Evolution of Language

I'm a big nut for words and language. Verbal communication. If design is an integration of word and imagery, then words must be an important part of the equation. The more comfortable that I am with words, as a Designer, the more comfortable I will be, as a Designer....(did that make any sense?).

My friend Raymond, the Special Projects Editor at Black Belt passed this along.

Here are new words, that have been added to the Merriam Webster's Dictionary, for 2008.

1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

2.SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

3.ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard

4.SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

5. CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles.

6.PRAIRIE DOGGING : When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

7. MOUSE POTATO : The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

8.SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

9.STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

10.SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

11.XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

12.IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are Annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

14. ADMINISPHERE : The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

15. 404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message '404 Not Found,' meaning that the requested site could not be located.

16. GENERICA : Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

17.OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake).

So, as the old-fasioned saying goes, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it."

John Maeda: My Facebook Buddy

Many of you know that I teach design. I've asked my students to blog their thoughts, ideas, inspirations and any other critical thinking that they may have done. I was talking today about the nature of blogging, and the online world.

One of my students did some background research for a project about John Maeda. I happened to mention that he was one of my "Facebook friends".



In the "old world", I never would have called up John on the telephone, and said, "hey dude. i think you're an awesome designer, and thinker. would you be my friend"..or something to that extent. I would have had no opportunity or desire to initiate a one minute conversation with him.

I've never met John Maeda in the "real world" (flash back to the MTV series, season 1). I do feel that I know "about" him, and having seen his video at http://www.risd.edu/president , I have a brief sense of his personality.

We were born the same year.

I was at RISD from 1984-1988.
He's there now.

I was an undergraduate graphic design student.
He is the new President of the institution.

We were born in the same year.

I think that's wonderful.

We've had a few brief email exchanges. I've offered my support here from the left coast. I'm excited that he's leading my alma mater. Good luck to you my brother.

Reza Abedini

I'm not gonna write anything intelligent here.....maybe later.

L.A. vs WAR / 4 Days of Art and Activism Against the War

Polish Posters

For the last twenty-five years, I've been a collector of poster art. I've always been attracted to the immediacy, and the beauty of this particular genre of visual communication. As I began to study Graphic Design, I became a more discerning viewer, and collector.

My collection began to take on certain characteristics, and I found myself acquiring increasing numbers of polish posters from the late 1960's onward. I casually refer to this body of work as "New Surrealism", in that the imagery, often horrific, is quite bizzare, but often quite beautiful. There's a certain psychological intrigue created by these artists, as they interpret cultural works, specifically plays and operas. Most of the posters contain a primary illustration that combines two images together as one.

Below are two examples. Jan Lenica's theatre poster "Alban Berg-Wozzeck" and Stasy's poster "Art Business"





See what I mean. The longer you live with posters like these, the more you begin to discover in an emotional, or deep psychological way.

Students Today

This is my Video of the Week.

It's from Michael Wesch's Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Course at Kansas State University.

John Seely Brown showed this, at the beginning of this talk on Information Literacy.

Allowing Comments

Please edit the settings of your blogs, to allow others to comment. Above is a screenshot of Blogger. I will attempt to do from LiveJounal later in the day.

I'm a Hypocrite

So, I've been thinking that's it's really hypocritical of me, as a Design Professor, to ask my students to create a blog, if I'm not willing to make one myself. So here goes.

This is specifically, what I've tasked them with:

Your blog is the place that you are to post your thoughts and ideas related to typography and visual communication. It is like a scapbook or sketchbook for this course.

You are expected to post a minimum of once a week to your blog and post a minimum of two times a week to other blogs of your classmates.

I am interested in your original thoughts, ideas, inspirations and questions concerning the topic at hand. You may use the required readings in the textbook as a jumping-off point for your blog posts. Maybe something in the reading inspired or concerned you. If you participate in an extra-credit or professional event, you should post a blurb to your blog immediately following the event.

You may also post pictures (preferrably your own photography, videos, and links to other sites, however you must write something to go along with such postings that gives your point of view, critically of what you post .

Your blog satisfies your writing requirement for this course, and as such, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and spelling all matter. Please proofread (or use word to spell-check and grammar check) your writing before posting.

From this point on, I'm going to attempt a visual scapbook, thoughtbook, sketchbook, pastiche of my own.

Begin.