This is insane. In good ways and bad.
Due to public outrage expressed on Facebook and Twitter (SRSLY?), Tropicana (Pepsi) has decided to revert to the previous version of the packaging for their delicious orange juice.

Here’s the full article from the New York Times: Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging

There are two separate issues at play here, both of which are somewhat interesting/troubling. The first is the issue of consumers having the power to affect design. In this case, I would say it was a good thing. If only the same outrage had risen against the Pepsi logo. Oh well. Anyway, do we really want to put that kind of power in the hands of the consumer? (That sounds awfully snooty, I know. But I’ve dealt with some clients who had “questionable taste” at best.) And who gave them said power? TWITTER? FACEBOOK? Of course, Facebook had to deal with a revolt of its own recently. Anyway, I’m sure I’m over-reacting, but it makes me kind of nervous to think that just because the public doesn’t “like” something, it must go away. People surely had their complaints about the IBM stripes, the Man with the Golden Arm, etc… but they didn’t have massive networks like Facebook and Twitter to band together and bully (BULLY?!) the big-wigs into changing to something more conservative.

And as much as I dislike the Pepsi logo, I’m willing to live with it.
In fact, I’m starting to appreciate firms like Wolff Olins who seem to go out of their way to create logos (etc) that fly in the face of “good design” and public acceptance. Olympics 2012, anyone?

Hey this is nice…

Over at http://covers.fwis.com/ they’ve featured my cover for Zachary Schomburg’s The Man Suit. I already loved that website and checked in on it regularly.
THANKS GUYS!

Check out this interview with the legendary Paul Rand:

I just wanna give him a big ol’ hug.

via the pileup

So this is a world without commercials?

We’re watching Desperate Housewives last night (yes, we were watching Desperate Housewives, what of it?) and within the first 5 minutes the overt product placement had me completely nauseated. I mean, sure… when Steven Colbert chugs an ice-cold Sierra Mist it’s funny. Or when Tina Fey looks directly into the camera after plugging Verizon or whatever and asks if they can have their money now… THAT’s funny.

But last night, the one lady that totally looks like a dude gets home from shopping with her psychopath husband, and they CASUALLY lift a bunch of shopping bags from the trunk. Oddly enough, front-and-center is a screaming yellow SPRINT bag. Huh. Must’ve need a new phone.

But the WORST of the WORST was when the control freak shows up in her new Lexus. Ooh boy  everybody is going crazy. “Please tell us about it!” APPARENTLY, it has a refrigerator in it. And it’s a HYBRID. And it can PARK ITSELF!!! Then the camera pulls away from the women to settle and focus directly on the Lexus logo on the trunk. Seriously. I mean really seriously.

Is THIS what we get for abandoning traditional broadcast marketing? And why should I have to pay the price!? I HAVE to watch the commercials! I don’t have a fancy DVR or whatnot. I don’t know if I can take much more of this.

UPDATE: I go out looking for screen-grabs of the episode in question, particualarly the awful product placements, and I find this episode re-cap at EntertainmentWeekly.com. My brain nearly exploded when I was looking for some criticism of the ham-fisted attempts to sell us a $40,000 car and they act like nothing happned. In fact, here’s what they wrote:

Lynette was stressing out as usual, and her worry only became even more amplified when Bree — fresh off the success of her best-selling cookbook — rolled up in her brand-new Lexus. (Apparently, Lexus now makes cars that feature a refrigerator in the backseat and a self-parking mechanism! What will they think of next?)

DUDE WHAT? Am I taking crazy pills here?!:!!?!

And I’m not so naïve as to think that this sort of thing hasn’t been going on for a long long time, but let’s step it up a notch there fellas. I mean, you don’t have to smash us over the head with it.

This is as close as I could get to an example of what I’m describing, but just be aware that they’re ACTUALLY talking about the car. And if this is satire, it didn’t work. If it’s subtlety, I’m friggin’ Ponce De Leon.

Here’s a nice collection of the genius of Saul Bass: Saul Bass: Jack Of All Trades

This is awesome.
The kind folks at Octopus Books have published a magnificent book of poems from Eric Baus. It’s good stuff. And Eric was kind enough to ask me if I would design the cover. And I DID. You may be thinking it looks familiar. That would make sense. Anyway, it fit like a glove, so we went with it. I like it. They seem to like it. All is well.

So the site is going to look like this until I touch up the Sandbox theme from Andy and Scott (who coded the foundation of the previous version of my site). I really love the super-simple foundation that they’ve provided, and the (apparent) simplicity of customizing the appearance with just CSS and no screwing with the PHP or any of that madness.

We’ll see how it goes.