This is an article I read today about a scientific, forensic-based illustration of what Jesus of Nazareth probably looked like. Here’s the full picture:
And here’s the Jesus with PJ’s iconic goggles added:
And this is my boss, PJ (on the right, obviously):
Slightly awesome.
I pay others to do things for 2 reasons: I can’t do them due to lack of skill, knowledge, or ability, or I don’t have the time to do them. And since I’m not rich enough to do the latter most of the time, it usually is because it’s outside of my expertise that I go to others.
One thing I will never understand, is how a client hires a designer or ad agency for their extensive knowledge and experience, and then completely disregards it.
You would most likely not argue with a doctor over the right treatment, am I right? Because he likely knows more than you in the field of medicine, and your health depends on it. You don’t hire a lawyer just for the hell of it, you do it because you can’t defend yourself in a court of law without probably being found guilty or doing time. Not a mechanic? You take it to a garage or dealership, and someone who knows what they’re doing fixes your car so you have a vehicle that works properly. You hire an architect, engineer or contractor because you can’t design and build structures unless you’re licensed and trained to do so. Can’t cut your own hair? Visit a barber or hair stylist. Can’t cook? Eat out. Because you can’t do it, you find those who can if you want it done right.
So why businesses continue to hire designers or ad agencies, ask their “expert opinion”, and then dismiss it with “Hmm… That all seems really cool, but I think we should do it this way…” is beyond me.
“I’m no designer, but this is how I’d do it.”
I’d like to see how well that works next time they need surgery or their car starts smoking. Argue with the doctor or mechanic and let them know exactly what you’d do with your extensive knowledge of dick-nothing in their respective field. “Yeah, well, I’m no doctor, but this is how I’d take out a polyp.”
It also blows my mind that despite the fact that they can’t do it, that they’re also difficult in paying for it as well. Suddenly, in addition to being versed in design, they’re also seasoned appraisers of the work’s worth as well. Website design? How’s $500?
This is one of the main reasons that I don’t do anymore “freelance” work for non-agencies. Big clients are a pain in the ass, but difficulty knows no bounds like a bullshit-nobody-of-a-client. At least big clients pay more, because they’re at least used to dealing with agency rates.
You want a website for your cousin’s bakery? There’s not much money, yet somehow “it’s a big opportunity?” Your friend of a friend of a friend’s nephew’s neighbor recommended me, so we’re basically best friends and I should do you a solid? Well thanks, bro, but I’d rather not waste the next 2 years of my life dicking around with your cheap, difficult, and generally un-trusting nature, while you pay me a whopping $500 and expect 24-hour service on a website that gets blown out of proportion fast, and quickly turns from a “3-page HTML” site into some unwieldy Flash-monster of a site—which somehow sprouted a blog and e-commerce section to boot! I am not a programmer, I do not deal with e-commerce, yet somehow when I try to pawn you off on someone else more experienced to do the actual work that I myself tell you I can’t complete, you get huffy and say “isn’t that what I paid you for?” Somehow cheapness, stupidity, and forgetfulness are common in clients. I learned years ago to cut out pain-in-the-ass freelance clients, and I’m still dealing with a few of them to this day, trying to cut them off completely.
The few that pay and are respectful, I deal with just fine, and they’re great to work with. These guys are great, and will absolutely love almost anything you make for them. There may be some back and forth to get it right, which I completely understand—they are paying for something that they need to be happy with and that does what they need it to do. With some clients though, I get to a point where my integrity in the project is lost, and I no longer feel that the work is “good”, and that’s when things get dangerous for the client and the work. It happens more often than not, and that is perhaps the one thing that may make me quit this industry before I should be done with it.
A picture is worth a thousand words, unless there’s a typo. A single missing letter can sometimes give us a thousand images that we may not have wanted to imagine.
Case in point:
This was, in all actuality, a positive review of a restaurant. The original article can be found here. But one missing letter can change the entire meaning of that sentence. While not intentional, and more mature folks than myself would just shake it off or want to string me up as a silly person (I admit, guilty), there is something to be learned from it.
