Armaments of mass Fabrication

In only three years Go Media’s Weapons of Mass Creation has transitioned from a novel summer event to a staple festival for music, art, and design in Cleveland. While I have yet to attend the festival, the design community has been buzzing for months with anticipation. The August 16-18 weekend event boast over 40 bands along with 20 speakers and 20 designers. While the bands don’t interest me at all I am curious to see what some of their speakers have to say about design and arts  & culture.

The question is, do you volunteer and gain free access to the event or pay the $75 for the weekend pass? In the past I have found that volunteering often makes it difficult to enjoy an event. I have made a point not to voluteer when for design events when I really want to hear a speaker because I’ve missed a lot of great presentations doing so. However a large part of WMC is music and many of the speakers topics are still TBA. I guess it’s just the cost to be in the scene.

Prediction: A Web Revolution is Coming

I’m about a week late, but the highly anticipated web fonts from Hoefler Frere-Jones  were finally made available last week. I was really excited when I saw the $99/yr price tag and a couple other fringe benefits such as being able to combine total page view across all hosted sites and access to all previously purchased HFJ typefaces. While licensing through typekit and webtype allowed for greater flexibility for web typography than before, you were forced to choose between low price/poor selection or high price/limited use. HFJ’s new structure allows for a reasonable price for high quality typefaces with extra incentive to stock up on faces from there foundry (in your face font bureau). With so many beautiful faces available it makes me want to  spend all my afternoons designing experimental sites.

So what does this mean for the internet, and the future of design? Well I will surmise that the internet is going to get extra sexy over the next decade and designers in general are going to have step up they’re typography a couple notches. Definitely an exciting time for design. UltraKudos to HFJ.

Obamarama

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a members only AIGA event where former Twist Creative designers Lee Zelenak and Carli Dottore spoke about their experience in designing for the 2012 Obama Campaign. This highly informative open forum event covered issues such as workload, beating the stress, and the friendships gained from the experience.

 

The designers spoke on the thrill of seeing their designs being implemented hours after their creation and the boons of banes of the worldwide exposure. Many of the hastily made logos and icons were adopted for apparel or became a widely used piece (If only there was more time to kern). The session ended with a heartwarming story of how President Obama hugged and thanked the hundreds of volunteers individually (and the tears that ensued for some of those volunteers).

 

Picture That

“If it’s not a picture, I’m not reading it!”, said half the designers I know. So I’ll save the copywriting for my awesome brotern comrades and bedazzle your eyes with some colorful quips. Heres how my week went.

That’s right, orientation awesomeness with tours and paperwork and stuff.

Acting, not quite my thing but you don’t know it until you try it. Working on the Captain RTA trailer was all the proof I needed that I should stay behind the camera.

Editing videos for Vitamix, now that’s more like it.

Finit