“New York’s least likely media mogul was the mastermind behind Environments, a series of records he swore were ‘The Future of Music.’ From 1969 to 1979, he took the best parts of nature, turned them up to 11, engraved them on 12-inch records, and sold them back to us by the millions. He had a musician’s ear, an artist’s heart, and a salesman’s tongue, and his work lives on in yoga studios, Skymall catalogs, and the sea-blue eyes of Brian Eno. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s only because he designed his own legacy to be invisible.”

Read the fascinating story of Irving Solomon Teibel over at Atlas Obscura.

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

Finally got around to reading David Browne’s magisterial So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead. Granted, I’m a bit biased (a sizable chunk of my home’s shelf space is taken up by Dead books and CDs), but this is an extraordinary look at—in Browne’s own words—”one of the last uncompromised and uncompromising organizations in pop culture.”

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

THE VISIBLE AND THE IN-
Marge Piercy

Some people move through your life
like the perfume of peonies, heavy
and sensual and lingering.

Some people move through your life
like the sweet musky scent of cosmos
so delicate if you sniff twice, it’s gone.

Some people occupy your life
like moving men who cart off
couches, pianos and break dishes.

Some people touch you so lightly you
are not sure it happened. Others leave
you flat with footprints on your chest.

Some are like those fall warblers
you can’t tell from each other even
though you search Petersen’s.

Some come down hard on you like
a striking falcon and the scars remain
and you are forever wary of the sky.

We all are waiting rooms at bus
stations where hundreds have passed
through unnoticed and others

have almost burned us down
and others have left us clean and new
and others have just moved in.

from Made in Detroit (© Knopf, 2015)

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

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I mean, of all places, a cemetery ought to offer some respite from the inexorable onslaught of commercialism, right? Then again, a guy’s gotta make a buck. I just would’ve liked to have seen a more creative headline. Something like… “Think Outside the Box.” [rim shot]

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

HYPERBOLICSYLLABICSESQUEDALYMISTIC
Isaac Hayes

I wanna come back
Cause I like it like that
Your modus operandi
Is really all right, out of sight
Your sweet phalanges
Know how to please
My gastronomical stupensity is really satisfied when you’re loving me

Now tell me…what…I…say
Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic

I can’t sleep at night
But that’s all right
The M.D. tells me
My heart’s on strike
Emanating originating from a love asphyxiation
He said I better slow down before you drive me in the ground
But what he doesn’t know is I want another encore

Now what…I…say
Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic

Let me stop procrastinatin’
Standin’ hear, and narratin’
Find my emancipator, she’s a love educator
Cerebral, cerebellum, a medulla oblongata
A slave’s on a horse, every time she explores
Just heard a discussion about a racial relationship

Now what…I…say
Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic

(1969)

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

Throughout the week it’s easy to find cool things on the internet. Typically I share them with my coworkers, but busy days have left me with open tabs with no where to go. So here they are, folks. My weekly findings that have nothing to do with anything except that they are fun to look at, interesting to scroll through, or made me happy in some way. Enjoy!

This app was was launched and banned in 7 days after a landslide of 50,000 downloads.

The NY Times just kills it – both with design and content – on these side projects: 25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music is Going.

Who knew black and white tiles in a school could be this awesome!? #yesplease

As a total Manet fan, I can’t help but love this take on art. Who needs pixel art when this clearly blew it out of the water in style and class?

Inspiration comes from everywhere – even if it is in the form of website wireframes.

This font takes me back to when my sister and I would read The Witches. 

In a few weeks I will be attending An Event Apart in Seattle and this website gives you as many maps as you want for exploring the city.

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

Q: Three women walk into a bar. Which one’s the vegan?

A: Don’t worry. She’ll tell you.

There are a lot of equally funny variations on this joke (e.g. substituting atheist for vegan). I imagine the reason it works is because it’s so true. Certain types of people just can’t wait to tell you how special they are.

Like those of us who make our livings as “creatives”—a loathsome term that, Scout’s honor, is used in this industry without irony. (If we’re so creative, maybe we could come up with an actual noun instead of co-opting an adjective, mmmkay?)

Let me back up. When I started in this business, I was appalled at the egos surrounding me. I’d never been around so many people so supremely confident in their own abilities, so convinced of the inherent virtue of their craft, and so bent on telling me how awesome they were. I chalked it up to arrogance and a natural competitiveness, and silently plotted my escape toward a career path populated by fewer narcissists. (There isn’t one, by the way. Designers are just more honest about it.)

Then I happened upon something Alice Rawsthorn said:

“Design has always been a culture of plenty, intellectually and commercially. The underpinnings of design have been about this belief that the new is almost always better than the old. There is a solution to every problem, and everything can always be improved upon. That lends an almost moral imperative to design that makes designers feel happier about the virtuous part of what they do.”*

I asked around the office, and everyone pretty much agrees. So I’ve come to the realization that what separates the sheep from the goats in this business isn’t a clash of personality types; it’s a difference in Weltanschauung.

In other words, I see the absurdity of life, shrug, and tell people that’s just the way it is. Meanwhile, my coworkers are looking for a way to fix it. Neither is necessarily correct—but the designers I know are right far more often than I am.

*Helvetica/Objectified/Urbanized: The Complete Interviews (Hustwit, 2015).

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