Voice

Global poptart, Bono according to msnbc.com, “said Wednesday that next week’s presidential election provides a great opportunity to “relaunch Brand USA” amid worldwide scrutiny”. One could question if Bono is now an official “design critic” or has simply come up with a clever messaging point to persuade the caffeinated throngs to saddle up to the polls on November 4th.

I know Apple is quite restrictive about information, but I was a bit surprised to see how far the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for the iPhone SDK goes: iPhone developers are legally banned from sharing programming tips, discussing code or asking questions of one another in forums or over e-mail!

From Webmonkey:

"F**KING NDA" has become a mantra on Twitter. Every time a developer posts about his or her latest run-in with the metaphorical brick wall that is Apple's NDA, the capitalized expletive is sounded off. "F**KING NDA" has become such a phenomenon, a website has sprung up at F**kingNDA.com to track the twisted tweets.

Apple's software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone is the primary set of tools for building apps for the iPhone, especially if the creations are to be included for sale in the device's App Store. The NDA, which must be agreed to before the SDK can be downloaded, prevents programmers from discussing the finer points of their code.

"There is no legal way for developers to talk about they are developing," Williams laments. "No way to post tutorials. No way to give code away. It's hard to interact with other developers and to write code without reinventing the wheel. Normally, you could post [a coding question] on Twitter and get an answer within minutes."

More info on why the iPhone NDA is no good:

• iPhone NDA: Doing more harm than good—Chris Foresman
• More on the iPhone NDA—Chuqui 3.0
• Lift the iPhone NDA online petition

I was alerted to a comment trail and venomous ranting occurring at a Web site called Eater.com, where several creative folk and other knuckleheads are going apeshit over the similarities between the logos for Steak n Shake and Shake Shack. Some of the foulest bile is being hurled by people who found out the logo for Shake Shack was designed by “someone” at Pentagram, a highly-regarded global branding and design firm and home to creative luminaries Paula Scher and Michael Beirut.

We could have avoided the blog post except that an “unnamed designer at Pentagram” decided to “teach the kids and haters a lesson” by flinging his own monkey poo into the fray:

“I designed the new Shake Shack identity and the original existing identity. The permanent signage on the exterior of the new Shake Shack will appear as the original logo, familiar from the Madison Square Park location. The new retail identity will be used in the interior for items like menu boards, cups, paper and packaging, but not on the architecture. The sign in your shot is temporary–it’s just a piece of paper.

The new identity is not an homage to Steak n Shake. The typography has nothing in common–the new Shake Shack logotype is in script. Sometimes it appears straight. Sometimes it will appear in a stamp or seal in a circular motif. Saying it’s a rip-off of the Steak n Shake logo is like saying a hot dog is just like a hamburger because they’re both in a bun.”

Thanks “Mysterious Designer at Pentagram” – you have put the people who are been yammering about this nonsense in their place – not only with your mastery of the obvious, but with your snotty and authoritative tone. By mixing phrases for designers (“…it will appear in a stamp or seal in a circular motif”) with ironic comparisons designed to resonate with total morons (“hot dogs and hamburgers”? Really??), you’ve actually stooped to the very level that a masterful agency such as Pentagram should always choose to remain light years above.

During an afternoon’s feasting with our “Special Edition Pizza Thursday” pie from Pizza Suprema at the New York Bunker, I came across an interesting article from the Daily Mail in the UK. A Belgian architect named Vincent Callebaut recently released his plans for the “Lilypad,” a floating city of our future water-covered planet. The Lillypad will be able to float around the world like a giant ship, just in time for your favorite ecological doom-and-gloom scenario. It’s a pretty cool design, and according to the article, “centered around a lake which collects and then purifies rain water, the Lilypad will drift around the world following the ocean currents and streams.” This is an excellent idea as long as the poisoned ecology doesn’t also unleash a horde of giant “super frogs,” desperate for a place to rest their massive webbed feet.

An architect has come up with an innovative answer to rising sea levels – a city that floats around the world.

The self-contained ‘Lilypad’ city will be home to around 50,000 ‘climate refugees’ from the worst hit areas – including London.

Latest research predicts that sea levels could rise by up to 88cm – nearly 3ft – by the year 2100, putting many islands in the Pacific Ocean in danger.

Dave Fletcher is a Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. Thanks to American news forecasts, Dave now lives in fear of everything.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a comedy sketch show broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Little did they know how ahead of their time they were with their homage to SPAM, a canned & precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

Revisiting this sketch this morning made me further appreciate the sketch’s melodious repetition as I deleted another 1575 Spam posts from my email box. If you get a lot of Spam, I highly recommend watching this video. It will ease the pain of dealing with this unruly menace. If you’re on a Mac, I recommend SpamArrest, which does a pretty good job of learning (with your assistance) what to keep and what to mark as Spam. Finally, if you’re eating dinner, I recommend feasting on anything other than SPAM…

Dave Fletcher is a Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. He admits to having tasted SPAM as a youngster, but cannot recall how sick it made him.