From Frank L. Cioffi’s indispensable One Day in the Life of the English Language: A Microcosmic Usage Handbook (2015), comes this sage advice:

The “rules of English” that we were taught, still remember, and even live by provided guidelines for grade-school students, namely, children who were gradually acquiring an understanding of formal English, and who had to be weaned from their childish language. For example, we were taught not to start sentences with conjunctions such as and or so or but. We were taught not to end sentences with prepositions and not to split infinitives. As far more sophisticated users of language, we understand why these rules were created, and though we don’t invariably break them, we also understand that it’s not necessary to blindly or mechanically obey them. In fact, we realize how important it is to routinely question these rules, and to discover their margins and limits.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

It’s been a long week. A tough one, if I can be honest. So rather than hit you over the head with an annoying grammar quibble or bore you with a personal anecdote, here’s something fun: a four-minute time-lapse video showing the construction of a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87pNldMBJcA

Have a swell weekend, y’all.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Even as 2017 seems hell-bent on making 2016 look positively sane by comparison—no mean feat, that—a story like this gives me faith in our species.

Like an idiot, however, I also read this. So…one step forward, two steps back. Maybe I should just quit reading altogether.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

After being out of college for more than five years, I have homework. Homework. Thankfully it’s fun, interesting, and awesome homework.

My one-year-old Shiba Inu, Remi, just advanced to the intermediate level of obedience school, and I couldn’t be more stoked. We adore the trainers, they have a great reputation in Spokane, and I – hands down– would recommend them to anyone with a dog. Every class feels like you’re watching a kid learn to read, or seeing a baby take its first steps. It’s THE GREATEST. Which makes the idea of homework great, too—because you get to bond with, learn from, and teach your furry BFF.

It wasn’t until I actually downloaded the homework that I got discouraged.

Great design is everywhere. So’s good design, mediocre design, and…bad design. But bad design somehow SCREAMS at you. It refuses to be ignored.

As a designer, I have the privilege to be able to correct bad design and point out how good design – even just basic principals – can elevate any piece. Take the below single page from Remi’s homework packet.

Technically, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s all the same typeface, the body copy is consistent, and the header is larger and bolder to set it off. But click to the next image and see what happens when I take that same copy and apply hierarchy and comfortable spacing (both in the margins and in the leading).

Don’t your eyes instantly feel more comfortable? The left and right margins give a visual break while your eye tracks from one line to the next. They can rest and read at the same time without straining. Which means you actually want to read it. And if you want to read it, there’s a better chance you actually will, right?

“Good design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible. It’s only when it’s done poorly that we notice it.”
– Jared Spool

posted by: Courtney Sowards  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment

A pattern of vertical and horizontal black lines.

Primary colors.

Straight-sided geometric shapes.

Asymmetric balance.

Simple enough composition, yet in the early 20^th century, when Piet Mondrian – one of the founders of the Dutch De Stijl movement – applied his aesthetic of total abstraction as a model for harmony and order into his paintings, it shook up a Western world just emerging from the thicket of Art Nouveau. It signified a radical shift towards abstraction and rationalism. Mondrian’s compositions would be crucial in the development of Modernism throughout the century. His work to this day permeates our culture, its influence appearing in decor, cakes, Katy Perry, Nike, the White Stripes, Yves Saint Laurent, and even in the meticulously designed coasters of a certain design firm.

Explore his life and work at this superbly designed digital archive.

posted by: Andrew  |  category: random thoughts the design life  |  make a comment

Ah brevity, the silver stag we chase through the woods; the tightrope we walk between too much and too little. It’s like the sound of a chord as a few choice words intertwine. Whatever comparison suits your caffeine-addled mind, it’s that elegant economy, written or verbal, we strive for when searching for what to say.

Which brings me to Hemingway, who, despite being dead, turned 118 a couple weeks ago. Some of us have visited his grave, others, read his books; all of us, however, should take some time out of our day to read his famous six-word story:

For sale,

Baby shoes,

Never worn. 

Here’s to you brevity, you cheeky eel.

posted by: Andrew  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

It’s always interesting to visit museums, especially when traveling to a city you’re experiencing for the first time. On a recent trip to the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, we came across Fatigues by Toronto-based artist Abbas Akhavan.

Is that really a deer?

The whitetail buck was lying on a wooden floor, carefully placed in a corner near large white walls, and, of course, well-lit. I began to read the artist’s statement: “Fatiques consists of a series of animals stuffed and laid right on the floor in different locations around the exhibition gallery.”

Hmmm…okay.

There was also a screech owl, a gray wolf, a red fox, a black bear, and a North American porcupine, among others. “While taxidermy animals are most often exhibited in posture suggestive of their grace or agility in their natural state,” the statement continues, “those of Abbas Akhavan are mounted in positions that evoke their vulnerability and show them as inanimate creatures, consigned to a state of perpetual silence. By avoiding giving them narratives or prominent displays, the work hopes to avoid dramatizing their deaths in order to prompt consideration of the precariousness of life.”

All right, I wondered, what constitutes art? And what might a first-time visitor be thinking? Will he ever come back? And why isn’t the tongue hanging out of the deer’s mouth?

I’ve seen plenty of dead deer in my lifetime, but they’re usually on the side of the road. (And when they’re stuffed, they’re positioned upright.) But seeing animals sprinkled about inside the museum was unexpected. Imagine the conversation between the artist and the curator…

Perhaps author Joyce Carol Oates put it best. “My belief is that art should not be comforting,” she wrote. “For comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”

Which explains why, two weeks later, I’m still thinking about it.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(2)