The bad thing with online typos—and I’m guilty of them myself—is that they can spread super fast since they’re available to the world and as close as “just a click away”. The good thing, is that they can fortunately be fixed fast and updated, whereas you can’t do that with print. But fixing it before all the masses see it and comment on it, isn’t always the case.
I’ve noticed it a lot lately that many online bloggers can’t spell to save their lives, and they’ll hit the “upload” button before even reading over it. Frequently, they’re in major publications. For some, they think this may not matter (as a result of apathy or laziness), but for others, they may not even realize that it’s a typo because their grammar and spelling is atrocious—at best—in the first place. I blame it partly on ignorance, apathetic Americans, a poor public education system, and even things such as Twitter or texting. With all these publication tools at our disposal today, we’re butchering the English language more and more. There’s no craft to it anymore. I’m by no means a wordsmith or literary scholar, but I at least care about presentation in what I do write (the griping drivel that it is) and I paid attention in school.
Proofread, people.
I’ve been following this guy for awhile now.
Bob Hoffman is the CEO of Hoffman/Lewis advertising agency in San Francisco. I have never worked for him and may never, but I appreciate his no-nonsense approach to advertising. He’s essentially got the same realistic approach to all this new web-based nonsense as I do. But where I’ve only been dealing with this industry for only a decade (and that’s stretching it), he’s been in it for years. And he’s witnessed the ups and downs, all the new-but-stupid tech come and go and the good stick around. Even though I got into this game in the heat of the web phenomenon, I’ve seen the silly rise and false worship of things like social media, iPad apps, etc. over the past 5 years, and despite being in the midst of all these folks born into this mess, I still have kept my wits about me to realize that the majority of it is sheer waste and utter nonsense. There’s no reason most companies need a Facebook page if they have their own website. No reason for a twitter feed, or AR (augmented reality) videos, or YouTube channels, or being involved with FourSquare… There’s no reason they need “apps”, no matter the platform. Yet clients keep wanting them and the social media and “strategy” hacks keep touting the importance of all these gimmicks, so the ad-world keeps selling it.
Here are two great articles that basically sum up—or add some back-up to—my previous entries on the follies of the iPad and other posts on Social Media and the like:
The Web Advertising Dilemma
The Amazing Social Media Swindle
You can just write him off as a silly grump, just like me, who is just opposed to change or doesn’t want to be positive about anything. In fact, I am positive about some things in advertising, and he is as well. It’s just that there’s so much bullshit lately that it’s hard to actually find the good mixed in with all the wasteful rubbish.
Five years ago, our Interactive Strategist hack at the agency which I worked was sure to include the following buzzwords into every single pitch and interactive project: SMS, Google Maps, geo-tagging, “having conversations”, Widgets, Flickr, metrics, and “hybrid” sites (meaning HTML and Flash, which wasn’t even an idea, really, but the general norm for most sites.) And if he could somehow combine several, wow… the higher-ups ate it up. A “genius” idea would be to have a Google Maps widget that would geo-tag where you visited and you could upload images from your Flickr account via SMS and do <insert some action related to the actual client or product, and something-or-another here>. I’m not kidding, it was that templated. Every. Single. Pitch. And never got fired. It was a copy/paste effort every single time. Things have changed, and now the buzzwords are different, but they’re essentially the same nonsense. Facebook/iPhone/iPad apps, iAds, Twitter Feeds, Augmented Reality, etc. The only one that’s really stuck around is “having conversations”, although that’s more or less become a staple.
At one point, I was an avid follower (and still to a very minimal degree) of the “telling stories/having conversations” but not in the absurdly-literal sense that most agencies mean nowadays. Bob’s writings boil it down perfectly:
“We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.”
