Some Thoughts on 21st Century Communication

As social networks proliferate, there are more and more outlets for people to express themselves. Between Facebook and Twitter, as well as the second and third tier players, we constantly update our statuses to anybody who will listen. Blogs have matured, and become less of a publicly aired journal. Then there are the sites which are merely related to your life, such as LinkedIn or Flickr, that showcase one aspect of your life.

Taken all together, all of these sites can provide a thorough portrait of somebody’s life. They can give an represent your activities, likes and dislikes, interests, how you make a living or how your express yourself. As a whole, this is a vastly different way of relating to people. In the not-too-distant past, this intimate insight into people’s lives often took years or decades to fully investigate. Now we can learn almost everything about somebody in fifteen minutes.

Still there persists a certain disconnect. While some people project out through many social channels, the people who receive the message so often see such a narrow view. We may follow a friend on Twitter, but not on Facebook and Flickr. Or possibly we subscribe to a certain blog’s RSS feed, but we ignore what the author posts on MySpace. The frequently conflicting nature of so many of these sites, combined with their proprietary networks, creates a sort of walled ecosystem around each site. Though people project a certain image of themselves, not everybody receives it.

This is not to say that it is any worse than communication in the past, just different. Communication is easier and cheaper today than it’s ever been. And it will only get easier and cheaper from here on. Global competition has lowered the price of everything, and only for the better. We can see what our friends are doing in another city, another country or across the world. We can meet and interact with people who we never would have encountered just ten years ago.

In my personal life, the biggest disconnect is between the people “who get it” and those don’t. Essentially, the people who are active with social networks communicate with each other, while those who choose not to have a more limited sphere. I feel more connected to friends who are participate in social networks than those who don’t. I wouldn’t argue that it’s not a sort of one-directional connection a lot of the time, but it does let me know what a lot of my friends are up to without having to initiate a conversation myself.

All of this is not to single out a problem, or to suggest a solution. It’s merely to try to identify some trends. Being alive at this moment is exciting, since everything around us is changing. It’s good to step back and take a look at the bigger picture sometimes.

These are all concepts for a new recording artist, whose debut is yet to be released. None of these were chosen, but I still really enjoyed them. Starting with my childhood, I’ve always drawn letterforms. For a while, I was even heavily into calligraphy, and then later I became really interested in the forms of graffiti. This fascination is really what’s lead me to my career in design, and creating my own letter forms continues to bring me a lot of joy.

Drawing with charcoal is  a really important process to me. It’s about the most physical and expressive method I have to convey ideas visually. This drawing explores some of the ideas that I’ve been working out in my prints lately, though obviously in monochrome.

• Charcoal and pencil on paper
• Approx. 58″ x 20″

Far from your typical IT professional, ÜberGeekGirl provides a service to their clients free from the typical trappings. Quick and efficient setup and repair of all of your technology, combined with a professional demeanor and no hidden adgenda. Indeed, a sad minority in the field.

Working with the owner, I designed the site, which was to act in accordance to the existing identity.

Done at Alphabet Arm Design.

Rhoost is a new company, breaking ground in the category of modern and stylish child safety products. In the span of just over a year, they have gone from concept to having product in hand. Run by two ambitious and business-savvy first-time entrepreneurs, the business is sure to be a success. They are already getting the attention of some big names in the children’s retail market.

Designed to appeal to the young, fashionable and urban mom, the site echos the clean and modern characteristics of the products themselves. In addition to showcasing the products, the site provides multiple opportunities for consumers to interact with the business owners via a blog, Twitter and Facebook feeds. The current live version has a fully functioning e-commerce solution.

One aspect that I don’t often get to do during the web design process was a set of bird illustrations that are featured throughout the site. They birds have also been used on collateral pieces and the product packaging.

I’m pretty happy with how this print turned out, but it went through quite a few stages. It was going well, then I thought I messed it up. In the end, I think I salvaged it.

• Monotype with wood and stencils

This group of images was part of an incredibly fun project that I took part in several years ago. It is a set of collaborative prints that I completed with Beth Pearson and Holly Hauser (whose site I can’t find), through the Burlington City Arts Print Studio. During the span of a couple months, the three of us worked together on these unique prints. Working with plates created by each of us, we swapped prints and matrixes fluidly. In the end, I think the result was stronger than what either of us could have produced alone. It was, at the very least, outside of what we were used to creating.

