos, promotional designs, etc. and with this in mind, we will be venturing through my imagination as I remember and illustrate a few good silver ideas. Note: as most monitors can’t display silver, I will be representing it with the gray from illustrators 877c swatch in the Pantone Coated Library. Additionally, all of these designs are vector as Raster Metallic effects will be covered in another article. (more…)

Earlier I was reading some blogging news and read about David Airey’s tale of hi-jacking and maliciousness. I must admit that I don’t always agree with him about logo design when it is subjective judgment, but getting your e-mail hacked and your domain jacked is worst-case for someone making their business on the web. Your google ranking is your livelihood. So I am sending him a “no-follow free” link from my very low ranked site and I am adding him to my blog-roll as soon as I re-integrate it. He is technically competition, but we are all colleagues when it comes to something like this.

As you may have noticed, I have been working on this site live for several weeks. This seems to be the most organic way for me to make adjustments and I like the slow-evolution idea very much. I will be making more tweaks, including adding comments back into the template, and using the custom fields in wordpress with more intent and purpose. (more…)