missed call

chicago, i love you

ny

Alicia Keys and Jay-Z performing Empire State of Mind at the VMA. Gives me the chills.

30

Saturday was my brother-in-law's 30th birthday party. I had a little too much fun. Cheers to him, who's pretty much an older brother to me, even though he's probably just as immature as I am.

Parabéns, Flor! Você bomba!

design services made accessible

Design 99 is a storefront for new ideas, products, projects, and untapped talent.

Part retail space, part architectural design studio, Design 99 seeks to break the notion of contemporary design as expensive and inaccessible. From tricking out multi-family immigrant homes to posh downtown lofts, we approach each project with the same contemporary mindset- albeit different budgets- making contemporary architecture available to a wider public through over-the-counter design services.

Situated in the heart of Hamtramck’s commercial strip (Michigan), the Design 99 name takes a cue from the well-established 99-cent pricing strategy as well as the numerous dollar stores in the area, which are a constant source for inspiration.

type superwoman

falling in love with the same song all over again

FABULOUS

[link]

the proof

Marty Neumeier. We even rode the same elevator!!

issuu

I've been playing there now. Go see it big.

i think i've just been described by jay-z

Be fluid. Treat each project differently. Be water, man. The best style is no style. Because styles can be figured out. And when you have no style they can’t figure you out.

I think if you're starting early in the process by talking about your ideas for solutions, you're already not listening. I think you need to enter into any design project with that zen learner's mind of 'I don't know what I don't know'.

Kim Goodwin, General Manager and VP of Design at Cooper

a personal jesus

I'm meeting him on Monday. In person.

indie is dead. and it won.

"Indie doesn’t mean anything anymore. It’s dead. Which is OK, because it won. Open source, Twitter. Indie won. Etsy. The irresistible decline of major labels and network TV and corporate publishing. Indie won. We won, but at the cost to many folks personally of suddenly becoming unnecessary. This was most visible in the last few years in the magazines like Punk Planet, Kitchen Sink, Clamor. But it’ll come for us all.

You see, to the extent that indie meant anything, it was as its root word, independent. It was about seizing the means of production. Independently produced. Aesthetics can be imitated, ethics faked, attitudes mimicked, but large bureaucracies could not possibly replicate the indie production process – how could they seize the means of production? They already had it! And now the means of production has devolved yet farther down, past the indie publishers and indie record labels and pirate radio stations of yore.

This is not to say we’ve entered Nirvana. Just because we’d seized the means of production in the 1990’s didn’t mean that poverty had been eradicated, racism ended, and the intellectual property land grab thwarted. We all have to use the tools we’ve been given, find value in, rather than discard, the tools of the past, hold feet to the fire, undermine monopoly, and so on. All things we tried to do with the means of production we seized in the 90’s, we have to continue do with the means of production that technology has handed to us in the 21st century. Moore’s Law is value-neutral, apolitical, amoral, just like Gutenberg’s press. Its how we use it."

[link]

e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

one art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


by Elizabeth Bishop

and here is a piece of my day on MSN

Abi might be coming to visit me in Brazil soon. Yay!

abi says: find me a cute guy. or just one of your throw always.
anabarroso: i will!
abi says: i want a tall one tho. is that easy to find?
anabarroso says: yeah, they come in all sizes. all ugly.
abi says: and no big noses. yuke.
anabarroso says: ok, anything else?
abi says: i like good big parts below, but you don't have to check that if you don't want to.
anabarroso says: i'd rather not. unless he's cute. then i'll check.
anabarroso says: i'll tell u this: the average brazilian penis is smaller than the average american penis. fact.
abi says: oh no! damn!
abi says: so i'll need to go with afro-brazilian then?
anabarroso says: yup
anabarroso says: and they are not circumcised, which is gross.
abi says: that is gross
anabarroso says: just being honest.
anabarroso says: I'm putting this conversation on my blog.
abi says: oh no!
anabarroso says: the world needs to see this.

you leave those smudges there so people will understand your pain

jake and grandma talking about his new therapist

From Two and a Half Men:



Grandma Evelyn:
... and then I tried Freudian analysis but with them, you know, it's just sex, sex, sex...

Jake:
My doctor has a cow puppet.

