Remember these?

See if you can figure out which of these I love, and which of these I hate.

Pay attention to 1:06, please.

And this, you won’t remember, but you should watch it so you can remember it one day. The drummer looks like baby Robb live.

Adorable.

That’s enough for today, I think.

I guess I should start writing again?

Hi friends. It has been a while, huh?

Will this make up for how long I’ve been gone?

I’m pretty sure I contributed at least a third of the video’s 102 views.

Domain

I just purchsed www.leonardsays.com

My original plan was to use the site I already own (www.pearlsandgold.com), but I hate that it reads “Pearl Sand Gold” rather then “Pearls and Gold” (which was taken from an AIH lyric that I love).

So, instead I’ve gone with the title of a Brunettes’ song that reads like it should be a VU song.

leonardsays.com is coming soon-ish.

Stay tuned.

Good things come to those who wait.

Cliches.

P.S. tiffanyweber.com is taken

Post post script, I won’t be weber much longer & tiffanyadams.com is gone as well.

Alas.

Crooked

My parents spent two years drawing up plans for the house they retired to in Norhtern Michigan. Being an engineer, my dad would take the plans each time they came back from the architect, and make a scale model of the house out of foam core.

While I visted their home over Christmas a few weeks ago, I noticed one thing that just felt off. There’s a framed photo in one of their guest bathrooms that always looked crooked to me. So each time I passed by, I would adjust it just a little. Finally, I took the photo down on a hunch that the matting was off.

My parents looked at me quizically when I pulled out a ruler and revealed that the matting was 1/16 of an inch too wide in one corner.

Joy

I don’t have time to write a full entry, so I’ll just let you look at this little joy.

 

 

Making the Band

    

 

 

I love Diddy’s empire  — including Making The Band, and his blogs are endearing (and ridiculous) in their amateur youtube innocence.

 

 

 

I participated in the 7-election yesterday (and who wouldn’t for a $1.50 pumpkin spice latte?), during which I entered a relatively lengthy discussion with the man refilling the machines. It’s easy to reform a sense of community (although segmented) when you have your political views plastered on a coffee mug. It makes me want to remove my headphones while walking to class, and open myself up to the voices of those around me. 

The country is in shambles, but maybe that’s what we need to reform the face-to-face communities that have been swallowed by new media and technology.

 

And now, because WordPress offers a polling feature, I encourage you to vote.

 

Digital Creative Resources Presentation

The following post is intended for students in the Texas Creative Portfolio Sequence at the University of Texas at Austin.

 

 

Here are links to the digital creative resources I presented today.

 

Typography

Linotype

 

 

Hoefler & Frere-Jones

 

I Love Typography

 

For the Love of Type

 

 

Source Images/Inspiration/Stock

 

Veer

 

Getty

 

 

Branding

 

Logo Lounge

 

Lovemarks

 

Brands of the World

 

Wikipedia

 

 

Design

 

The Dieline

 

Pantone

 

Design Addict

 

Flatstock

 

Reading, Rhetoric, etc.

 

No Caption Needed

 

In The Mix

 

NPR

Parenting

I was just procrastinating (with a little help from facebook), and while searching for an old friend I discovered a girl named Ariel Black.

That was all the encouragement I needed to search for more people unintentionally (maybe? hopefully?) named after fonts, typefaces, or misspellings of either/both. In five minutes I’ve found 16 Brad/ley Hands, 9 Cooper Blacks, 1 Vladimir Script, and a Georgia Rockwell. 

 

RQ

Prior to June of this year, I’ve considered pursuing a PhD to be something I might do in 20, or so, years. But after an email from my Theories prof, a whirlwind exploration of research topics and university programs, and a whole lot of thinking, I realized that that pursuit might come sooner than I expected.

So here we go.

This semester I’m taking a class with a few PhD candidates and one other MA student, and I’m at the point where I need to start defining my area of research for my next paper. And what I’ve found most interesting as of late is an examination of visual rhetoric in branding.

This includes all elements in a brand experience: the information that would be listed on any sort of style sheet; information that a consumer would not explicitly see, but if executed well, would be inherent to the brand. Basically, I’m interested in what a consumer “gets” from the overall brand. What does the color say? What does the typeface choice say? In this instance, type would function as a visual, rather than words. Recognition of the brand would also need to be taken into account to alleviate any outside influences (or in the case of type, to prove that nonsense words — such as Nike — within a brand, act more as  symbols than words).

From here I need to develop some sort of distinct research question, pared into a specific problem or question in current advertising practice. 

After I wade through previous research on the subject, I’ll let you know what that is.

No one’s judging you

 

One week ago, I played Guitar Hero for the first time.

