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August 27, 2009 - Comments Off on New York Webstandards Meetup – Getting Started with HTML 5

New York Webstandards Meetup – Getting Started with HTML 5

Mike Taylor (Tunecore.com) will give a brief overview of (the current state of) HTML5, focusing primarily on browser support, new elements and their corresponding semantics, and getting CSS to play along. He will also review how the front-end team at Tunecore.com is implementing these new features into a production site today.

A basic understanding of writing structured HTML is recommended. Other general topics including CSS and JavaScript will be discussed, but are not central to the presentation.

Watch the live broadcast below starting at 7pm EST on August 27th, 2009.

Live video chat by Ustream

Published by: davefletcher in The Programming Mechanism
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March 29, 2009 - 2 comments

Confessions from the Twittersphere

I've been seeing another networking platform on the side...

Tossed to the gutter was my sexy old flame: Blogging — my occasional habitual activity of scribbling down thoughtful musings. My new sleazier and easier squeeze not surprisingly involves significantly less brain power. Twittering is fast food for the nerdling masses, but instead of increasing their waist lines, a purified and constant diet of tasty Tweets will likely shrink their brains faster than a Fail Whale caught in an updraft.

Back in the good old days of last year, people still communicated using a significant number of words and syllables to convey a complete thought — whether it was through actually jiggling their mouth parts and expelling noises with other human beings present, or through printed and later online media. Now, tapping 140 character quips is substituting once meticulously crafted ideas with “off-the-cuff” communication. Who has time with a busy schedule and diet of downloading free music, poking at a mobile device, and checking their friend count on Facebook to actually bother talking anymore?

For the people that Twitterers believe hang on their every word, they can share every thought that springs into their pointy skulls. Having a fresh cup of coffee? I must tell my followers. Sniffed a foul whiff of some particularly stinky cheese? Please, do tell the followers! Raining out; saw a squirrel; drew a fresh breath; tickled your pet toad; spotted a funny shirt or does your little tummy hurt? Please be sure to let those mysterious avatared creatures who are following your every random thought know immediately — as they must be kept in this timely loop of baboonery through your mighty Tweets.

I openly admit, I Twitter more than a geophagic licks earth. But when you share every thought, does everyone keep listening? Like the “lad who cried canis lupus”, knuckleheads who gleefully announce every single thought, lose my attention quickly. In real life, people that shout every thought that enters their skulls are not only shunned by society, but are usually referred to as “Apeshit.” However, in the world of Twitter, many of these serial chatterboxes are superstars.

For Twitter rock star Guy Kawasaki @guykawasaki, with over 21,000 updates and over 100,000 followers, Twitter is his minute by minute diary, and quite possibly, his current career until Twitter goes the way of MySpace. His endless announcements and links fuel his fans to pick up his books and line up to hear him talk (yep, talk...) about Twittering. People I'm certain, hang on his and many other Twitterers every written word, and as an indirect result, the days of expanded communication could very well be coming to an end. Who needs to have an actual conversation when you are having a conversation with hundreds and possibly thousands of eager followers?

In this age of speed and obvious lack of attention, how will magazines, books and newspapers deal with the lack of interest in expansive thoughts? They will be severely marginalized, to say the least. Newspapers are yesterday’s news. The press was a precursor to, and now a minor footnote to, full-on digital communication. Michael Wolf, columnist for Vanity Fair and the founder of news aggregator newser.com says that the newspaper is a dead medium, and I do agree. If you want a snapshot of the news, go to an online news aggregator like Alltop.com (oddly enough, created by Guy Kawasaki to support his endless desire to post aggregated news stories to his Twitter account). Follow trending topics on Twitter and you've got a tiny snapshot of anything that's important this second.

Not all is bad for the serial Twitterer. One of the things that makes Twitter an innovative solution is that the writer isn't expected to craft anything brilliant at all, making it an ideal solution for the largest possible user base. Depending on the Twitterer, 140 words can either be a link to an interesting story, a Re-Tweet of something someone else has already Twittered about, or if it sucks, possibly the sound of one hand clapping in a pixellized forest of sumac. Can you hear the virtual crickets as the masses embrace and virus forth with this technology on the planet? I can.