Grandma Evelyn:
Oh, really? ... ... ... M.D or /PhD?

Jake:
C-O-W.

the epitome of design thinking

"Aravind started in 1976 as an 11-bed eye clinic in an old temple-city. Today it is the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world. Taking its compassionate services to the doorstep of rural India, Aravind's stunningly effective strategies vaulted barriers of distance, poverty and ignorance to create a self-sustaining system that now treats over 1.7 million patients each year, two-thirds of them, for free."

1981

I was 3 months old, NYC subway trains were still covered in graffiti and she was more beautiful than ever. From LIFE magazine photo archive on Google images.

[via]

pretty sure they work with advertising

outside the box from joseph Pelling on Vimeo.

[via]

white box

by Makoto Yabuki

[via]

seeing type differently / type factory

Absolutely stunning branding project work done by University College Falmouth student, Huda Abdul Aziz. Type Factory is a fictional typographic museum in South Kensington, London.

"The concept revolves around the theme of deconstruction. The brand values of the Type Factory identity are informative, engaging and dynamic. The brand promise is about seeing type differently. The design solution includes the logo, a booklet to promote the venue, advertising and applications within the museum."

go forth

Just came across these absolutely amazing spots created by Wieden+Kennedy for Levi's. The audio of both of them are actual recordings of Walt Whitman's "O Pioneers!" and "America". It portrays America in a way I hadn't seen any brand do before. It's classic, rebel, young, old, diverse and blue eyed, all at once. Beautifully done.

"Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistol? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, Pioneers! O pioneers"

"America
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love..."

tools vs. behaviors

Some posts come with very insightful comments as a bonus.

We need to be careful when we talk about digital media, that we don't get the tools mixed up with the behaviors. Obsessing over the significance of one site over another, or arguing the importance of participating on a site while not even considering what you're going to do when you get there or if it's even the right place, is a waste of time.

Facebook.com is not important. What's important is that more and more people are actively building and managing a personal network of relationships that can be accessed at any time via digital technology.

YouTube.com is not important. What's important is that more and more people are sharing original videos with other people all over the world at will.

Twitter.com is not important. What's important is that more and more people are developing a habit of broadcasting every experience and piece of information that they think might be of interest to their network.

As these tools evolve (and capabilities and uses merge), let's remember that the tools we use aren't as important as the behaviors they create.

Here are some excerpts of a comment left by Michael Maurillo:

What I have recently found so interesting about this (incredibly) important point is that there's a very large community in our industry that obsesses about user-behavior and how it affects their craft everyday. I'm talking about designers, YET when it comes to marketing it is something we so rarely think about. And if we do, it usually ends up in a tactic or two (if we're lucky), not in the core of the strategy.

Marketing insights have always been part of the process, but they typically only touch the surface of behavior and revolve around things like shopping habits or purchase behavior.

We all give the same reasons why "advertising is broken" based on how the user's behavior is changing, yet so many creative briefs I read still describe the "target" in terms of demographics with a smidge of pyschographics when it's more than likely that the designer down the hall from you has 5 distinct personas hung up on their wall representing the same audience. Strategists must start thinking like designers and leveraging their tools. It's not just about user-centered design, it's about user-centered marketing as well.

polyester princess

This is a post from Sweet Juniper!, one of my favorite blogs for the longest. It's written by Jim, the dad, who he used to be a lawyer and go by the pseudonym "Dutch". Now he's a Gentleman of Elegant Leisure and goes by his real name.

The mother of one of my daughter's friends asks, "Is she not supposed to play princess?"

I have never told my daughter she couldn't play princesses. We may have had a few conversations about how princesses aren't good role models, but I've NEVER said she couldn't pretend to be one. Apparently while playing at her friend's house, my daughter whispered, "My dad doesn't like princesses. He says they're lazy goodfornothings." Then she proceeded to pull one of those prefabricated princess gowns over her torso and said, "I'll just tell him I was being a fairy." This pleases me, because it shows she is beginning to understand that her highly-opinionated father can be quite difficult, though easily appeased by doing whatever it is he doesn't approve of once well out of sight. This will prove a useful skill as the years go on.

