Visit The Frick Collection

No Title

I'm alone, but it's okay
All around me are inky memories
But the cows, the cows are real.

They low and their calls
Are like blotches absorbing into canvas
Like the way you forget:

Fibers take fluid
Distort and pull apart
Dark reaching out, out
Thoughts spreading into the blank

Maybe,
Maybe I could press my face against the trees
Press my eyes against the sky

Maybe I could vaporize,
Soak the air like the low, lowing of cows.

The Lake by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot from The Frick Collection

Rule: Visit The Frick. You just should. Lots of things to inspire.

I really, really thought about titling this "Cows Cows Cows," or "Ink-Cow-Memory Jam," but then I had a bratwurst and I realized that would be absolutely horrible and would drive people to claw their faces off and then try to find me and set me on fire.

Extra rule: Once you've eaten all the bratwurst, there is no more bratwurst. This makes Sandy sad. Like, really sad. Sad enough to create a rule about it.

Packaging design: missing the point

images from TheDieline.com

I love TheDieline.com because I love packaging. Sometimes they show the most AMAZING packaging, and sometimes stuff that's just well-done. Yet other times, they feature something that I disagree with (not that I disagree with the site, but rather the concept of the packaging).

More images of the line here.

I see what they're going for here, but I don't think this is the appropriate feel for cheese. I agree with making it more accessible, but I think most people want to feel sophisticated, rather than stylish when (specifically) consuming cheese. They want to feel like it's accessible, not convenient. They want it to feel timeless/aged, not new and trendy.

I'm cool with the awesome type on the inside of the package, and accessibility is handled well with the brief descriptions, but the tone is all wrong. Plus, do we really need more packaging that does the ubiquitous isolated product shot floating on a mystery, reflective, white surface with giant sans serif behind it to be hip and edgy? Also, what the hell is with that handwritten script?! Where does that even come from? Doesn't fit the theme at all. Boooo, cheese. You make me not want to buy you. Which says a lot, because I love to buy cheese.

Look forward to more gripes about packaging soon.

Rule: Do research into your market AND your demographic. Just because you're pitching to ego-centric yuppies doesn't mean that you want to design their cheese packaging like their perfume packaging.

Gotta Catch 'Em All

I've found that most of the people I know have their own way of capturing the world around them. Every day I see people take photos, write, paint, sew, play music, etc.

I feel like these are ways to hold close the beautiful and interesting things around you. It turns the moments, the light, the texture of the world and makes it physical. Archive-able. Sharable. You could say that it's a legacy of things you think about and notice. The part of your personality and aesthetic you wish to pass along, or at least record.



Walking around with something that I can capture the world around me with helps too. I feel like it sometimes it makes me more observant. It's like a little voice in my bag saying, "Look at that! Look at this!" I look for the things that inspire me. On a bad day, having that reminder to look for things I admire or that fiddle with my brain helps to reaffirm my satisfaction with my life and the world.



And at other times, it's handy for wonderful (and I mean that most literally) things I happen upon purely by accident.



And sometimes it's good for being selfish. Capturing to have for always. This piece of the world and of time to hold and think about. Sometimes something has texture that makes me want to rub my eyeballs on it. Sometimes a moment feels like a sound, or a set of words. Sometimes I want to wrap myself in soft things, pretty things, turn myself into a shape. Sometimes I want to put things that have survived human history under a glass jar to ogle, to appreciate, to mock.

I personally do this for vanity and selfishness and hedonism. I like reading the things that I write (sometimes) and looking at the photos I take, because (if I'm successful) they evoke in me the emotions I had when I wrote or photographed. Maybe it's because I'm a control freak and I like setting up my own stimuli.

Others might want to send a message straight into the retina. Make pupils contract. Make sphincters tighten. Make hearts beat and neck hairs stand on end. Sometimes they want people to be outraged, to be sympathetic, to be sad, to be joyful. Essentially sometimes they want people to care about something. These are worthy causes, especially if there's something important to say with these snippets of the world.

I don't really do that yet. Gotta work my way up to it, i guess.

Rule: Capture something of the world at least once for yourself or others.

Take sexy photos

...of stuff you love.

Today, a package arrive for my boss, and inside it was some stuff for him, and a little green-gold gem for me. Olive oil! A lovely present. I took it home and immediately admired it's clean, perfume-inspired labeling, but rustic, shapely packaging. I imagined the silky goodness inside. Putting it in my cupboard, I realized that the other olive oils I had were packaged beautifully and looked scrumptious as well! I decided to have a sexy photo shoot with them!