This ones for the small business folks and independent designers. I recently looked into this payment system called Square, and let me say, it will be the next big thing in your day to day. Of course, there are two other companies getting in on the swipe war. Square is doing all the right things to make their service more approachable. They placed their priorities in the user experience. The UI is minimal and fantastic. They cut together a really nice demo of their product on youtube. If the device looks cheap, that’s because you won’t be paying 200 or even 50 USD for it (I’m assuming it’ll cost something though). Finally, they eliminate fees or as many as possible.

What’s an extra fee in this whole process? Well, it’s everything if you run a small business or just hate giving your money to a middle man. It’s another hand in your pocket that doesn’t need to be there.

With independent design, just getting people to cough up a down payment or first 30% of a job is hard, so ease of payment will really help… or maybe find out sooner that you’re getting jerked around. I personally find that as soon as there is any bit of money involved, projects are taken more seriously. What iPhone-loving creative wouldn’t want this accounting superpower? Enough rant, go check it out and follow ‘em on twitter.

Getting busy in the FontLab, starting on a new face; tentatively “EFTR.” At this stage, it’s just a skeleton showcasing proportions before I draw out the legit specimen as a style guide. After a survey of OCR typefaces, I decided to style some of the more condensed characters wider to help with the horizontal metrics. Dropping the cap height down helped with evening out these proportions. I’m dreaming up a face that reads well at moderate to small sizes on screen and has a subtle technical look to it.

While reading an article in MARK, issue 15, I became interested in this concept of “the new real.” Philipp Schaerer shared thoughts on his concept of real as it applied to non-existent architecture. Buildings that didn’t exist, realized with some handy digital techniques, but not trying excessively hard to pass for believable. Looking into his work, real becomes more and more like a design element.

Schaerer’s interpretation of a floor, architectural body and skins are very convincing. Real people, real vegetation, existing textures are combined into this scenery that is just an interpretation; like an architectural photo. A ceiling is not necessarily a thing, it can be taken as a concept. A ceiling itself makes a boring photo. The idea of a ceiling makes a more interesting photo and does not have to be real. I think this is a liberty any creative can take with their work.

Real is a very serious element and I look forward to exploring its effects in graphic design and renderings. It can be the difference between memorable or accepted –> mundane –> forgotten.

This has got to be the most interesting form of design where extraneous factors become the design. A typical designer wants full control of how things look, even down to the pixel or even millionth metric in a font. This is all well and good, but that’s the moment a design becomes static, no longer changeable. It is finalized.

An instant champion for this sort of generative process is a font called LAIKA. Its beauty isn’t seen in an end result, but a result that is forever free to be altered (though not always published). What is most surprising is that the results are not jarring, they are aesthetically comfortable to the viewer or creator. On the other end of the spectrum there are processes with frightful results, simply a different gestalt.

Check out generatorx.no, a good resource for indexing a lot of these kind of projects. Many of them looking very process oriented (not always pretty).

I can see generative design playing well with identities. The parameters of an identity are very simple and often consistent, so it is easy to swap out one consistency for a variable. For something as rigid as logo design, changing a color can damage the image a brand has worked so hard to build up, that is, unless it is defined dynamic elements. There are plenty of other opportunities to create consistency, even consistency in variables. A lot of brands already do this by specifying a variety of colors to be used in an identity, but again, static.

I look forward to seeing more of these works spring up, but stay small and practical within their own bounds.

Every so often, I feel like having fun and just shooting photos of whatever I encounter and whatever is interesting as a way of documenting my life. I like using this old lomographic camera and 35mm film to take the shots. The results are much like branding, the print outs leave a more vivid feel in my mind, something that a hard drive full of digital photos just can’t match, even though they are probably brighter and more detailed. I also think the degraded and tunnel vision contributes to the effect, reminding me that I have this really old camera and that it took a lot of effort just to wind up the roll and send it off.

I heard about the lomographic movement and started out with a basic Holga, then eventually decided to buy an LC-A for the ease of using 35mm film. It’s a little easier to work with than 120mm. I ended up finding an original model of the LC-A from a seller in Latvia. It took an entire month for the thing to work its way through the mail and had me wondering at times about the reliability of ebay sellers. As soon as I got it, I started shooting all the film I had, getting a few rolls developed, and then leaving some in the finished rolls to age since I was a college student and too poor to get them developed. Okay, maybe I was just lazy. These days I’m this strong desire to bust open those undeveloped time capsules and see what I was looking at, and how I was looking at it.

It’s a very personal tool, kind of how I’d imagine a rifle is to a marine, or a fast internet connection to a fast-handed 13 year old. The camera’s back latch broke a couple of times, and I eventually secured it with industrial epoxy. Every time I want to shoot a new roll of film, the back needs to be taped to prevent excessive light leaks. The reason all these inconveniences are so important is because the extra work gets me connected with the results; an inherent process to shooting and enjoying.

I’m not advocating a revivalist move back to analog formats. It’s quite inconvenient, but for that very reason, digital photos will never give you the same personal connection. It’s not a matter of lacking a physical print, but lacking that personal investment in the process of getting a shot. Making things easy and available has a price.

A good chunk of people living in the northwest like the outdoors. It’s no surprise. A good hike or camping trip is usually an hour long drive from wherever you are in the area. For about half the year it’s rainy and gray, and for the most part, it doesn’t stop the people around here from getting outdoors and enjoying themselves.

I did a lot of camping when I was younger; not so much lately, but I definitely got in before the “wilderness chic” thing where people started using hiking and climbing equipment on a day to day basis. We’ve all seen some goofy kid going to class with a 40 liter pack on (with only 1 liter of books in it). I don’t think it was ever cool to do that, but it’s certainly around. I’m personally waiting for people to start using trekking poles everywhere they go. Perhaps they will replace the traditional walker / cane for the elderly or even become the hip new way to get to work. It’s fun to get new gear, but it’s even more fun to use it camping or hiking.