(photo by Coffeehouse Junkie)
Biltmore Village Under Construction
(photo by Coffeehouse Junkie)
Is design transitive?
Hugh Graham writes that “design is too often about the transitive and the temporary.” (Transitive—the word comes from the Latin and means “passing over”) Consider how quickly designers have to change and adapt to generational demographics.
Brand Noise offers this:
“According to Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow in a new book titled After the Baby Boomers the key differences between Gen Y and Baby Boomers include that the younger generation is ‘spending more time in school, remaining financially independent… and changing jobs more often.’” Link
Now consider the Baby Boomers (again from Brand Noise):
“They comprise nearly 24% of the population, have a buying power of $3 trillion, and include many of the country’s current business and political leaders. But marketers misunderstand—and inefficiently target—this country’s 78 million baby boomers.” Link
Designers, by the nature of their craft, are communication experts and should be able to articulate ideas, brands, and identity to various changing demographics successfully providing they are supplied with reliable research. Hugh Graham agrees that change is the new norm, but pushes beyond that and proposes that “there’s a new form of change on the horizon; we’re heading into a constrained environment where the designer’s artistry and craft will have to encourage what lasts, what matters, what sustains.” Link
Can design be both transitive and sustainable? Only time will tell.
How to keep your job in journalism
According to Ashvegas:
1) Create killer content
2) Pimp your work
3) Brand yourself
Source: https://ashvegas.com/how-to-keep-your-job-in-journalism
“Independent bookstores do everything big corporate bookstores do, with only one significant difference: Independents do it better.”
Before audio books…
“Of all the repetitive, mind-numbing jobs in the late 19th century, cigar-rolling was special. “Unlike sewing clothes, mining coal or forging steel, it was blessedly quiet. And thus cigar workers, whether in Chicago or Havana, were the first ones in their time who managed to introduce that vital commodity — distraction — onto the work floor.“Using their own wages, and backed by a powerful union, they paid for a “reader” who sat in an elevated chair and began the morning with the news and political commentary. By the afternoon, he would usually have switched to a popular novel. The 100 or so rollers on the floor were his captive audience, listening as they worked.”
(via NYT — thanks AdPulp) Link
Socrates: wanted dead or alive
“Given the choice between Socrates dead or alive, Western thinkers have preferred him dead. At least as a symbol. A symbol of what? That’s where it gets complicated.”
Call me a snob, but really, we’re a nation of dunces
“The shrinking public attention span fostered by video is closely tied to the second important anti-intellectual force in American culture: the erosion of general knowledge.”
“I thought Europe was a country”
“Ms. Jacoby… said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way. Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.” Link “I thought Europe was a country”
The elegant lie
Sunday, I had the opportunity to sit in the WPVM studios during a broadcast of WordPlay. Katherine Min read from Secondhand World
Letting go
Two things happen when you let go of something; you feel the pain of its absence more acutely or you feel the freedom from the weight it once possessed in your life.
What editors do
From The New Yorker:
Editing takes a variety of forms. It includes the discovery of talent…. It can be a matter of financial and emotional support in difficult times…. an editor ordinarily tries to facilitate a writer’s vision, to recommend changes… that best serve the work…. editorial work is relatively subtle, but there are famous instances of heroic assistance: Ezra Pound cutting T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in half when the poem was still called “He Do the Police in Different Voices”; Maxwell Perkins finding a structure in Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel” and cutting it by sixty-five thousand words.
Link.
The secret lives and desires of poets and writers
From The New Yorker:
Part of the reason there were no real biographies is that little was known about Gibran’s life, and the reason for that is that he didn’t want it known.
Link.
And from Slate:
…one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture…. the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed–as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died.
Link.
From 1000 Black Lines:
- Jessica Smith, Burn it. Poetry burns well. And it is a fitting end for poetry, esp. anything from that angsty juvenile period…
- 1000 Black Lines, Thanks for the advice. I’ll burn it along with all the friendship bracelets, florescent T-shirts…. Who needs to worry about the high cost of heating fuel when burning poetry is such an affordable alternative?
Link.
Your community gathering spot
Writing tips from published authors
Books that… Take Your Breath Away
It is all about packaging, whether one likes it or not. The British design/publishing company knew that when they released their catalog of books produced in cigarette packaging.
When browsing bookstore shelves the standard trade paperback size becomes overwhelmingly boring. Packaging matters. Cover design matters. Page layout matters.