Advertising has somehow turned the view of what it does from “selling products” to “making people feel good about brands“. While I do agree that a brand’s image does matter, you aren’t going to sell shit by simply being a cool cat or being chummy and chatty with folks. You must keep a positive brand image, but it’s not going to cover up the fact that you’re selling a shit-tastic product. Put it this way: Would I buy a Hyundai? Goodby did a great job of turning their brand image around, and maybe the Genesis is a solid car, but I still would not buy a Hyundai. The cars look cheap. On the other hand, BP has simply made a (literal) mess of itself with the Gulf spill, but I won’t avoid BP gas stations simply because of it. If the gas was found to be dirty? Sure, but when it boils down to it, I’ll take shitty brand dealings and a solid product over a turd product wrapped in a shiny, friendly brand.
Anyone remember the big “IT” invention that was heralded about 10 years back? Good Morning America did a big feature on it. Supposedly, this inventor had a mysterious, secret device that would revolutionize the way that the world went about daily life. What was this magical thing?
The Segway.
Yeah, that ridiculous pseudo-future-tech transportation device that’s too heavy and awkward to get onto public transit (they won’t let you on with a bicycle half the time, let alone a wheelchair-robot-scooter) and too expensive for the average Joe to even own. You can’t take them up stairs, and they generally don’t have enough power to make it up major inclines. San Francisco has some super-powered ones for tours, which is about the only average use I can think of them for “average” citizens. I’ve seen some cops with them, and perhaps that is one of the only general- or public-service uses that doesn’t seem downright absurd. In fact, it sensibly replaces “mounted police” by giving them an elevated view of the sidewalks without having to have horse shit strewn all about metropolitan areas and endangering horses. Besides that, the only other thing that Segways seem to do is point out rich douchebags who are too lazy to walk and too eccentric to just use other modes of public transit. They may be fun to ride (I’ve never gotten a chance and do slightly want to, but not badly enough to have actively searched one out in the last decade) but the only thing they do for me personally is make me have feelings like I’m in the future, in a bad movie, where the future is inaccurately predicted with silly tech. Now a Hover Board or jetpack? That would be a cool advancement in technology with which I would be onboard.
Fast-forward, past the extreme success of both the iPod and its hybrid-offspring iPhone, which honestly did revolutionize their industries. Finally, MP3s leapt from the desktop or laptop harddrive and existed as a decent standalone storage/playback device that played music. Boy, did the iPod catch on, and it may potentially be the biggest change in music since the cassette tape-to-CD medium conversion. The iPod, amidst all its copycats, is still the default and most iconic MP3 player on the market, and is perhaps the second biggest milestone in digital computing devices after the laptop detached the computer from the desk. I’m never an early adopter on new tech, but from the beginning I didn’t doubt the iPod and its impact on technology. I actually waited for the iPod to get video, but that gave it the edge that I needed for me to finally bite the bullet and buy one. It was great, even with its small screen. In fact, I went ahead and got the “classic” iPod Video despite rumors that a new touchscreen was in the works; it was that cool, and the larger touchscreen wasn’t enough for me to wait on. It’s a good thing I didn’t bother with the touchscreen iPod, because I ended up buying one later anyways—except this time, it actually had a phone in it. And the same as with the iPod, I waited until a generation or two were out on the market before I got the iPhone 3G. Partly because it worked out the kinks from previous versions, but also because my Verizon plan didn’t end until then anyways.
Despite hating AT&T’s spotty signal and bottlenecked network—especially living in Silicon Valley, with all its local network traffic—and despite it being the worst actual phone I’ve ever owned (I can’t hear for shit on it), the iPhone has been a really cool device that’s been worth owning. Even with spotty signal and crappy call reception, the other things that it does outweighs the negatives. The familiar iChat-like texting interface almost makes texting bearable, and its touchscreen has held up way better than I originally doubted. The Google Maps app gave me a portable nav system, and the already-familiar Apple Mail and Safari give me internet connection that I sorely missed in the few months that I commuted 3 hours a day by train without it. Plus, it doubles as an iPod, so I don’t even need to carry around my normal iPod except on long trips. And the screen plays movies at a decent size, although the battery drains fast on flights. The rest of the apps I could give or take, and aside from a few non-default apps that I’ve downloaded, I’m not an app-whore like most people I know. I think I have 3 screens total, and the third is only half-full. I may have a game or two, but don’t see the need to have hundreds of silly apps like most. It’s a solid utilitarian phone that has many uses in my daily commute, and comes in super-handy on vacation and in other travel.
