Illustrations by Emma Kelly

I'm really digging the fresh and energetic style of London illustrator Emma Kelly, I think you will too: I Like To Draw Things.

Really nice work.

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HMK

Paris 3D

This looks really sweet. Soon to be released pending Apple approval.

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HMK

Redbone Guitar Boutique: Fly On The Wall

Redbone Guitar Boutique.

Original photo of Mick, John and Paul during a Revolver mixing session at Abby Road, Studio 3, from May 26th, 1966 by Robert Freeman.

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HMK

Design Pricing Formula

Considering the wide range of variables, pricing is a task a lot of designers struggle with. I prefer to work on a project basis vs. an hourly rate after the scope and timeline of the project is clearly defined.

The truth is that nobody can really tell you what you should be charging as a designer and this design pricing formula from David Airey helps explain why.

David Airey shares his thoughts and some pricing articles that are definitely worth a look: Design Pricing Formula.

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HMK

Good Comedy

These are awesome. Check out the rest of Marc Johns' ever growing Post-it Note Drawings.

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HMK

All Hail The Cheese & Burger Society!

Ladies and Gentlemen - this is how you sell cheese!

Humorous voiceovers, mouthwatering photography and engaging navigation add to the overall interactive experience on this unique and memorable site as it pays tribute to the 30 greatest cheeseburgers of all time—made with Wisconsin cheese.

Dig the awesome Cheese & Burger Society site built by the amazingly talented folks at Shine.

Hungry yet?

Do yourself a favor, cut to the chase and bookmark the San Antonio Burger Blog. While they don't have my favorite local burger listed yet, the Black Angus burger from Boudros on the our fabulous Riverwalk, it's a great resource for anyone in quest of the perfect burger and I'm sure they'll get to my favorite eventually!

And just so you know, Boudro's only serves this burger at lunch and it's not on the menu - just ask and they'll hook you up.

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HMK

Thanks to: Communication Arts.

A Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commercials

Sweet! Just in time for the premier of Mad Men season 3 next Sunday!

Check out AdViews, a digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s.

These commercials were created or collected by the quintessential "Mad Men" ad agency, Benton & Bowles or its successor, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B). Founded in 1929, Benton & Bowles was a New York advertising agency that merged with D'Arcy Masius McManus in 1985 to form DMB&B. Major clients included are Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Schick, Vicks, and Post, among others. Commercials will be added in phased batches over several months in 2009.

The commercials are a part of the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles Archives found at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

And I really digs the fact that you can either view these via the Duke University AdViews website or stream, download and subscribe in iTunes!

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HMK

Gracias to Design Observer.

The Flight Chair

The Flight Chair design concept by Matthew Weatherly would look perfect in my house or just about any chiropractor's office.

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HMK

Thanks to Design Milk

How Do You Spend Your Day?

This is how most people over age 15 spent their time in 2008.

Using data compiled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this New York Times Infographic: The American Time Use Survey asks thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day.

I think I might need to add a bit more orange to my day...

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HMK

The Price of Entry

This is an excerpt from an awesome interview/discussion between smashLAB's Eric Karjaluoto and Blair Enns, founder of Win Without Pitching.

Eric: Every industry has its clichés. Tell me about the blunders that most creative companies unwittingly make that limit them.

Blair: Thinking that they can fake deep expertise across an impractically wide area. Thinking that they are in the service business. Thinking that they cannot let an opportunity pass them by. Thinking that they can win business by compromising their principles then somehow fixing it later. Thinking that their firm is somehow exempt from the laws of supply and demand economics. Thinking that they’re not really in it for the money.

Eric: Are there any marketing catch-phrases and terms used by designers that you’d like to see bombed to Oblivion?

Blair: I hate the word ‘branding’ as a claim of expertise. An expert is someone who has a deeper knowledge of the subject than others trading in the area. I wonder if there’s even such thing as a branding expert. There are just too many people in it and very, very few that have meaningful knowledge that others do not. A designer claiming expertise in branding is like a fish claiming expertise in swimming. It’s not expertise; it’s the price of entry.

Exactly. Some really nice insight and wisdom in this piece - continue reading here if you agree and want to learn more or here if you already know it all...

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HMK

Thanks to Blair Enns, founder of the Win Without Pitching movement and a business development adviser to marketing communication agencies and Eric Karjaluoto from smashLab.

The F-Word

Focus Groups: It's Like Saying the F-Word to Creatives.

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HMK

Today In Beatles History

This is bad ass and should be an app: Today In Beatles History.

August 1st, 1962 Performance at the Cavern, with Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the Mersey Beats.

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HMK

100 Years of Design Manifestos

Woodcut by Frans Masereel

Since the days of radical printer-pamphleteers, design and designers have a long history of fighting for what’s right and working to transform society. The rise of the literary form of the manifesto also parallels the rise of modernity and the spread of letterpress printing.