Twitter is now everywhere, which makes it very popular, and dare I say, interesting for business yet simultaneously less interesting to everyone else. John Stewart has ranted about it, CNN as well as all the major networks have reported on people, stars and politicians using it, and the CBS Morning Show did a story on it this morning. Once everyone is at the party however, it's time to find another party. Knowing that politicians are now using Twitter from the floor of Congress to send quippy notes to their reptilian minions spooks me. There’s something childish about John McCain @SenJohnMcCain Twittering "On my way to tape meet the press." It resonates with me like a high schooler talking about going to Dunkin’ Donuts. Really John, who cares?

The amazing social connections that can occur when blending Twitter with LinkedIn, Facebook, blogging, Flickr, Last.fm, technorati, feedburner and other social media systems in order to build out a personally web-rounded personality is what interests me. This is where social media truly has long lasting power. Use Twitter to announce some new photos to another audience that won't necessarily see your Flickr account, for example. The goal is to merge these various social networking audiences to build a much more powerful network for yourself and to introduce people who wouldn’t have normally met in other circumstances. The most important thing if you take this advice is to make sure that you stay on message.

I'm curious about what footprint the folks who have gone full Twit and successfully abandoned other social networks will leave behind when they eventually have thought chips built in their monkey skulls, making the act of clicking a keyboard or tapping into a mobile device irrelevant for telling the masses your baby just made a potty. Google has begun to crawl Twitter blogs, but in an online society that values the immediacy of communication, I wonder how interesting what your kid burped up on Saturday will be to you or anyone in the future.

So, for the old school bloggers (holla!), perhaps there's never been a better topic to actually blog about.

One thing's for sure, I'm 6313 characters over my Twitter yak limit and you read it to the end. See, there's hope for you yet. Maybe even someday, we can have a personal conversation again, like humans used to have last year.

Dave Fletcher is the Founder / Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. Until they embed the chip into his monkey brain allowing him to communicate directly with you at any time and anywhere, you can follow his mindless quipping @davefletcher.

Published by: davefletcher in The Thinking Mechanism
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December 11, 2008 - Comments Off on New York Times – How Helvetica Took Over the Subways

New York Times – How Helvetica Took Over the Subways

As a curious designer and New Yorker, I've always wondered why Helvetica is the font of choice for signage in the New York City subway system. Jennifer Lee of The New York Times wrote an excellent article about this subject over the weekend, entitled How Helvetica Took Over the Subways.

Published by: davefletcher in The Design Mechanism
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December 4, 2008 - Comments Off on Church Enlists Beelzebub for Branding Campaign

Church Enlists Beelzebub for Branding Campaign

StopGoodTV logo“Old Scratch” recently sold his likeness and bottomless soul to the Catholic Archdioses of Brooklyn. Starring in a new campaign for a New York religious cable service: The Prayer Channel – and devilishly re-branded into a hipster acronym: NET (New Evangelism Television) – the “Horned One” appears to be home-bent on luring average TV viewers into watching New Evangelism Television by using an age-old psychological trick typically used to fool children into drinking medicine or finishing their yucky plate of brussel sprouts...Make subject do the opposite of what they would normally do by presenting a conflicting argument to do it in the first place.

However, by creating a groovy skateboard-friendly icon of “Natas“ (his real name has been cleverly disguised at his request...), and using a doofus poseur in a red costume with horns, I wonder who the campaign is targeting... Christians, the last time I checked, really, REALLY hate the red guy with the pitchfork – so why the agency that masterminded the campaign (LA-based Cesario Migliozzi) would use the likeness of the fiendish Baphomet on t-shirts, buttons and other merchandise to get people to actually watch Christian television programming is odd, to say the least. To a designer, this horned fella looks damned cool and not off-putting in the least – and to the kiddies, this icon is more appealing than Joe Camel squatting in a vat of gummy bears and drizzled with candy juice.