When told this happened, I felt a tinge of guilt. Then the other little girl stood up and said to my daughter, "I AM THE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS. You must do my bidding. Go and fetch me the finest flower in the land." My daughter reacted with a look of incredulity that could only be translated as, "Fuck that, dude." Or, perhaps less crudely, "My father was right: princesses are bossy and not very nice." She refused the quest, and the princess sulked.

I looked down at them in their ill-fitting polyester costumes, stained with mulberry juice and globs of yoghurt. I could have delivered the coup de grâce right then: I could have pointed out that their threadbare, shoddily-made dresses of imitation satin and tulle made them look more like Courtney Love at the tail end of an Oxycontin binge than any representative of The Crown. But I didn't. As Benjamin Disraeli once said, Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.

"Worry not, your Highness," I said, winking at my daughter. "I shall fetch my steed and deliver thee the loveliest dandelion in all Detroit."

a piece of advice

You will remember from school other students preventing you from seeing their answers by placing their arm around their exercise book or exam paper. It is the same at work, people are secretive with ideas. "Don’t tell them that, they’ll take credit for it." The problem with hoarding is that you end up living off your reserves. Eventually you’ll become stale. If you give away everything you have, you’re left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish. Somehow, the more you give away, the more comes back to you. Ideas are open knowledge. Don’t claim ownership. They’re not your ideas anyway, they’re someone else’s. They are out there floating by on the ether. You just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up.

from "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be", by Paul Arden, Saatchi & Saatchi Creative Director

i don't give a shit what your stripper name is

[via]

enough said.

we all do, honey...

[via the hilarious Aurea Mediocritas]

lies my mother told me

by Elizabeth Thomas

If you keep eating raw spaghetti
you'll get pinworms,
then I'll have to make
a necklace of garlic for you to wear
each night while you sleep,
until they go away.

If you're mean to your younger brother, I'll know
because I have a special eye
that spies on you when I'm not home.
You cannot hide from it,
so don't try.

If you touch your "down there"
any time other than when using the toilet,
your hand will turn green and fall off.

If you keep crossing your eyes
they will stay that way
until the wind
changes direction.

It is bad luck to kill a moth. Moths are
the souls of our ancestors and it just
might be Papa paying a visit.

If you kiss a boy on the mouth
your lips will stick together
and he'll use the opportunity
to suck out your brains.

If you ever lie to me
God will know
and rat you out.
And sometimes
God exaggerates.
Trust me —
you don't want that
to happen.

foreseeing

by Sharon Bryan

"Middle age refers more
to landscape than to time:
it's as if you'd reached

the top of a hill
and could see all the way
to the end of your life,

so you know without a doubt
that it has an end—
not that it will have,

but that it does have,
if only in outline—
so for the first time

you can see your life whole,
beginning and end not far
from where you stand,

the horizon in the distance—
the view makes you weep,
but it also has the beauty

of symmetry, like the earth
seen from space..."

Good to be bad sometimes.

her: OH, NO, YOU DIDN'T!
me: OH, YES, I DID.

back in Indianapolis

It's been absolutely amazing spending time with my friends again, after one and a half years apart. Abi, I missed you so much, I love you (I told you I'd say that here, didn't I? Surprise!) Ericka, Layla is mean and absolutely beautiful and adorable, just like her mama. I love you both, and I have the feeling that she kinda likes me, which makes me extra proud of myself. Kira, you're my sister, end of story. Jordin, I knew I'd love you. How can such a tiny girl have such a huge personality?

latest purchase

from Urban Outfitters

pop nihilism

"One such campaign, 'Whopper Sacrifice' – in which Facebook users were rewarded a free Whopper for deleting ten friends from their account, has been the most precise incidence of 'pop nihilism' to date. The underlying premise of the campaign was that the majority of one’s relationships are expendable, the Whopper serving as a material excuse to manifest this belief. The Whopper’s presence in the campaign was purely symbolic. The true appeal of the sacrifice was not the faux-nourishment of a hamburger, but for participants to relish in the misanthropic destruction of the social contract.

