If you ever want to join me for a little fun on wheels after work, grab some skates (quads only) and come on down to The Pit behind Krunch Skate Shop. You may even get to hip-check me – if you’re lucky.
If you ever want to join me for a little fun on wheels after work, grab some skates (quads only) and come on down to The Pit behind Krunch Skate Shop. You may even get to hip-check me – if you’re lucky.
With Grammar and Spiders…the only way to fill Aaron’s really big shoes. So here’s how and why to use whom in a sentence.
It is my very last week here as an intern, and it has been the most refreshing 173 hours spent. It all started when my professor shared to me that helveticka was thinking about opening a spot for an intern.
I was very lucky to have this opportunity. Lucky in a way that it presented itself to me, but not in a way that it was handed to me. You know when you worked hard, is when you feel like you aren’t going to achieve that goal. That is how it always happens to me. I work extremely hard for something, feel like I am failing…and then “BAM” I achieve that goal. That was the feeling I got when I was trying to get this internship. When I made that facebook campaign, I told myself, “You are insane, you are not going to get this internship” right before making it live. Well, here I am today, writing my goodbye post on helveticka’s very own blog.
The main thing I have learned on this journey is solidifying that I am in the best industry and that I am unbelievably excited to become a part of it in the near future. Working at helveticka has been only a blessing which makes it even harder to leave.
“It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
…you haven’t seen the last of me, helveticka. Just you wait.
While reading this blog post, I had a vague recollection of my high school English teacher making a very clear distinction between flounder and founder. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what it was. Then, on the way to a meeting in Colfax this morning, CK casually used flounder in a sentence*—no doubt referring to my career—so I made a mental note to look into the difference between the two words.
Naturally, Paul Brians has the answer:
As a verb, “founder” means “to fill with water and sink.” It is also used metaphorically of various kinds of equally catastrophic failures. In contrast, to flounder is to thrash about in the water (like a flounder), struggling to stay alive. “Flounder” is also often used metaphorically to indicate various sorts of desperate struggle. If you’re sunk, you’ve foundered. If you’re still struggling, you’re floundering.
Typical brilliance: describe the difference, then give us a way to remember it. Do yourself a favor and buy his book, would you?
*Yes, he used it correctly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTpb37WY0eA
Really, I’m not sure exactly where to begin. Is it condescending and obnoxious? Or is it just embarrassing? Or is it even more insidious: the natural progression of an American pop culture that elevates attitude and posturing over art? Or am I taking this way too seriously?
Apart from some commentary online about the possibility of the video being racist—don’t want to go there—there seems to be very little push-back. Which means that I’m probably just a cranky old man.
The true test, I suppose, is whether it succeeds in driving customers to Kmart. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
While CK was gallivanting about the North Atlantic Seaboard last month (see here, here, here, here, and here for his New York City travelogue), I stuck closer to home. Somebody had to mind the store, after all. The great thing about eastern Washington, though, is that nature has a way of keeping you guessing. At left is Elk Creek Falls, just two hours (and an easy two-mile hike) north of Spokane; at right is the view from the summit of Steptoe Butte, an hour in the opposite direction.
Since my desk is placed between Shirlee and Aaron, I have had a good time just experiencing the two of them. And since they have done this silly thing by trusting me to post on the blog, I decided to give you an inside scoop on these two hardworking individuals.
Aaron listens to either some kind of “hippie indie” tunes, or “I am going to stab you with a knife” music. Seriously though, I am at a hookah lounge or a crazy rock concert; it’s always a surprise. His area is extremely neat and he is usually here first, typing away on his computer. One thing I find hilarious is he will randomly laugh to himself a couple times a day. Is he reading an email? Copy a client gave him? Searching weird images? I have no idea; and I think I will just leave it at that. That’s what you get for constantly wanting to haze me as the intern, Aaron!
Shirlee listens to music I would listen to in high school, which is usually punk bands with funny and somewhat edgy lyrics. I enjoy the time travel! Shirlee and Aaron are almost complete opposites, which is really entertaining. Aaron will laugh to himself, while Shirlee will laugh loudly and share what she just came across to everyone. Her desk is full of pictures and random objects, including an old Mac desktop containing a large spider; honestly, just think of anything you probably wouldn’t put on your desk and she most likely has it.