The process was a beneficial one for me, and I look back on these images fondly. Beth in particular was—and in some ways remains—a big influence on my work. Looking back, I’m a bit ashamed to see how much of her aesthetic surfaced in my work. It was a formative period for me, so hopefully she took it as flattery.

I attended the inaugural WordCamp Boston this weekend. I wasn’t completely sure what to expect with the event, but it ended up being very worth-while.

As you may or may not know, this site runs on WordPress. It’s the second site that I built around the platform, and it’s generally my testing ground for ideas that I have. Before this iteration of the site, I had been hard-coding HTML pages. They were a drag to update, and—due to my extremely limited ability to write code—their functionality was quite limited. They we very basic, and not really a lot of fun to update.

When I discovered WordPress, it took me a while to wrap my head around the concept of how the software functioned, and even longer to figure out how I could bend it to my will. I have found that despite its roots as a blogging platform, it is an excellent content management system. It is used for an extremely diverse variety of sites that have little or no relationship to a blog. What I really love about it—above of its other attributes—is that it democratizes the web.

On wordpress.com (a hosted service, not to be confused with the .org domain) anybody can create a site. The platform there is much more blogger-centric, but the fact remains that anybody and everybody can have a voice there. In this environment, anybody can put their voice out there. Sure, it’s not easy to find an audience, but nobody could say that they weren’t allowed to speak. That’s really why I got into learning how to create web pages, and it’s amazing to me now how easy it is.

With all that said, I’d like to highlight a few of the stand-outs from the weekend.

The Loop

After Mitcho’s talk about the Loop, I was left feeling that manipulating the Loop was both easier and far more complex than I had imagined. I got some good ideas and tips from the talk, but he really operates on a level that I’ll never able to attain.

jQuery

jQuery is one of the things that I want to learn more about. Jim broke down the basics, and answered some of the burning questions that I had. His talk really inspired, and made you want to write (less) code. His site: jimdoran.net

After the Deadline

Raphael’s demo of After the Deadline was the only “wow” moment that I had during the conference. I hadn’t really thought about spell checking and proofreading in the past, yet installing the After the Deadline plug-in was the first thing I did after logging in today. It’s an amazing piece of software that helps you write better via contextual clues.

Parent/Child themes

Parent/child themes have seemed like an interesting concept to me, but it’s like learning a new piece of software. Especially since most of the theme frameworks out there aren’t that well documented. Daisy from wpmama.com really helped to break it down. It makes a lot of sense, and I’m strongly considering using a parent theme on my next site.

WP Security

Site security is something that I know that I should spend more time on, but it’s just difficult to focus on. Brad laid it out in a very clear way, with some concrete advise and things to get me started.

In addition to the technical info, I met some interesting people and generally had a good time. It’s something that I’m looking forward to next year, and I suggest that anybody interested should attend.

• Monotype with wood, stencils

An innovator in the virtual goods market, viximo needed a logo revamp. Early on in the process the decision was made to focus on a type treatment, and I chose to create the type from scratch. I’m fairly happy with the final logo, but I like the original direction quite a bit more. Below is the original type treatment, with the wireframe that shows the construction.

Unfortunately, as the process moved long, some of the ‘uniqueness’ was removed from the type. The final logo is actually the third round. The second round is below. It keeps some of that connected ‘gift’ idea, but still loses something.

Done at Alphabet Arm.

The New Collisions commissioned Alphabet Arm to design the packaging for their first official release: the EP “Invisible Embraces.” Even though they’re fairly new to the scene, they’re already causing waves opening for Blondie and the B-52’s. With a great New Wave sound, it’s obvious that there are good things on the horizon for them. As part of the direction for the package, the band wanted it to really say “New Wave.” The final product uses a lot more saturated color than I normally use, but it was a good exercise to get out of my comfort zone.

Part of the fun for this project was that after the album design was done, I executed an entire press kit. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen much these days, so it was quite enjoyable.

Designed at Alphabet Arm. Thanks to Tony Luong for the photography.

MocoSpace is a wildly popular mobile social network, targeted at the hip 20-something crowd. The client came to us looking for a media kit, and we pitched them an idea of a booklet contained within a folder.

Among the many challenges with this project, one of the largest was their lack of a consistant brand. The media kit uses a cut and paste aesthetic to convey the brand’s roots, but walks a fine line of restraint, as the target audience for the kit is really investors. The other aspect of the project that I’m proud of: a user chart infographic executed in spray paint.

Designed at Alphabet Arm. Thanks to Tony Luong for the photography.