Now with all this hype and almost-all-positive review of the iPod and iPhone, why do I hate the iPad? I’ve loved my Macs (mostly) and have felt that they were really solid computers, despite the premium pricetag and douchetastic “Genius Bar” tech support. If I wasn’t a designer and essentially required due to my field’s use of them, I’d still probably buy them, due to their overall stability and aesthetics. I still own my 9-year-old G4 PowerBook, even though it’s on its last leg and scratched to hell. It’s slower than piss, but is still better than my parent’s 5-year old PC.
Why the hate for the iPad? Well, I work in advertising, for one. Every client wants three needless things: Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and Apps. Facebook apps, iPhone apps, and now iPad apps. Advertising has pissed itself in excitement about the cutting-edge-cool-and-future-promise-of-awesome that the iPad delivers. I hope it fails. For one, the iPhone, iPad and Facebook are all communications mediums, not entertainment mediums. While 60+ years of modern television and radio advertising has conditioned us to expect ads without us getting mad at it “ruining” our experience, we don’t really expect ads in communication channels. Websites have been running banner ads for years, but those ads are just like print ads or any other ads that people can generally ignore. Only in television and radio is the content completely blocked until the ads are over, then you’re returned to your programming. But these ads pay for free content, so you put up with them. You wouldn’t want to get a letter or phone call, but be interrupted with an ad mid-read or mid-conversation.
With Apps, what is essentially happening is that ads are created as purely ads that they intend people to interact with and enjoy, and sometimes pay for. They want the ads to become entertainment, and they can encroach upon actual conversations sometimes too. I don’t want to be mid-anything and have ads pop up and ruin my entertainment, and I sure as hell am not ever going to pay for that. An iPad isn’t a cheap device that ads help to deflect some of the costs… The sonofabitch is expensive, and the apps aren’t cheap either.
So if you love the iPhone and your MacBook/PowerBooks, how come you hate the iPad? Isn’t it the same thing? Other than the terrible name and my industry already making me hate it due to all the retarded hype about senseless apps, the thing that makes me hate the iPad is that Apple and all its blind-sheep-fans market it as both the iPhone and a laptop, while in actuality being neither.
Sure, it shares similarities with both, but it’s definitely neither. At least as far as sharing any of the things that make the iPhone and MacBook worth owning. But without a camera, internet (initially, the data plan was not available) or phone connection, the iPad is a giant iPhone that doesn’t make calls, take pictures, or go online without wi-fi connection. It’s essentially a bigass iPod Touch, with new apps and more storage space. Sure, the battery life lasts longer, and the screen is bigger. It makes a big portable tv screen, but not $400+ worth. As far as a computer, it doesn’t have a solid internet connection even with a 3G/4G connection, and if you’re on a wireless connection, why not just use a laptop that’s ergonomically better for typing anyways, and has more functionality for a lower price (when compared to a Windows laptop). The iPad doesn’t have a QWERTY keypad that you can type on and have a very large screen (because they share the same space) and for me, a laptop’s construction holds the screen upright and frees both hands. With an iPad, you have to prop it up with something, sit it on your lap or tabletop and hunch over it, which makes it a terrible typing tool. Again, just a bigass iPod Touch. Yeah yeah, some of the apps help to play up the accelerometer’s cool functionality, and the touch functionality is kind of cool in some instances, but I don’t think it’s playing up to its potential.