Athough I was instantly hooked, my favorite song to play, by far, is “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse. My sister and brother-in-law had never heard the song prior to my first 4-star performance on Easy, but loved it enough to purchase it a few minutes later.

So while listening to the song over dinner, we got into a discussion of Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) — because if you absolutely had to LARP, wouldn’t it be ideal to do it while this song was playing?

Up to that point I had never seen the “Knights of Cydonia” video — the closest I come to a Muse fan is loving this one song. Which is basically the same relationship I have with U2; I love “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.”

Do you see a trend?

Anyhow… the “Knights of Cydonia” video is a pretty good depiction of how we described our fantasy LARP to the song (that is a ridiculous sentence).

 

From what I can tell, there are a number of people who hold strong opinions against those who LARP.

I have never participated in Live Action Role-Playing — and perhaps you haven’t either — but we are all members of a community of make-believe.

I developed a progression of make-believe (decreasing in commitment), which I list and explore further below.

 

The Spectrum of Make-Believe

• Live Action Role-Playing (LARP)
• Alternate Reality Game (ARG)
• Improv Everywhere
• Theater
• “Act as if” (fake it ’til you make it)
• And, of course, Junior High— the spectrum’s variable degree.

 

Live Action Role-Playing

If you’ve ever walked past a park and seen a group of people dressed in period or fantasy garb battling with duct tape covered weapons, then you’ve likely seen LARPing. And there’s usually a story or journey involved that can take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks (maybe longer?) to complete.

If you haven’t seen it, think back to any of your former history teachers and the mention one of them made about the Civil War reenactment they attended, or participated in, over the weekend.

 

Alternate Reality Game

Recently, in an article posted on Creativity Online, I learned about the real-time world of Gotham City between the release of “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” In “Gaming Gotham: The minds Behind the Dark Knight ARG Speak,” by Nick Parish, the intricate world of dedicated Batman fans is revealed. Alex Lieu describes what I thought was most interesting and rewarding:

 

 ”…in the course of going to pick up those cakes, [players] helped steal a District 22 school bus, from Gotham City. They weren’t sure why. But in the prologue, when the Joker, after the bank robbery, makes his escape, that same school bus crashes into the bank and he gets on it and takes off. In that way we’re actually having the players become part of the fiction and the film themselves.”

 

Essentially an elaborate relationship-marketing effort, this level of engagement wouldn’t have been successful without the involvement of “real-world” corporations like Dominos, Comcast and Nokia (which included prominent product placement in “The Dark Knight”), because similar companies exist in the Gotham City world.

Another success within this game: some players may not have realized they were playing anything, explains Alex Lieu,

“…we can integrate with the traditional marketing materials, by hiding something in plain sight or doing something within it. And once the people discover them and find them, all of a sudden they’re scouring through all of the traditional marketing materials anticipating them and sharing them with each other. We tend to try to do as many things like that [as we can] when we have opportunities.”

Improv Everywhere

“Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 70 missionsinvolving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.”

Essentially, Improv Everywhere plays (usually) harmless practical jokes on an unsuspecting public. The performances require short-term commitment by players willing to act out-of-place for a few minutes or hours. A great example is the oft requested exploration of spontaneously breaking into song, musical-stlye.

Although Baldwin Hills Mall put the troupe in contact with Hot Dog on a Stick, the food court standard was a perfect choice due to it’s easily recognizable and outlandish employee uniforms.

In the troupe’s blog, Improv Everywhere’s Charlie Todd writes, “While the management of both the mall and Hot Dog on a Stick were aware of what we were doing, they kept the mission a secret from everyone else. All of the employees of the other food court establishments had absolutely no idea that our musical was going to take place.”

 

Theater

Theater — whether plays, music, comedy, mime or modeling —require a convincing enough character commitment to allow an audience to escape into the story, or focus on the art. Performers must tell a story, but they can occasionally duck backstage for a costume change or cigarette break, essentially breaking character.

 

“Act as if”

Fake it ’til you make it.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Appearing confident, doing the research to back up your confidence, and getting experience to boost that confidence — a process used by many to get where they want, so they can write their own story. While the level of commitment can be higher than any aforementioned acts of make-believe, participants are committing only to themselves, which is often less risky and more rewarding. 

 

Junior High

Depending on insecurities, maturity, older siblings, genetics, and any number of other terribly awkward variables, the time most people spend in junior high is about pretending to be something they know nothing about. It’s basically “Act as if,” with a feigned nervousness that would be hard to misinterpret as confidence.

 

Make-believe is a terribly twee way of looking at our approach to the world — to brighten our day (through a 3-minute plastic guitar attempt at rock n’ roll fame), and to help us escape reality or less-desirable versions of ourselves.