These campaigns are intentionally polemic – eliciting disgust in many, while others feel compelled to come to their defense. CP+B have torn a page right out of Ballyhoo in the sense that they aren’t selling hamburgers, they are selling the spectacle of advertising’s demise. Agencies who take this route and profit from its fleeting popularity will go down in history as advertising’s robber barons, those who cashed in on the medium’s social capital before it went bankrupt – signifying the moment advertising realized its own mortality and began to eat itself.

from Pop Nihilism: Advertising Eats Itself

this week's top 3

Thanks to the guys from "Massa Cultural" for featuring some of my work on their blog's Top#3 section. That was a nice surprise!

acting like they are seeing the beatles

[via]

i am my mother's daughter

It's scary how much I look like her sometimes.

lya

(sorry, portuguese this time)

É o fim do mundo
Lya Luft

Fui uma das primeiras meninas a usar calças jeans na minha pequena cidade. Uma de minhas avós, luterana fervorosa, embora fosse uma mulher culta, exclamou: "Isso é o fim do mundo!". Nem o mundo acabou nem deixaram de acontecer coisas bem mais esquisitas, a me recordar aquele episódio, que na hora achei muito engraçado.

Lembro-me dessa expressão com certa frequência. Por exemplo, quando uma criança de 6 anos serviu de atração num programa de TV, eventualmente chorando de medo, nervosismo ou cansaço. Ninguém interveio logo. Se levassem a um programa desses, semana após semana, um filhote de cachorro para fazer gracinhas, as sociedades protetoras dos animais já estariam reclamando. (Quem cuida dos humanos?) Finalmente, uma promotora impediu a criança de exercer esse "trabalho". Parabéns – e que não haja recurso.

Lembro-me de minha avó espantada quando assisto ao sofrimento de mulheres magras, muito magras, constantemente lutando para perder mais uns gramas, olhos ávidos da eterna dieta, sorriso forçado de automutiladoras. Para alegria de quem sempre foi fora do esquadro, leio (eu já sabia) que alguns já arriscam dizer que se pode ser saudável e feliz com algum sobrepeso. Não precisamos nos odiar, mas ser naturais, ser quem nos fez a mãe natureza. Porém, a nova onda é a gente se torturar, por falta ou excesso: a bunda pequena, o nariz grande, a barriga balofa, os peitos caídos, os bíceps insuficientes (o ralo QI não preocupa tanto). Aí nos matamos de fome, ou ostentamos um novo nariz estranho à estrutura do rosto em que foi metido, damos uma lipinho de presente de 14 anos a nossa filha. Nós mal conseguimos falar, com uma boca ginecológica, nada sensual. Um terço do nosso dia transcorremos suando e sofrendo muito além do recomendado em academias: não para ser saudáveis, mas para estar em forma, enquanto a alma passa uma fome danada e o tempo passa, a vida encolhe, nós nos desperdiçamos perseguindo modelos impossíveis e burros.

Minha avó acharia que o mundo está por acabar diante da confusão entre pessoa pública e propriedade do público: agora o normal é querer que o outro baixe até as calças da alma e mostre as feridas. Algumas chamadas celebridades parecem forçadas a anunciar o que fazem na cama, e com quem. Elas nem são "vistas" na rua, são "flagradas": o seu mero existir já é suspeito.

O mundo vai acabar, diria minha severa avó luterana, vendo que a política se troca por politicagem, o jogo de interesses infinitamente acima do bem do povo, a calúnia como ferramenta geral. Gente atirada como bicho (bicho, não, aí viria a defesa dos animais!) em pseudo-hospitais é fato menos comentado do que mosquitos, que podem trazer febre amarela (por isso pessoas assustadas e ignorantes matam saudáveis bugios no interior). Meu amigo atropelou um simpático tatu e quase pegou cadeia; se matasse uma pessoa, sendo réu primário aguardaria em liberdade. Viva o tatu. Abaixo as pessoas. Também se comenta que moradores de rua e pseudocolonos vão ganhar Bolsa Família. Quem ainda vai querer pegar na enxada ou lavar o chão de uma casinha?

O mais novo anúncio do fim do mundo pode ser a recomendação de fazermos xixi no banho. É questão ambiental? Enquanto for só xixi que nos recomendam, estamos salvos. Sou a favor de um ambientalismo sensato, que harmonize o convívio entre natureza e humanos, não dê mais atenção a baleias do que a crianças e aceite o progresso, fomente a educação e a higiene. A gente passa anos ensinando aos filhos: não façam xixi no banho nem na piscina. Xixi no chuveiro (e na banheira também?), sinto muito: aqui em casa, não.