Here are a few excerpts:

"We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!... Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed."
1909 The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, F.T. Marinetti

"Architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! For there is no such thing as "professional art". There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies."
1919 Bauhaus Manifesto, Walter Gropius

"I believe that typefaces are valuable, powerful, and beautiful cultural tools, worthy of legal protection and deserving of the price they bring in the Western marketplace. Moreover, a gift of typography makes good on a unique body of skill, knowledge, and passion."
2006 Free Font Manifesto, Ellen Lupton

Dig: 100 Years of Design Manifestos!

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HMK

Gracias to the smart folks at: Back Space.

Sound Branding

An effective brand identity is commonly perceived as a good brand name and logo, trendy package design – dimensions which mainly concern visual senses. However, this common perception of branding is incomplete.

Human beings have five senses, so why would brand strategists leave four of them aside? Over the past few years, senses other than sight have been explored by brand experts and marketers. Although the senses of taste and touch are more difficult for brands to reach, some brands like Singapore Airlines and Rolls Royce have already used scent to build brand identity, also known as olfactive branding.

A new area of focus is now sound branding, explored in this article from Brand Infection.

When you really think about it, this idea and focus is actually not all that new - I mean, if you're not familiar with the NBC Chimes, or the audio tag for Intel, you're either deaf of live someplace like Easter Island.

I've always loved audio tags and jingles and believe they can be just as vital to any branding campaign as any logo and/or tag line. If you've ever listened to my HMK Mystery Streams you're probably already familiar with some of my little audio tags: If: Irregular Frequency created in the summer of 2007 and Totally Bitchin', my first attempt from back in 1987 using samples from Frank and Moon Unit Zappa's Valley Girl (1982) and The Surf Punks Teenage Girls (1980).

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HMK

Marco Brambilla: Civilization

The Standard Hotel in New York, recently declared to be the Municipal Art Society's Best New Building of 2009, has an incredibly stunning HD video installation located in, of all places, their elevators!

Civilization, a chronological video sequence using over 500 looping clips to simulate the “journey” from hell to heaven plays on high-definition monitors which are seen through a viewing port in each of the elevators at the hotel and move according to the direction of the elevator.

It's awesome and I can't wait to check it out in person later on this year!

Do yourself a favor and check out Civilization by Marco Brambilla and Crush, Toronto.

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HMK

Brazilian Chair

OK, getting back down to Earth after what turned into Space Week here at That's Right...

Dude, I really want this chair designed by Brazilian designer Sergio Rodrigues via Silvia Nayla!

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HMK

Gracias: Design Milk!

Splashdown!

Safe at home!

In college, a friend asked Armstrong if he wanted to be the first man on the moon - "No," he answered, "I want to be the first man to come back from the moon"... Genius!

At 12:15 p.m. EDT July 24 the Apollo 11's command module Columbia splashed down in the mid-Pacific, about 24 kilometers from the recovery ship U.S.S. Hornet. Following decontamination procedures at the point of splashdown, the astronauts were carried by helicopter to the Hornet where they entered a mobile quarantine facility to begin a period of observation under strict quarantine conditions. The CM was recovered and removed to the quarantine facility. Sample containers and film were flown to Houston.

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HMK

Heinz Edelmann

Sad news about Heinz Edelmann, he passed away yesterday, July 21st 2009. Edelmann was 75. The photo above is from 1968.

With Heinz Edelmann, the graphic design community looses one of its most innovative practitioners. During his long and prolific career he has created groundbreaking work in the fields of Animation, Advertising and Publishing.

Among the best known of his creations are the illlustrations he did for twen Magazine and Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazine, his book designs for the publishing house Klett Cotta and his posters for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Broadcasting).

Then there is of course the one chapter in his oeuvre that has made him known worldwide: his stunningly inventive work on the Beatles movie Yellow Submarine.


Edelmann also designed many book covers, including the first German edition of Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings,' and won a contest to design the mascot of the Expo '92 world fair in Spain.

More here: AGI. RIP Heinz.

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HMK

Quest For Storage Space

Wow! Considering the computer on board the Apollo 11 Lunar Module had about as much technology as a digital watch does today, this super huge 256GB DataTraveler 300 jump drive from Kingston is nothing short of amazing!

Retail price is a sky high $924US.

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HMK

Thanks to The Cult Of Mac

More Soviet Space Dogs

Most of us are by now familiar with Laika (Лайка, "Barker"), the first space dog and her fateful journey aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957, but did you know that there were at least 26 other Soviet Space Dogs shot into space?

Chernushka
This is Chernushka (Чернушка, "Blackie"). She made one orbit on board Korabl-Sputnik-4 (Sputnik 9) on March 9, 1961 with a cosmonaut dummy (whom Russian officials nicknamed "Ivan Ivanovich"), mice and a guinea pig. The dummy was ejected out of the capsule during re-entry and made a soft landing using a parachute. Chernushka was recovered unharmed inside the capsule.

Veterok and Ugolyok
Meet Veterok (Ветерок, "Little Wind/Breeze") and Ugolyok (Уголёк, "Little Piece of Coal"). They were launched on February 22, 1966 on board Cosmos 110, and spent 22 days in orbit before landing on March 16. This spaceflight of record-breaking duration was not surpassed by humans until Skylab 2 in June 1973 and still stands as the longest space flight by dogs.

