Story Telling

I’ve been talking about starting a blog for awhile, and lo! The day has come.

This will be a place where I talk about design… story-telling… art… the creative process….

I’ll probably post a lot of photos, and other images I make. I’ll probably ramble a lot. And I’ll probably make things up, just to amuse myself and to see if anyone is paying attention. I’ll probably tell a lot of stories.
You are reading this, so clearly you found me somehow… I hope now you’ll stick around! I encourage comments and questions and all manner of feedback, so don’t be shy.

I stumbled across this news item showing that 7 of the top ten advertisers in the U.S. are spent less the first-half of this year than they did the first-half of last year.

Of note:

• #1 Procter and Gamble spent nearly twice what #2 General Motors did in that period.
• Among all advertisers: Internet advertising is way up, Radio is down
• The total expense for these top ten is 8.3 BILLION dollars… in just 6 months.

I didn’t even know this house was there. The Brandes House, built in 1952 by Frank Lloyd Wright, is only 1600 sq. ft. but it sits on 3 wooded acres in the Sammamish Highlands (near Seattle) and still has the original furniture. They’ve even fixed the leaky roof!

And now its up for sale…. the asking price is $1.7 million.

• The Brandes House “Home” page.
• Seattle PI: “Wanted: The Wright Buyer”

13 days since the Red Sox beat the Rockies to win the World Series. Now…. how many days until opening day??

I stumbled across this photo of an ad on a bus that goes beyond the usual. This is the kind of creativity that makes me wish I had thought of it first! (click for a slightly larger version).

16 months ago a friend of mine (Megan) and I, who are both movie-buffs, decided that we wanted to watch every film on the AFI 100 Greatest American Films list. You can criticize the list for the films that are missing, but overall the films that are there are a pretty good selection of those that really left their mark on the country and the film industry. Continue Reading »

Okay…. first of all, when I set this blog up, it wasn’t really on my schedule and I wasn’t really prepared to start blogging regularly. I have a client that wants a blog and I wanted to try see if Wordpress meets their needs. I have been sorta-kinda thinking I should have a blog of my own for awhile, so I figured this was as good a time as any to install it and start.

When I did this I only gave the barest thought to what I should be blogging about. And that don’t work. One thing I know about blogs, having heard it from several sources, is you have to have a topic.

I kinda-sorta have a topic…. kinda. Sorta. Okay, it needs some refining….

But rather than make you wait while I refine, I still want to be typing here on a somewhat regular basis. Because the other thing I know about blogs is a regular schedule will attract regular visitors.

So that’s my goal for this week: blog a little everyday.

Today is Monday. How am I doing so far?

If you can read you can help fight world hunger. Click the “Free Rice” button, spend a few minutes, learn something… maybe about yourself. It’s a simple vocabulary game. The United Nations World Food Program will distribute 10 grains of rice where its needed for every word you get right. So get a lot of words right.

I just finished a small website for a travel agency in Durant, Oklahoma (on referral from my brother): http://allseasonstravelok.com/. Go have a look and let me know what you think. If you are planning any travel, give them a call and tell them I sent you.

I’ll be starting work another website this week, this one a complete makeover for http://yakimaadfed.org/, which is the local chapter of the American Advertising Federation. Its a small site now, but the plans are for it to be much larger, with more information, more interactivity, and better organization.

Also on the horizon is another brochure for Dreamer Design, but that hasn’t been finalized, and a poster for Encore Books promoting their Book Bucks (custom gift certificates which I also designed for them).

Further out, I’ve been contacted to do yet another website for a physical therapist who plans to start teaching classes.

I can’t decide if I care less that OJ Simpson may have committed some kind of Armed Robbery or that Britney Spears is in a custody battle.

How is this “News?” Argh!

And how ridiculous is it that yesterday the big story was that Paris Hilton did not say she was concerned about the drunk elephants? It says a lot more about the maturity level of the people reporting it than it does about Paris who was just minding her own business.

(and please don’t start in about the “liberal media” because Fox News has the same stories and other stuff that’s even more ridiculous).