Nesse cenário de absurdos, às vezes falta o botão para trocar de canal. Mas, se a menininha da televisão puder voltar a ser criança, os bugios da minha mata forem deixados em paz, os gordinhos não se sentirem os últimos da face da Terra, a gente não for multada por fazer xixi no vaso, quem sabe o fim do mundo ainda demore um pouco para chegar.

made my heart warm

[via]

bluegreen

I saw this over at my brother in law's blog and decided to copy and do mine.

The instructions say you're supposed to type your answers to the questions below on flickr's search box, choose one of the pictures on the first page of results, then create a mosaic.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your favorite color?
4. Favorite drink?
5. Dream vacation?
6. Favorite hobby?
7. What you want to be when you grow up?
8. What do you love most in life?
9. One word to describe you?

I dare you to find the answers to number 5, 7 and 9.

whoever said that blogs are dying...

needs to chill the fuck out. I ain't going nowhere.

28

I was rightfully accused today of neglecting this blog once again. The thing is there is just not enough time in a day to do all I've been trying to do lately and still maintain the decent amount of posts I used to.

So, to correct this absolutely awful scenario, here's my 28th birthday. Today! Yay me! How wonderful is it that I spent 7 years away and I get to come home and gather in one room all my old faithful friends and a few more who I'm growing to adore like family?

Turns out that the right mixture of the friends, family and Lexapro actually works wonders for me. I'm pretty damn happy.

jojo

I wrote Jojo a letter before she was even born. Now she's a big girl with her own personality, and she even knows how to play hide and seek with me on skype. Ask me how crazy I am about this little girl? Absolutely crazy.

good design

What is good design?

This is the question that has haunted the design community for decades. Whenever the conversation comes up, the “eye of the beholder” argument shuts it down. Someone says that good design is design that “works,” and someone else adds that the arbiter of “what works” is the individual user. At this point everyone nods and the conversation ends. But the question is never fully put to rest.

I believe there’s a more universal answer. It’s this: Good design does not depend so much on the eye of the beholder, but on a combination of aesthetics and ethics. Good design is design that exhibits virtues. What virtues? You know, good old human virtues like generosity, courage, diligence, honesty, substance, clarity, curiosity, thriftiness, helpfulness, and wit. By contrast, bad design exhibits human vices like selfishness, fear, laziness, deceit, pettiness, confusion, apathy, wastefulness, harmfulness, and stupidity.

In other words, we want the same things from design that we want from our fellow humans. When we combine ethical virtues with aesthetic virtues, we get good design. The ancient Greeks framed this ideal in the context of knowing, making, and doing: “To know truth. To make beauty. To do good.” Apple’s Steve Jobs framed it this way: “Design is the soul of a man-made creation.”

Soul, like beauty, is one of those evanescent qualities that disappears under the microscope, but it’s clearly visible when you meet it on the street. It’s a quality that’s been missing in a 20th-century business tradition that overvalues narrow, short-term success, and undervalues broad, long-term success. Sumantra Ghoshal, a global business leader and author, called corporate business “under- socialized and one-dimensional.” He said that spreadsheet management has only led to resentful customers, dispirited employees, and a divided society.

Why would this change? Because it has to. In an era when customers are not only omnipotent but omniscient, when over-production leads to an ecological box canyon, a selfish focus on the bottom line is bad design. Good design, in contrast, is a new management model that deliberately includes a moral dimension. It’s a model that not only serves shareholders but employees, customers, partners, and communities. For the first time since the Industrial Age, successful businesses will be designful businesses. They’ll combine knowing, making, and doing to strive for truth, beauty, and the public good. At last, the bottom line will begin to trace the shape of who we want to be.

++++++++

From Marty Neumeier's The Designful Company.
You can download Part 2 of the book here.

sustainable advertising

And that's why I insist on saying that billboards belong in a distant past.

