I like using Reddit to gauge my different theories about social media, how people use it and what they gravitate towards. Obviously, different communities will like different things but as a whole Reddit has some of the most skeptical users on the internet. I pulled a photo I shot at some point last year and posted it and sure enough it hit the top spot.
I designed a holiday card this year for Sheena, Izzy and I. I don't really consider myself Jewish, but since she's definitely going to celebrate Christmas because of Sheena I figured I might as well through something for Hannukah in there too.
I wrote something the other day for LinkedIn that resonated with a few people.
When I've had free time I've been working with my old collegiate debate society to create a new ad campaign for them to use on campus and their social channels. I pitched them a few platforms, but they settled on one I called "TikTalk." The core insight being that today's youth are missing out on necessary communication skills as they've migrated from real life interaction to digital.
From there I gave them a few campaigns and they chose "Go Viral for Something You Can be Proud of." With a long list of famous alumni who have achieved fame in their fields, it made sense to highlight that there are a lot of bad ways to go viral but when you are an effective communicator you have the chance to become famous for something positive.
Below are the print and social. I also pitched them on working with University Archives, as the school's oldest student organization, to host an exhibit under the same name featuring artifacts of the society's most famous alumni.
As far as design, I took cues from design in the 1800's, since the society was founded in 1803 (200 years before Facebook). I also used a font named Philosophers my friend Eric Doctor made. The letter forms, glyphs and even name were spiritually perfect for the project.
Some more fun with Izzy.
One of my challenges to myself is looking at the various photos I've taken of Izzy and trying to figure out what her pose reminds me of. Then I take the photo into Photoshop and use a combination of Generative Fill and good old fashioned manual workmanship to make the image. I posted one the other week, but here are a bunch more since then.
Finding ways to entertain yourself that don't require massive amounts of brain activity between baby feedings led me to try making a mandala using Procreate on my iPad.
Last week my wife and I welcomed our child into the world, which honestly provides an opportunity for me to play around with the generative fill feature in the Photoshop Beta.
I really do believe that certain "taboo" subjects should be talked about more openly so they won't be taboo anymore. I've done it in the past when I posted about pay ranges for full-time and freelance and I thought it was time to do it again for one of the mental health issues plaguing the industry.
You normally only see people posting about crying in the office on places like Fishbowl where they can be anonymous. Everyone in advertising fears being seen as weak. I thin it's funny though, because to be truly great at it you have to be empathetic. You need to be able to feel emotion and relate to how others are feeling as well.
Being honest about being humans is the first step, so we should be able to talk about those moments of humanity we have without fear or being seen as somehow lesser than those who don't. And that's before we even get into the underlying conditions at agencies that cause it to happen to begin with.
I convinced my wife to let me take some maternity photos of her before the baby drops. You can find a few more photos from the shoot here.
The other night I wanted to see if I could design a type face as minimally as possible. Starting with a base rectangle and seeing how I could distinguish each letterform with as few visual cues as possible. This was what I cam up with in my first 2 hour pass. I see a few things I'd maybe have done differently now, but as a thought experiment I think it shows what's possible.
I know more than a few people have tested their own minimal fonts/typography against the word minimum as well because of the similar letterforms so I thought it was a good test for this as well.
The other night I had a thought about how my wife and I are dropping a remix and what the tracks would be, all alluding to our incoming baby. Went ahead and mocked up the album art. I used a photo I shot of us when we were in Portland last summer. When I overlaid one of the ultrasounds, I realized it looked like either a scratch or a reflection and either way I liked it. Enjoy.
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