What will it take for me to buy an iPad? Well, for starters, it’s going to have to evolve far beyond what it is: a giant iPod Touch with a decent-sized screen for video, and a better battery life than both an iPod or MacBook. The latest MacBook Pro has no buttons on the keypad, and it’s essentially a blind touch-screen. The keyboard can break and keys can get stuck, and stuff can get spilled in the cracks. What I foresee, and what I think could happen after the iPhone 4’s recent unveiling, is that we’ll see a year or two with silly iPad apps and advancement with the touchscreen and battery-life. Sure, people will buy the dumbass thing, and I’ll be driven nuts by idiot clients wanting senseless apps. That won’t go away anytime soon, I don’t think, thanks to the hack interactive strategy guys out there reading all the bullshit on the tech blogs. But with an increase in battery life, better screen resolution, and better touchscreen innovation, I think they’ll tuck the iPads back into the MacBook concept, and what we’ll get is a dual-screen, dual-camera, slightly-smaller laptop without a traditional keyboard or mousepad. Visualize this: two iPads anchored by a sturdy swivel-connector so that it can be closed or opened, and we can get more use out of the touchscreens—and more screen in a laptop! By adding the swivel, it can be turned into a 2-sided tablet, 1-sided tablet, or safely closed, and I think that it should still utilize a stylus, completely ridding the need of a mouse but giving the sensitivity and control of a Wacom stylus if writing becomes necessary—something that the iPad or iPhone lacks in tactile control. (i.e. your handwriting looks like childish scribbling because a fingertip isn’t as controlled as a pen-tip.) And maybe—maybe—video teleconferencing that could make a separate iPhone semi-unnecessary.
I could be completely wrong, and the iPad could retain a life of its own and become immensely popular… perhaps blowing the iPod and laptop completely out of the water. But I don’t see the need for all these damned gadgets being lugged around on a daily basis, when they could all be condensed into one slim, sturdy device that has all the functionality of all of them, and twice the battery life of an iPod, iPhone, and iPad combined.
A former friend told me a few years back that texting was the wave of the future.
I still fail to see how a backwards technology such as texting is by any standards a “futuristic” innovation that’s soon to supplant all other forms of digital communication. All it is, is a modern form of telegraph: textual messages, limited to a character count usually, sent over telephone signal. So they’re sent via the airwaves and not wires in the Old West. Big technological jump.
The other big thing holding it back for me, is that on a QWERTY keyboard, as in a full-sized, useful keyboard, I can type anywhere from 90-100 words a minute. What taught me that? Instant messaging. And I can type full sentences at that speed. Texting, at best, I can mistype words at 1/10 of that speed. Maybe 13 year old girls can beat my QWERTY-typing on a phone keypad, but I don’t see as how that’s a negative impact on my life, or advancing technology or society in any stretch.
I honestly feel that crap like texting and Twitter are single-handedly ruining an already retarded American population who can’t for the life of them pay attention for longer than 21 seconds, spell 7 words in a row correctly, or write in complete sentences.
The only phone where texting doesn’t give me a headache is on my iPhone, simply because I have a somewhat-traditional QWERTY layout. Even then, the keys are too small and it autocorrects words that I would normally spell right… That is, if I weren’t hitting 3 keys at once, or it weren’t guessing words that were actually spelled right that it thinks I misspelled. I’d say half my texting on my iPhone is me hitting the backspace to either correct its false autocorrects, or because I hit the wrong keys.
Even dumber is that states have finally started to make texting illegal while driving, although actual cellphone-use-while-driving was banned years ago. Texting should have been banned from the start, although disproving it in court seems like it wouldn’t be that hard. And I’m also sure that, like most traffic violations, it’s not one bit about public safety, but just some bullshit-revenue-booster and to appease the whiny folks who are out campaigning for “safer roads”. Using a cellphone, besides the actual dialing part, doesn’t seem to me to be dangerous at all. And even with “hands-free” use, most people still have to dial the damned number just like they would any other time, which is the most dangerous part in the first place: the time when their eyes and attention aren’t on the road. Instead, as a society we get to increase the number of douchebags on the streets with Bluetooth headsets who continue to use the stupid things outside of driving. At least you can’t text on a Bluetooth headset… yet.
