Abraham.

For your viewing pleasure, a timelapse motion picture featuring artist Mark Ryden. Go Abe, go!

Snozstache Man

New Feature:

As all of my loyal visitors know, I often stumble through periods of blog inactivity. Therefore, you may have taken note that I haven't posted in nearly a month. In an effort to remedy my dereliction to putting fingers to keyboard, I am introducing a new feature called Meeting Notes.

The story is this:
As part of my day job at Marlin I occasionally sit through a meeting. I say occasionally with a small sense of pride in that a Marlin meeting — at least for me — is always dead productive. But alas, I have the attention span of a gnat, and as such, I engage in doodling to keep my mind supple to absorb the substance of a meeting’s malay (I'm pretty sure I'm using malay wrong, and I'm trying not to infer malaise, so I say let alliteration reign).

In fact, doodling was (and maybe is) the possible subject matter of my thesis. I believe, and have seen some writing that supports my conclusions, that doodling helps a creative mind stay engaged in things like school lectures, management seminars and creative staff meetings.

So, from here on out, I will sprinkle my posts with doodles done on this end of a project meeting. To kick it off, get things going, or to simply let the other show drop, here's a salutation from our head of accounts:

Apple ][ to the Tune of Jed

Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground) from Stewdio on Vimeo.

App Cloud

It’s been some time since I’ve posted anything (curses to you prosperity and popularity!). Anyway, hero Brad Hill of TAP turned me on to this very cool cloud based app called, well CloudApp.

Simply put, It’s a file sharing platform that works seamlessly with the Mac OS. It has two parts: an app that displays up on your toolbar (which is a little cloud, that acts as a progress bar and glows blue when your upload is complete), and a browser-based management tool called My CloudApp.

They have a slick little idea called Raindrops. They appear to be like scripts which you can do stuff like: Set it up to automatically upload screenshots. Through a hot key, upload a selected song from iTunes, or send up a Keynote presentation to access later. And then you can share all these files with whomever you choose. It’s dead simple and dead useful.

This is version 1.0 and there is room for improvement (like a simple share button, no apparent login on the home page, or unaware when I'm on their blog that I just came from My CloudApp and might want to scurry back without the browser’s back button). But I'm sure improvements are on the way.

And the best part: It’s free! It appears they have a pro version in the works which would do away with ads (which aren't there yet).

My advice, keep your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds and don't just check it out, sign up.

Mr. Frenchy Frenchy French Man

It’s rare for my wife and I to find time to watch a movie, but a few months back we managed to sneak in Julie & Julia [WARNING: Link Autoplays sound]. Anyway, it inspired the purchase of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and that is the subject of this post.


Actually, it’s the French Onion Soup, pictured above, that is the subject of this post. Now that we have the subject out of the way, let’s move on to the body of this post. With the exception of securing five generously proportioned tureens, Ms. Child’s recipe was easy enough to make. And finally, the conclusion of this post: It was delicious.

Neurosonics

Neurosonics Live from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.


My two favorite things in the world* Frankensteined.
*Disney’s Haunted Mansion Ride and Electronica.

Glendale High Tennis Crest

Andy, my 17-year-old tennis prodigy, is playing his final year for Glendale High here in Springfield. As co-captain and graduating senior he gets to pick the team’s uniform and logo: That’s where I come in. Above is the crest Andy and I decided upon, featuring the school’s falcon mascot, crossed rackets and clenched balls (ha!), the founding date and the year of application.

Go Glendale! Go Andy!

UPDATE: I have replaced the art with correct school colors, Columbia Blue and red.

Honorable Mention

How to Fulfill the Demands of the Art of Pastry Chefdom has earned an honorable mention in the Letterhead Fonts 2009 Design Competition.

Chuck Davis of Letterhead Fonts wrote, “It is a beautiful, understated design.”

To see the three winners and two honorable mentions, click here.

I’m all a dither.

I Was Right

In support of my post about the iPad and how the geekosphere was missing the big idea...Proof I’m right:

PC Magazine: Women are Key
Gizmodo: The iPad is for Old People
TUAW: A Contrarian View
To Wit: Stephen Fry
We Never Knew We Needed it
iPad App Fund Announced
David Pogue: First Impressions
Cool Concepts

iPad: A Lesson in Projection

All jokes aside, the overwhelming reaction of the geek class of pundits are missing the point: Apple’s iPad is not for them, at least not yet.

The Steve did say it was between a smartphone and a laptop, not a new device to replace them.

Geeks, powerusers, programmers, and yes, designers are all frowning on the Pad because it doesn't do anything for them. Or should I say, it doesn’t do anything more for them. I’m calling this projection, or projecting what they know, what they’re used to and most importantly, what more they want form the next iGadget.

Here's what they don’t get: It’s not for them. It’s for the un-them.

Apple’s iPad is for my wife. She loves Facebook. She loves family photos. She loves making photo albums in iPhoto. She emails, browses the web a little, shops a little, watches a movie or two on her iPhone the handful of times she travels, pay bills online and that’s it.

The iPad is for my daughter. She does just about everything my wife does (except pay bills).

Apple’s tablet is for my mom who has never figured how to use a computer let alone set one up, install software, manage all the cables, printers, scanners, external hard drives, burning CDs, backing up, viruses, connecting to the internet, email, blah blah blah.

The absence of multitasking, Flash, a camera, an always there physical keyboard and whatever else the computing class have grown accustomed to, all amount to stuff that's done on devices that the iPad is not trying to be. And though the iWork stuff was pretty amazing, it’s stuff my wife, daughter and mom don't really care much about.

So, instead of looking at what the iPad is not, the important thing to remember is what it is: (present company excluded) A computer for the rest of us.

I think I just projected back in time.

Note to Self.

Make this blog not suck.

Spotted!

I stumbled upon the Booth Ranches Black Box I drafted In the produce department at the Price Cutter in Springfield, Missouri, while shopping for ingredients for leek soup. The box is cool. The soup was hot.

Finalist!

The little chap book for Sweet Street, How to Fulfill The Demands of the Art of Pastry Chefdom, has been chosen as one of fourteen finalist in Letterhead Font’s design competition. In the immortal words of Jimmy Wilson, "Look at me now!"

Omm

I have decided to quit the business of graphic design and dedicate the remainder of my mortal life to writing. Let me be clear: I’m not going to just write, I am going to write in Ommwriter. Farewell Mr. Rand. So long Saul Bass. Good day Mr. Glaser.


Ommwriter from Herraiz Soto on Vimeo.