Perfectly Coordinated Brady-Bunch-esque Webcam Music Video

Life is like a Rubik's Cube

This is totally dorky but totally awesome, and I wasted a lot of time over the past few days searching design blogs for this image, which I saw awhile ago and forgot to save. I finally found it on Kitsune Noir, a sweet design/hip stuff/tight mixtapes/cool desktop backgrounds blog. I don't know if they're related to the French house music label or not, but I kinda hope so. When Pandora is up and running again (OH NO!! wha happened?) then I will share my obnoxious house music radio station and then you'll know why I can name-drop French house labels.

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

I know it's kinda blurry/tiny, so deal with it or just read it on the original post.

Thinking about Jobs

From Swiss Miss, one of my favorite design blogs, also heavy on the typography. By Bud Caddell, called How to Be Happy in Business.

Not only do I LOVE Venn Diagrams, but I also have been thinking about this a lot. My current jobs fall in Hooray (sortof) and Learn to Say No, but I am going back to school to learn to do the rest of what I want to do better.

Ramadan Lanterns

I read this post on Bryn Alexandra's blog, and it renewed my desire to have a Ramadan lantern. I saw them in the metal-worker's khan in Cairo and I wanted them then, but they are way to big to fit in my suitcase. I wasn't there during Ramadan (whew!) but it looks beautiful to see so many lanterns filling the streets with light and color. This website explains the lantern tradition in a hysterically Egyptian way: myth, commercialism, and Chinese plastic!

MSTRKRFT

My dorkiness reaches new heights! The hipster coffee shop boys were playing this when I went to go buy my coffee before they closed at 3 PM. I <3 techno, and want this album.

In other news, today I made grilled vegetables, which were soooo gooooood, read Summerhill, drank pretentious French coffee, bought carrot seeds, velcro rollers, and a giant umbrella, and drank rum & ginger beer. What a wonderful day.

Balloon Art by Willy

Maker Profile - Steampunk on MAKE: television from make magazine on Vimeo.

I got this link from my friend and former roommate Willy. It's from a cool DIY website that I am excited to further explore. Willy embodies all the cool parts of Steampunk with a lot of circus-y fun. He builds fabulous balloon sculptures and is starting a balloon business, Cheers 2 Balloons (his last name is Chyr. Do check out the website, the pictures are dope.) For the comb jelly photo above, he worked for a week to build it with LED lighting in the biology building, with my current roommate and some friends for labor and tech support. (My friends are so awesome. I can't get over it.) Hopefully, I will be helping with building huge balloon jellyfish for a children's science fair in Millennium Park in August! He made the balloon dresses above for a UChicago art week fashion show in the spring, and Zeb & I went to go see. A bunch of our friends were in the show, either designing or modelling, and while there were a few awesome dresses by other designers that I wanted to buy, Willy's dresses proved that he is the coolest kid in school.

Emily & SPG

This weekend I got to see my good friend Emily, so I thought I would pimp her photography. Buy some, she's great! And while you're at it, buy or commission posters from her man, Travis Bone (aka T. Bone, aka SPG, or Sketchy Poster Guy.) He hand-prints posters, mostly for music shows, from his home in Salt Lake City. And for BIG DEAL musicians, too! Talk about a power couple. Here's one poster:

Ahead of the Curve

I totally scooped the New Yorker on the Michael Jackson- Manu Dibango connection, and I'd like to take credit for that.

To further spread my trend-setting taste, watch this video that my friend Genevieve showed me. mmm, summer.