Female dogs were used because of their temperament and because the suit for the dogs in order to collect urine and faeces was equipped with a special device, designed to work only with females.

The cool part is that unlike poor Laika, most of these little guys made it back home safely and received the appropriate star treatment.

But wait, there's more! There's an animated Russian feature film called Star Dogs: Belka and Strelka that's currently in production and scheduled to open in Russian theaters in December 2009.

Sweet.

Meet the rest!: More Soviet Space Dogs

U mina plokha s ruskim,

HMK

A big spasiba to fellow stamp geek Joseph Morris for sharing his awesome stamps!

Behold! The Real Moonwalk Thriller!

"Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind." Neil Armstrong

"This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way." Buzz Aldrin

"Ok guys, I'll guess I'll see you back here in about 21 hours or so..." Michael Collins.

The lunar module landed at 20:17 on July 20th and took off at 17:54 on July 21st.


Actually, Michael Collins, the least famous our amazing trio did a lot more than he's credited for. The now famous mission patch of Apollo 11 was his creation. Jim Lovell, the backup commander, mentioned the idea of eagles, a symbol of the United States. Collins liked the idea and found a photo in a National Geographic magazine, traced it and added the lunar surface below and Earth in the background.


The Apollo 11 Crew: Lunar Module Pilot, Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin Jr, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Mission commander and first man on the Moon Neil Armstrong.

Go to the Moon with Google Earth!:



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HMK

Boston Pizza

I'm planning on hitting my old college stomping grounds by the end of the summer to catch a Sox game, hook up with some old friends and eat some lobster. And no trip to BeanTown would be complete with out an awesome slice or 5... My hands down choice for the best pie in boston is Regina Pizzeria with Newbury Pizza running a close second.

Regina Pizzeria's opened in the North End in 1926 and it's truly everything a pizza place should be - awesome pies from the brick oven, pitchers of beer, hip, boisterous waitresses, and Sinatra on the jukebox. That’s amore! (Yup, that’s on the jukebox.).

Sadly, Newbury Pizza has closed. I worked at Newbury Pizza and interned at Hill Holliday part time while I was at the Massachusetts College Of Art & Design back in the late 1980's. Newbury's wicked simple and fresh pizza pie was the closest thing to a New York pizza you could find in Boston and working with Lee, Brian and the owner Angelo was really my pleasure and greatly enhanced the short 4+ years I lived there.

Regina Pizzeria
11 1/2 Thacher St.
617.227.0765.

More Boston Pizza!

HMK

Long Live Laika!

Fifty two years ago a sweet little puppy named Laika went from stray dog to a national hero when the Soviet Union strapped her into Sputnik 2 and launched her into outer space.

Just last April 11th, 2008, Laika finally got some well deserved recognition. On the eve of Cosmonauts' Day, marking Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin's April 12, 1961 space flight, a monument to Laika was officially unveiled near Moskow's Military Medicine Institute, the same place her flight team prepared for her original, fateful space mission in 1957.


Like all dogs used in the Soviet space program, Laika was a stray. Strays were chosen because Soviet doctors apparently believed the mean streets of Moscow were similar to conditions experienced in space. Small dogs were selected due to the size constraints of the Sputnik 2 capsule.

"Laika was quiet and charming," Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote in his book about Soviet space medicine. He even took the dog home to play with his children. "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live," he said.

Here's to all Astronauts - God Speed!

And you've got to check out this nice flickr set dedicated to: Laika, my favorite Space Puppy.

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HMK

Thanks to Reuters

We Choose The Moon!

All Things Apollo 11!

• Interactive: Recreating the Apollo 11 mission in real time, with Mission control transmissions via Twitter, e-mail alerts and a mission tracker.


• Interactive: Review a space race timeline, watch videos and study the history of the space program.


• Neil Armstrong: Check written by Neil Armstrong auctioned.


• Mission audio: Sounds from the Apollo 11 mission.


• NASA: The Web site for the 40th anniversary.


• NASA: The Apollo 11 history page


• Google: Tour the moon missions.


• Twitter: ApolloPlus40 tracks the mission as it happened.


• Facebook: Visit the group page and join the conversation.


• Smithsonian: The National Air and Space Museum's exhibit on the Apollo program.


• iTunes: 'Apollo 11: The Game' is an app that puts you in the lander's cockpit.


• NASA: The Lunar Science Institute


• Wikipedia: Review the audio, photos and other links in the Apollo 11 entry.

• HBO: Featurettes on the making of the miniseries 'From the Earth to the Moon.'


• YouTube: Footage of Apollo 11's moon landing.

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HMK

D-45

This is a pretty cool little flashback idea - the iTunes Store just launched a new section called “D45s.” Just like old school vinyl 45s, these new digital packs contain two songs, the A-side single/the intended Hit and the flip side or B-side.

Pricing ranges from $1.49 to $1.99. Sweet. I even dig the logo.

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HMK