Posted by Megan

Check out this Awesome book cover at your nearest book dealer! That was my first thought on seeing this book. First perceptions, right? I just wanted to play with that cover thingie! (The cover has an embedded wheel -- when you turn the orange wheel to the right - symbols are deconstructed in the circles!)

You'll also find an interview with author Maggie McNab on HOWdesign.com.

Decoding Design looks at the essential processes underlying shapes and patterns, and how integrating this information in a relevant way creates usable visual communication. It provides a reliable structure from which to begin the creative process. Logo design is particularly difficult because you are tasked with refining sometimes very complex information to its most essential bits. How do you know what that is? As we are part of the universe we follow the same laws of nature–and we are good at intuiting them to survive. Being able to connect the dots is important to the discovery process. When you understand how shape and pattern work, you can integrate relative visual content specific to your client for communication that is universal and unique at the same time.

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"I'm charmed by all of the cute, creepy creatures he has created."

Posted by Megan

A few gems from For Boys Only:

“I say, doctor, just what is the fun what the older fellows are always beating their gums about—petting, or necking, or boodling? Is it the same as what the older people used to call spooning? How can a fellow who’s as good an athlete and all-around outdoor man as Bill, stand it to stay hanging around with some girl who isn’t interested in a single thing a boy enjoys doing? I just don’t get it.”

Question: Doesn’t a shot of liquor increase a fellow’s ability to be—er,—manly?
Answer: Not in the slightest. What it does do is simply to make him think he’s more of a man than he actually is! Even a little drink makes a fellow’s opinion of himself go up, while it strengthens his desires. At the same time it blunts the good sense and self-restraint that might otherwise have kept him from doing harm to a girl he’s supposed to be reliable enough to be with. And its avoidance might well prevent him form getting a disease, or from becoming a father of an illegitimate child. You can imagine what a tragedy either of these must be!

This internal secretion put out by the testicles changes you in some mysterious way that no one really understands, so that you begin to feel the way a man feels and have some of the thoughts and wishes that a man has and that a younger boy doesn’t have. For example, you begin to have courage and backbone and guts, that are not expected of a small boy but are taken for granted in a man. You get more and more interested in girls, where before as a little fellow you thought they were just a nuisance to be teased and then pushed aside. You look forward to having more to do with them—first with any girl, later with one particular one.

A few gems from For Girls Only:

“I wonder why she never married,” added Jane. “You know she’s old. She’s twenty-four! I’m sure she must have had several love affairs. I bet she was engaged to be married, and he was killed in the war. I certainly expect to get married before I’m that old! I’m going to have eight children, and live in a great big house.”

“And what do you call ‘fun’? Having a boy hold your hand and kiss you? My mother said it was wicked to allow a boy even to touch you. She told me about Edna who had to leave school because she let a boy touch her.”
    “What about Edna? I knew she had to leave school; but what was it all about?”
    “Why, didn’t you know she was going to have a baby?”
    In utter amazement both girls almost shrieked, “NO!”
    “Tell us about it. I didn’t know you could have a baby if you weren’t married,” said Jane. “What an awful thing! I knew that everything was ‘hush, hush’ about Edna; but I never dreamed such a thing could happen at high school. Rosemary ran off and got married. But Edna! she seemed so nice! I can’t believe it; and I can’t understand it, either.”

“Now let me tell you something, Helen. I, too, hope the boys will think you are pretty. I hope you will always want to be well dressed, and never look like a sloppy Joe when you are at a formal reception; that is a most important thing in a girl’s life. But when you’re older and get married, if you still keep on thinking that your dress and the shade of lipstick are the biggest things in your life, that to have a baby might spoil your figure, then you have not grown up emotionally. We could all name some women who are just like that; and I’m afraid they don’t make their husbands very happy.

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Designers are constantly facing the challenges of recreating, revamping or re-energizing existing business or organization identities. The process can be much more intense than creating a new business image from scratch. When taking on such a redesign effort, I always suggest that designers consider the historical aspects of the existing logo; give thought to the emotional attachment of owners, employees and the customer base; and determine if existing design elements are appropriate to include in the new identity as part of a seemingly natural design evolution. The first thing I usually say to a designer about such projects is “Never tell your client their logo sucks.” If you make that statement you can be assured that the logo was created by the client, their spouse, their child, or the kid next door—and your potential business relationship with that client is already damaged.

Posted by Megan

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But one thing I'm also reading is this cool book called Dear Future Me: Hopes, Fears, Secrets, Resolutions (F+W Publications, $16.99). It's a compilation of letters to FutureMe.org, where you can go and submit and e-mail that will be sent to you sometime in the future. The letters are funny, poignant, revealing, heartbreaking ... I think fans of Found and PostSecret might get into it.

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I was very excited when my husband sent me a link to a story about Milk Eggs Vodka in Advertising Age.

Aside from the lives revealed by these lists, there are also the demographics. The Trader Joe's shopper's list includes, as if by law, goat cheese, shallots and pastry crust. Quiche alert! But the list written in fat, pre-teen letters, with smiles in all the O's, says, "Food -- Thanks Mom! Pizza Lunchable, Taco Lunchable, Gatorade Rapid Rush -- Blue, Cooler Ranch Doritos."

"I'm not so sure this list should have been labeled 'food,'" Keaggy observes.

Maybe not. But here you have a totally candid picture of what one girl -- possibly representing one entire generation -- wants for lunch.

It's a bit belated, but I just realized that Ideaspotting, one of the first projects we developed for the new HOW Book line, has been out in the world for just over a year. Written by beloved HOW Conference speaker Sam Harrison, Ideaspotting is a small book full of big ideas to get readers out of their creative ruts. Happy Birthday!

The Word It Book, the first new HOW book of 2007, is available today! Written by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio from Speak Up, The Word It Book is a celebration of creativity. It presents visual challenges that readers can complete, along with tons of responses from Speak Up's Word It section. I'm super psyched about all the books we have planned for 2007 and The Word It Book is a great way to kick of an exciting year!