Anyone who has ever been in a bookstore knows that you’re not browsing books; you’re browsing covers. To have a chance in a sea of covers, you’ve got to have a compelling visual that grabs people.
(via Andre Brocatus) Link.
If a designer can make a book’s packaging and cover attract a reader, the page layout and text should create a literary (and art) experience with an archaic technological device–a book.
“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.”
From 43 Folders:
[Chuck] Close talks about evolving his method of working to overcome his own personality.
“I’m a nervous wreck. I’m a slob. I have no patience. And I’m rather lazy. All those things would seem to guarantee that I would not make work like I make. But I didn’t want to just go with my nature.”
So instead of painting overwrought, expressive things when the mood struck, he committed to making his epic, close-up portraits by breaking the work into tiny pieces and hewing to a grid. Not only did the grid make technical sense, it forced a lifehack on Close that would help him deal with his own tendencies. It helped get the work done…
Link.
Remember grammar class?
Of course you don’t. Based on the blogosphere, it must not be taught in schools anymore.
If you are one who remembers grammar class, this is great: Diagramming the Preamble to the US Constitution. (via Boing Boing)
If not, visit Grammar Girl: Link.
When the coffee runs out (or, where did all the books go?)
There’s a difference between greatest or best and most beneficial books. But if no one is going to visit the library to discover them, will they truly be great, best or beneficial? Some people must be reading those odd artifacts called books. Otherwise a self-published novelist with a great book deal would have remained in the shadows of the literary landscape.
Oh, bother… maybe I need to switch from coffee to chai.
Coffee, gotstahavit
From Unclutterer:
Coffee beans you aren’t going to grind and brew within two weeks can be kept in the freezer, but they should not be stored in the refrigerator. Moisture isn’t good for coffee, well, unless you’re actually in the process of brewing. Don’t believe me? Here are a few insights from people much more informed than I…
Link.
And loosely related, from The Point:
…it’s not surprising that studies have shown caffeine is an effective aid…. For caffeine to be most effective, however, regular users need to minimize their caffeine use so that when they need it, caffeine will give them a boost.
Link.
How to write a marketing poem
Step One:
Read anything and everything Seth Godin writes.
Read anything and everything Seth Godin writes.
From Seth Godin:
used bookstores hate Amazon
And so do independent bookstores
Link.
Who vs. how many.
Link.
More marketing links than you can read…
Link.
Step Two:
Write a 31-syllable waka.
Write a 31-syllable waka.
Step Three:
Publish the waka on your own blog, because no prestigious literary journal would waste the time to print it.
Publish the waka on your own blog, because no prestigious literary journal would waste the time to print it.
Used bookstore owners
hate Amazon. But why? The
staff and owners of
used bookstores know the hands and
faces of bibliophiles.
Are you part of the Facebook-hating mob?
Read this from AdPulp:
Hugh Macleod is not part of the Facebook-hating mob… but he does like this critical Guardian piece on the politics behind the company.
Investigative journalist, Tom Hodgkinson, says he hates Facebook in his lead. He then delves into a deep background check on the money men behind the soc net.
Link.
An interesting report regarding Facebook. But the journalism is questionable. When a journalist expresses bias before “objectively” reporting the story two things occur. One, the integrity of the investigation is compromised due to the predetermined objective of the journalist. Two, by framing the story as an anti-Facebook article, the journalist sets the reader up for biased propaganda that is supposed to convince the reader to hate Facebook. And that is not journalism. It is a well researched essay at best or simply an op-ed piece.
The naming of books
From Seth Godin:
I was talking to someone yesterday about naming books, and I realized that there are three useful schools of thought here.
Link.
Don’t marry your mistress
From Gapingvoid:
Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.It sounds great, but there is a downside.
The late billionaire, James Goldsmith once quipped, “When a man marries his mistress, he immediately creates a vacancy.”
What’s true in philanderers, is also true in life.
Link.
Sounds advice for practicing poets and writers and artists and gardeners, but not sound advice for managers, art directors, publishers, marketeers, and business owners.
Graphic novels and reader literacy
Will increased interest and consumption of graphic novels increasing reading among America’s youths? From The Kansas City Star:
The school’s Graphic Novels Club more than doubled its members in less than four years.
Link.
I remember when comic books were considered adolescent porn. For all I know they may still be perceived that way. I wonder if the increased interest in graphic novels includes the old Illustrated Classics?
When I was in grade school, my father occasionally bought copies of of the Illustrated Classics. My favorite books were Sherlock Holmes and the case of the hound Of the Baskervilles
Coffeehouse Junkie 