They are usually talking about what files need to be sent to who, making fun of each other, venting, or making jokes about wrapping me in plastic wrap and shipping me away. Fun times.
No other city in America can take credit for helping our favorite font become a household name. It was in the 1960s that Madison Avenue first put Helvetica on the map—and not only by using it for major brand identities (Crate&Barrel, Knoll, AmericanAirlines, et al.), but also quite literally, when the New York City subway system adopted the Swiss-born typeface. Today, the Big Apple continues to use Helvetica in ways that underscore its ability to communicate clearly as well as its incredible versatility. It’s “the perfume of the city,” according to graphic designer and publisher Lars Müller. “It is just something we don’t notice usually but we would miss very much if it wouldn’t be there.”
With several prominent museums in Manhattan, there’s never a shortage of things to see. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is one of my favorites. As luck would have it, I ran across a Le Corbusier exhibit there—MoMA’s first major exhibition of his work—featuring paintings, sketches, architecture models, writings, and rare interviews.
Just last fall, while visiting Harvard University, I came across the French master’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. Constructed in 1963, its his only building in the United States, and the MoMA exhibit may offer a clue as to why: “Such a small commission,” he bemoaned, “for such a large country.”
“We rely too much on technology. I am not against it, but a pencil is one with my brain, an extension of my hand.”
Located near the famous Flatiron Building in downtown Manhattan is the headquarters of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), of which I’ve been a proud member since 1990. Inside AIGA’s humble three-story building is a gallery featuring the work of Spanish designer Manual Estrada. I’d never heard of him. An architect turned graphic designer (an admirable decision), Estrada’s beautiful work is accompanied by dozens of amazing sketch books—what he calls “visual diaries”—that reveal his design process and conceptual thinking. The show features his logo, book cover, magazine, and poster designs. It’s no wonder that Estrada is the first non-American to exhibit his work at AIGA NY. I now have a new design hero and a new sketch book.
I spent the last couple of weeks away from the office. (Yeah, even my boss lets me get away once in a while. And by “boss” I mean myself, not Shirlee). I traveled to the east coast and spent several days in one of my favorite destinations: Manhattan. Look for the Big Apple to be the subject of this week’s daily blog.
The Society of Illustrators is hosting an exhibition on children’s book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. Among his notable works, Sendak’s most famous literary achievement is Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963. Growing up, this was a popular book in my household. The exhibit features several never-before-seen sketches, drawings, and theater designs, including his commercial work for television. Sendak died May 8, 2012. In honor of his birthday this year, he was featured in an animated Google Doodle June 9.
This blog has been active for more than three years now. And I would have bet that, in the 650 posts since we launched back in February 2010, we’d covered pretty much all the grammar issues that matter.
But that was before Shirlee told me that people don’t know the difference between their, they’re, and there. After expressing my disbelief, Melanie—in a show of solidarity with her fellow designer—said, “Have you seen Facebook?”
I’m not one to venture too far into the fetid fever swamps of social media, so I’ll just take her word for it.
So, for the record, here’s how it all shakes out:
Their is a possessive pronoun—like his, her, and our. “She’s their daughter.”
They’re is always a contraction of they are—and nothing more. “They’re her parents.”
There is what you use for everything else. “There goes the neighborhood.”
It’s really quite simple, isn’t it? So there’s really no excuse for mixing these up.
Doug Clark has a column about Dutch’s imminent closing in today’s Spokesman-Review. My love affair with the place began when I was a music student at EWU in the late 80s; for the last five years or so, it’s been my son’s go-to shop for all manner of guitar- and drum-related things—not to mention expert advice on everything from Canadian tone woods to case humidifiers to Jeff Beck albums.
When the doors close for good in October, Spokane will lose part of what makes it Spokane.
Most of you have probably read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” It’s the late author’s most famous short story, and has been assigned reading in public high schools for decades.
I knew next to nothing about Jackson herself, however, until I read this essay by Victoria Best.
It’s long been fashionable to cite “The Lottery” as a warning against the dangers of conformity—dangers that are self-evident to the Baby Boomers who grew up reading Jackson’s work and who, in turn, taught Gen-Xers like me. But as Best points out, the much more frightening possibility is that “the terrifying face of evil [is] part of ordinary people and small town life.” It’s a common theme in all of Jackson’s writing—something she herself referred to as “the uncontrolled, unobserved wickedness of human behaviour.”