Do I text? Yes, I do, when it makes sense. But if I’m at my desk and you’re at your desk, fucking instant message me where I can keep going about my business. Picking up my phone and dealing with a completely-anti-ergonomic keyboard and shorthand moron-speak is not a streamlined method of communication. Need to tell me anything in length? Send me a short e-mail or call me. Send me a photo? E-mail… You get the picture. If I’m in a meeting, texting may be the easiest way to get ahold of me, but in this day and age of using all these tech devices, to send someone a text is the least efficient method out of all the available options, 9 times out of 10. And heaven forbid, consider meeting the person in person or call them if they’re too far away. And remember: nothing says “Happy Birthday” like a text message or Facebook-wall-post, kiddos.
I completely forget about soccer—or as the world likes to call it, “football”—until every four years roll around. Then suddenly everyone’s a fan.
I don’t even care about the naming of it. Football makes sense. It is silly that we as Americans call it something else when “American Football” doesn’t even involve touching the ball to the foot except in kickoffs or field goals.
Anyone close to me knows that as far as sports go, I am not much of a fan. I think that overpaid athletes-turned-douchebag-celebrities are worthless, no matter what sport they play. The common excuse that people give for athletes is that they’re role models. I think that’s a problem with half the dumbshits in America, is that they think they can take the easy way out by being a rapper or athlete, and live that rags-to-riches lifestyle like these very role models.
But when it comes to mainstream, professional sports, if I were to pick one that somewhat interests me, I would have to say baseball. Why? Because unlike basketball, football (American), soccer (futbol), and hockey, it’s essentially the same goddamn sport: 2 opposing teams, with an object (ball or puck) that they’re trying to get from one net to another across a field or court. Even the fields are roughly the same layouts! Besides details in gameplay and specifics in scoring, one could argue that they’re different, but they’re not when you boil it down to the basics. Baseball is at least different in the rules and gameplay, although I am not going to defend it too much because the athletes are just as petty, ignorant and overpaid, and the games are frankly boring as piss to watch. My dad’s a big fan, and I’ve sat through more baseball games than anything else. And I just can’t even get into it then, beyond the principal of it being interesting by being different.
In the order of sports “watchability”, I would say my ordering would be basketball first, followed by football or hockey, then baseball, and way past bowling but slightly before golf would fall soccer. I didn’t grow up around it, I never enjoyed playing it as a kid, and it’s not followed much in America. I’m not yearning to get into American sports, and I just can’t see wanting to get into a sport that is even more foreign. To me, it’s on the same level of “I give a crap” as most of the events in the winter Olympics. And this isn’t some “Goldurn it, it ain’t American, so I ain’t watchin’ it!” mentality. The rest of the world can enjoy it—we’ve got too many “American” sports as it is anyways. They should be glad the U.S. hasn’t properly ruined something sacred of theirs. I realize that it has a huge following—probably as strong as, if not stronger than, the Olympics. I get that. What I don’t get is that Americans, for the most part, could care less except for World Cup season.
The thing I hate the most about the World Cup’s “sudden fans” is that there seems to be this blatant disregard for sports by many of them… but every four years, they become fauxropean-cool just by association of watching the Cup. All of a sudden, they’re all about this international phenomenon. I work with a bunch of international co-workers: Brazilians, Italians, Japanese, Mexican, British, French. They’re all about the sport. So obviously, the office is abuzz more than say, a typical “American-owned” business. Ya know, due to all the genuine, international fans pulling for their teams that they’ve been pulling for their entire lives. The ones who irritate me are, you guessed it, these “honorary-European-by-association” cool kid hipsters who could normally give two half shits about sports or soccer, but suddenly they’re following the World Cup like people watch apocalyptic newscasts in a Michael Bay flick.