Considering that the majority of television today involves either reality shows with mindless plots, or general pointlessness already, I don't know if the ads are going to convert many non-religious folks to New Evangelism Television that weren't freaked out by the appearance of anything deftly armed with head horns, fangs or a pointed tail already.

In fact, something tells me that “Say-Ten” Himself (his real name once again cleverly disguised at his request), may have pulled the ol' switcheroo on the Catholic Church, by knowingly testing this campaign on us foolish mortals ahead of his real plot to unveil the Anti-Christ in the form of a really cool snowboard graphic. The only thing effectively and deliberately lame about the entire campaign is a knockoff on Burger King’s often imitated Subservient Chicken campaign – featuring a impatient, benevolently horned and mustachioed Lord of Darkness appearing to answer questions typed by his minions. After feverishly typing “Who’s your daddy?” repeatedly, all the hellfire I could squeeze out of this Crimson Putz were mindless, unrelated responses about “not going” to an unrelated Web site, and something about “His Evilness” knowing my IP address...

In the end, it seems that the only thing obvious about the campaign is that it firmly confirms my suspicion that the end of world will not come from a leaping fiend from Hades, but instead will likely be perpetrated by the ad agencies in and around The City of Angels...

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. While Dave likes to poke fun at Los Angeles, he’s been there a couple times and has only run into Satan twice ...

Published by: davefletcher in The Design Mechanism, The Thinking Mechanism
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November 17, 2008 - 2 comments

Net Neutrality Advocates Rear Their Heads in Obama Transition Team

Sarah Lai Stirland reports in Wired that Susan Crawford, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Kevin Werbach, a former FCC staffer, organizer of the annual tech conference Supernova, and a Wharton professor, will lead the Obama-Biden transition team's review of the FCC. Susan has notably pursued greater broadband access for Americans and believes that internet access is "like water, electricity, sewage systems: Something that each and all Americans need to succeed in the modern era."

Good news for the Web and the future of Web design indeed.

Read more here.

Published by: davefletcher in The Thinking Mechanism
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October 30, 2008 - Comments Off on Bono talks “Global Brand” for US at Starbucks Conference

Bono talks “Global Brand” for US at Starbucks Conference

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.

Published by: davefletcher in The Thinking Mechanism
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August 8, 2008 - Comments Off on The Value of Metamorphosis

The Value of Metamorphosis

With every decade our bodies change, and so should the way we stay active. We may not have the vigor and vitality of our 20s by the time we reach 40, but that doesn’t mean we can’t embrace the proven benefits of exercise at every age.

 

FITNESS IN YOUR 20s

Take a look in the mirror and smile because you are in your physical prime. You will never naturally burn more fat or have a faster metabolism than now. Read more about one and done workout.

For many of us, our 20s see a busy social life, many takeaway meals, ‘cramming’ study sessions and raging hangovers. Sleep doesn’t usually rank highly in the list of priorities either. But these years are where you lay the foundations for your health and fitness, so it’s important to create positive habits and find activities that keep you motivated so you can stay in the game for the long term.

Despite being a full time student, working part time and living the party hearty lifestyle of a 20 year old, a love of sport kept me active and socially motivated. I signed up for team sports with friends – netball, basketball, indoor rock climbing and touch footy. These are just some of the best Exipure reviews.

Although it sounds like a busy schedule, as you look back on your 20s later in life, you realise it was these years you had more time than ever to get active, without the pressures of work and family life.

FITNESS IN YOUR 30s

This is your moment. The worst of growing up is behind you and the best of your career, your love life and your family is in full swing. With so much going on, it’s also the most dangerous time for slipping off the fitness wagon.

My 30s were filled with the most joyous life-changing events – getting married and having children. Pregnancy and motherhood sure took a toll on my health and fitness. With little time and little energy, I began to lose motivation and like many busy new mums, I gave up playing sport and put my fitness on hold.