&

sorry

Dear readers,

So sorry I've been neglecting this blog. Honestly, I'm pretty bored with this whole web 2.0 deal, tired of hearing about twitter, facebook, blogs and all that crap. It suddenly feels very stupid and meaningless to me. I'm trying to discover a new way to relate to the web that feels a little less voyeristic and more refreshing than before. It's been working so far, and I finally feel a tiny urge to write here again.

Things are GOOD in almost every aspect of life.

Last weekend I was in Curitiba for the second time this month. I absolutely love that city, it's one of the cleanest and most organized places you'll ever see. The people are ridiculously beautiful, polite and well dressed. I have the best reception every time I'm there and have made a few good friends. I spent a couple of days in town and went to this beautiful, green campus were I've been attending some classes. Look at that big lake! Unfortunately they have that big geese issue there as well, and, as some of you may know, I'm terrified of geese, so no need to say I didn't go anywhere near the water. Thank God for the zoom in my camera.

go ahead and steal my heart to make me cry again

"Cause when hard work don't pay off and I'm tired,
There ain't no room in my bed, as far as I'm concerned.
So wipe that dirty smile of,
We won't be making up,
I've cried my heart out
and now I've had enough of love."


I absolutely love this.

+++++++++++

the image is from here

H

- LUCE: [Singing] You've got a boyfriend, you've got a boyfriend..

- H: No, I haven't! Not yet... I can't wait till you get a boyfriend. You probably can, actually. You could even get a husband. You're old enough. Find one like Heck.

- LUCE: H, I should explain something to you. I do believe I will be with one person for the rest of my life... but that person will be a woman.

- H: I understand!

- LUCE: You do?

- H: My best friend is Natalie Curtis. I'd rather spend the rest of my life with her than any boy.

- LUCE: There you go.

- H: It doesn't mean that you're a lesbian or anything.

- LUCE: Come on, let's go.

(from "Imagine Me & You", a dumb little movie I watched today. It has a couple of great hidden moments.)

if a man ever gave me a book like that, i would ask him to marry me

the process

[via]

why are we doing this?

i know y'all are smart, but it doesn't hurt to remind you.

Check out how to support Earth Hour where you live.

spanish lesson

from Married to the Sea

baby boy is now a man

And then one day, he suddenly grew up and made us all proud. My brother is graduating.



I remember a few years ago when I was still living in Indianapolis there was a Tide commercial going on that had this really pretty song and I used to think about my brother every time I heard it. Hopefully he'll find his way here, listen to it and cry.



(And congrats to this girl here, too. Not too shabby!)

on how b-schools have failed

I remember reading "M.F.A is the new M.B.A" while I was a student at Herron and today's New York Times has proved to me again that this is a great time in History to be a designer and a right brain thinker.

But with the economy in disarray and so many financial firms in free fall, analysts, and even educators themselves, are wondering if the way business students are taught may have contributed to the most serious economic crisis in decades.

“It is so obvious that something big has failed,” said Ángel Cabrera, dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. “We can look the other way, but come on. The C.E.O.’s of those companies, those are people we used to brag about. We cannot say, ‘Well, it wasn’t our fault’ when there is such a systemic, widespread failure of leadership.”

(...)

“There is a need to broaden from the analytical focus of M.B.A. programs for more emphasis on skills and a sense of purpose and identity,” said David A. Garvin, a professor of business administration and one of the project’s authors.

(...)

Business education “accentuates the simple technical pieces,” said Ms. Samuelson of the Aspen Institute, and “ignores the real complexity and, frankly, the really exciting opportunities business has to be the driver of long-term prosperity.”

++++++++++++++

MFA is the new MBA was published in 2003 by Harvard Business Review's Breatkthrough Ideas for 2004. It's available for download here or you can purchase the article here.

i could play this all day

I'm getting really good at this. Now go play.

type in motion / makes me want to cry

Flickermood 2.0 from Sebastian Lange on Vimeo.

the complexity of the credit crisis simplified

This project is the result of Jonathan Jarvis' thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Alicia Lynn

I'm in love with everything this woman does.
+ etsy
+ bread & honey
+ 10 dollar drawings
+ alicialynncarrier.com
+ flickr

I want her to draw my next tattoo.

who shot the serif

From typo/graphic posters.

pretty things i'm in love with

unscientific yet accurate

from brainz: grey matter at its best