Thoughts & Deeds

I’m not normally the adventure-seeking type, but when our rafting guide suggested that I “ride the bull” for my birthday this weekend, I couldn’t really find fault with the idea. That’s me on the front of the raft, holding on tightly in case the river consumes me, throwing the f*ck yeah horns high in the air, just moments before I had a few hundred gallons of White Salmon River pumped through my sinuses. See how we’re all smiling, excited, lost in the moment? … more

It turns out that the sun DOES still exist, despite the doubts created by an unusually cold and cloudy Junuary. The month of July one of my favorites, since it brings softball games after a month long break, camping, hiking, garden-fresh produce, evenings in the back yard, lazy afternoons in the hammock, and – oh yeah – my birthday! … more

When I received Ticketmaster’s concert update newsletter announcing that The Decemberists and Death Cab for Cutie would be playing together in Bend over Memorial Day Weekend, I knew I had to buy tickets. How could I miss seeing two of my favorite bands, much less see them both in the same show? That would be like passing on bacon-wrapped hors d’ouvres — foolish not to have at least one. By the end of the evening, it was clear that The Decemberists stole the show, and we all secretly wished they’d come back for an encore instead of Death Cab for Cutie. … more

When was the last time you said that to someone? Remember making mix tapes in high school, maybe even in college? Break up tapes, I have a crush on you tapes, a tape of Alphaville’s “Forever Young” repeated over and over… Then you used the photocopier to make fancy covers for you tapes, gave them to friends, maybe had a mix tape trading club (we had the Myxx Tayp Kollektiv). And where are your old tapes now? Do you even have a cassette player? … more

In 1999, Emigre reprinted Ken Garland’s 1964 First Things First Manifesto in issue 49. It was a call to arms for designers to stop whoring ourselves and start waking up to the social, environmental, and financial responsibilities we face in our work. Then came First Things First 2000 in issue 51, with a simultaneous printing in Adbusters. This was back when I was just getting started in my design career, and to see such a bold statement from vaunted designers and design educators was pretty amazing. I frankly didn’t know what to do with what I was reading. … more

So, I got a little crazy and quit my job, with no new job to go to, then went on a month-long road trip. Ok, the truth is that I was planning the road trip anyway, so quitting was just the icing on the cake of what I like to call “early retirement,” aka a return to freelancing and new opportunities. … more

Paul Arden is totally right. I picked this book up at SFMOMA last month because it was entertaining and on sale, but it turned out to be an inspiring read. I brought it to work for my art director to read, and over the weekend both he and his wife finished the book. And then another coworker bought himself a copy. … more