Our office even has a pool going on—one that’s somehow mandatory. Out of principal, I want nothing to do with it, and nobody can seem to understand why. Nor will they leave me alone about it. I don’t mind true fans watching it; frankly, I hope they enjoy it with all their heart. But I don’t want to have to learn, or have to pretend to care about, some dumbass sport that I could care less about the other 46 months of its4-year cycle, let alone during the obnoxiously-hyped World Cup series. And I don’t want to hear all these pretend-a-fans jabber on about how awesome it is, because they don’t think it is. They’re just trying to play up the cool factor and be Fauxropean for a month or so until it passes, then they’ll be quiet about soccer—if not sports in general—for another four years. At least I can be thankful for that silence, at least.
I haven’t been on a proper vacation since probably Spring Break sometime back in college...
Sure, I’ve traveled back and forth from NC and CA quite a bit, and people have visited us and stayed for weeks at a time since we moved to California… But I mean “vacation” in the sense that you go somewhere like a hotel, you don’t stay with relatives or friends, you don’t have one thing to do with work, and it’s not to visit family or friends. It’s to vacation. The last time I did major ”touristy” things without friends or family was probably when Mia drove out to SF from NC, and we did do the whole roadtrip thing on I-40, but that was with a carload full of stuff, and we were moving her. While it was vacation-like, it just wasn’t. We did get to see the Grand Canyon, though, so that was cool.
Sometime right after getting back from visiting our families at Christmas, Mia and I broke down and said fuck it. We need a vacation. For over 5 years, we’ve either used all our PTO to see each other or to see family and friends, and I’d been putting off travel due to finances since my layoff and moving incident. We bit the bullet and dumped the dough on a trip to Hawaii.
So from May 19th to the 26th, we spent a full week in Maui. And boy, was it was worth it. And I got a semi-tan… well, as tan as my Irish-skinned ass can get “tanned”. I was pretty red the night before we flew back, and I did get fairly burnt, although nothing too painful. By the time we arrived home though, I had already started peeling, which is the way my body handles sunburn in the first place—I definitely don’t “tan” by the standard definition of the word.
We mostly stayed at the resort and hung out at the pool with drinks and lunch brought to us. We also ate at a lot of really awesome (and really expensive) places and did the “Road to Hana” drive. Maui is one of the less-lush islands, but with more resorts. It’s also less-touristy than most. Hana is on the north-eastern side of the island, and is the most Jurassic-Park-y part of the island. It’s a day trip, and we spent probably a good 4-5 hours in each direction driving on windy, narrow roads overhanging cliffs to see waterfalls, great shots of the Pacific, and avoiding Velociraptors.
See, a genuine, positive, gosh-darnit-smiley-time post for once. 
What have I been up to?
Busy with work, and not wanting to keep up with a blog… What else?
Nobody reads it anyways, so I imagine it will fall to the wayside like my past attempts at blogs.
Update: Alex Ford reads it! One reader! So I’ll keep it going for now…
So for about 8 months, I’ve been working on the rebranding of the Yes to… line of beauty products.
I’d never heard of them before working on it, so don’t be surprised that you haven’t either.
They’re a newish brand, based in San Francisco, and have a health-based background.
There’s Yes to Carrots, Yes to Cucumbers, and Yes to Tomatoes, which each specific “flavor” has a specific usage… For face, hair, etc. There’s about 50 different products we’ve had to design, along with boxes so a total of 80 or so unique total labels or boxes to have designed since August. Not to mention the new logo design and identity structure across the board.
Their newly launched baby line, Yes to Baby Carrots, is the first out the gate to retailers. Here are the first 4 of the 5 designed so far, and while they aren’t exactly like we wanted them, they’re the first mass-produced product design that I’ve done, and I’ve worked on quite a bit of packaging so far in my career. Why is that? Well, there’s simply a LOT of approval rounds and chances for the product to get killed, and often times, things die before they reach production.
And of all things, a beauty line—baby product, at that—is my first. Who woulda guessed?
(The adult, main line is a much better system, as the baby line is a much brighter, more playful palette and the layout isn’t as polished as I’d like… but it’s for babies. I’ll post the main line as soon as it’s launched.)