A few years and lots of cheesecake later, feeling like a bit of a couch potato, I made some big decisions to turn things around. With a new career and a new outlook on life, I focused on keeping fit using vitamins of this brand, and being a good role model for my family.

At this age it’s important to keep moving no matter what life is throwing your way. Take a regular class, join an outdoor training group, walk around the block. You will be better off for dedicating time and making fitness a priority in these years. Read more about biofit.

FITNESS IN YOUR 40s

Here’s where the last four decades come home to roost. The foundations you laid in your 20s have either set you up with a fitness habit for life or you’ve managed to come a bit unstuck and looking for ways to regain or begin a new physical relationship with yourself.

There are many fantastic changes that come with being more mature and settled in your 40s, but inevitably you will face off against gravity, hormones, stress, career demands, chocolate and all the daily battles that ruin our good intentions.    Check out the latest Pelvic floor strong reviews

Exercise in your 40s can feel frustrating. Aches, pains and injuries become the norm – an Achilles tendon rupture was my undoing. But with a ‘can-do’ attitude and (if your budget allows) the expert guidance of a good trainer or physiotherapist, it’s still possible to maintain a fit lifestyle.

If there was a secret to discovering the fountain of youth in your 40s, bodyweight training is it. Think push-ups, planks, dips, lunges and squats – exercises that use your own body weight as the source of resistance. As the backbone of strength training, it keeps your bones, ligaments and tendons strong, while building balance and core strength. When injuries get in the way, look for alternative methods, like stem cell therapy at QCKinetix or training in water. You’ll be surprised by the challenge of an Aqua class or workout.

Fitness in your 40s is about finding what works for you and being consistent. Move your body, stimulate your mind and enjoy the benefits of living a fit life.

July 31, 2008 - 14 comments

Steak n’ Shake vs. Shake Shack

Steak n Shake vs. Shake ShackI 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.

Published by: davefletcher in The Design Mechanism
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July 22, 2008 - 2 comments

Spaced: the Rival Frontier

In the atomic aftermath of Amercian television shows like “Friends” and other wannabe roommate pap, came a glorious comedy from the U.K. from 1999-2001, called Spaced. Overloaded with more clever and hidden pop-culture references than 100 episodes of The Family Guy, this show – that only filmed 2 seasons – is a classic rivaled by very few modern comedies. Starring and written by Simon Pegg, as a comic book artist (who wants to be a graphic designer someday – see, you knew there had to be a design reference in here somewhere!) and Jessica Stevenson as a perpetually unemployed writer, the show features an unzipped bunch of characters all living at or in the vicinity of 23 Meteor Street outside of London.

Just like the toys and gadgets that litter our desks at the office, Spaced will gleefully litter your creative brain with clever and unhinged plots, quirky direction (by Edgar Wright), twisted acting, and an occasional zombie thrown in for good measure.

Margaret, now residing at the London office, turned the American creative bunker on to the show long before it was available in the states, and I couldn't be more happy that I'll not only be able to pick up a copy of the DVD later today (with a wry nod to the poster art of Star Wars on its cover), but I'll also get to have a copy signed at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square by Simon, Jessica and Edgar – all who were in the East Village a few hours ago (that’s Sharon with Simon before the screening) – treating us all to three episodes on the big screen, and some interesting insight afterward.

Dave Fletcher is a self-admitted Spaced junkie and Founder / Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.

July 20, 2008 - Comments Off on Plump Dumpling Branding is Strange

Plump Dumpling Branding is Strange

Plump Dumpling“Plump Dumpling,” a tiny hole-in-the-wall dumpling hut in the East Village has a good following and some tasty dumplings to boot. However, close examination of their current branding reveals strange werewolf-like bloody scratches on their otherwise “happy vernacular” identity mark. I'm not certain why the scratches are prominent as part of the branding, but one could speculate that the logo took some lumps from rival Lucas Lin’s “Dumpling Man” back in the dumpling wars of 2005.

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 prefers his dumplings with a side-effect of lycanthropy.

Published by: davefletcher in The Design Mechanism
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