Will Atlanta ever grow up?

This article makes me sick. Will this city ever get over itself? And, don't think people can't see through the smoke and realize the deep rooted racist message this sends.. What do you think? This is my fav quote:

"We like our cars and our roads. We like our cars so much that even with gas at $4 per gallon, MARTA won't be enough to get us out of them. We like our roads so much that we name them after the people who build them or in memory of people we admire."

Idiots..

Saving Money

Here are the top 10 ways to Trick yourself into saving money.

Enjoy!

A day at The Circus

An interesting article about a bake sale four students were hosting.

Typography

Check out this Sexy, Bold And Experimental Typography!

Getty Images Begins Licensing Flickr Photos

"Getty Images, one of the world’s largest media licensing companies, has partnered with Flickr to add a broader selection of pictures to its online catalog. Getty will hand-pick a number of Flickr members to participate in the program, with a goal of acquiring thousands of images in the next few months.

Getty editors will use a set of tools jointly developed by the two companies that will enable them to easily scan through Flickr photos to find the best of the crop. Each selected member will have their images licensed through a special Flickr-branded section of Getty’s site, and will receive portions of the licensing fees collected by Getty (there is no set payout structure - each selected participant in the program will need to negotiate their own deal with Getty).

Flickr members will likely try to do anything they can to become a part of the program, which stands to offer them both wide exposure and compensation for their work. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way for a Flickr member to apply to become a part of the program - they need to be “discovered” by Getty’s editors. It’s also hard to tell how lucrative the deals will be for photographers, as Getty has yet to form any partnerships." Learn more via TechCrunch...

AIGA|AQUENT SURVEY OF DESIGN SALARIES 2008

The AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries is commissioned annually by AIGA, with the support of its partner, Aquent, AIGA’s official sponsor for professional development, and in cooperation with Communication Arts magazine. The salary survey is part of a comprehensive program of AIGA activities developed to serve the professional designer with strategies for success as well as sources of inspiration. AIGA is the principal source of information on the design economy.

Atlanta Skateboarding

I seem to forget Atlanta still has a good skate scene:

Zoo York Atlanta Trip 2008
Streets Atlanta Trailer

Yeah Kenny, I know... I need to go skate...

Top 100 Advertisers Shifted $1 Billion To the Web Last Year At The Expense Of TV And Newspapers

"The top 100 advertisers in the U.S., who represent 41 percent of total advertising spending, shifted about $1 billion last year from TV and newspapers to the Web. An analysis from Ad Age shows that overall media spending in “measured” categories (TV, print, radio, Web) by the top 100 advertisers was flat in 2007, with 0.3 percent growth to $61.3 billion. But spending on Web display ads rose 33 percent to $4.2 billion."

A very interesting read via Luke. Check it out....

Google, Yahoo spiders can now crawl through Flash sites

"As anyone who has had the pleasure of doing web design and development through marketing agencies knows, Flash tends to be wildly popular among clients and wildly unpopular among, well, pretty much everyone else. Part of the reason for this is because Flash is so inherently un-Googleable; anything that goes into a Flash-only site is basically invisible to search engines and therefore, the world. That will no longer be the case, however, as Adobe announced today that it has teamed up with Google and Yahoo to make Flash files indexable by search engines."

Read more....

The Wish Ramp (1997)

Probably one of the best mini ramps I ever skated. Lots of good times back then. Being a kid was so much easier.... All that mattered was the next time I was going to go skate..

HBO 'Voyeur' Collaborator Calls Cannes Prizes Unfair

"Last week in Cannes, BBDO's campaign for HBO brought home the Omnicom Group-owned agency and its creative chief, David Lubars, a lot of hardware. Now "Voyeur" is offering a tense look inside the often uncomfortable relationships between ad agencies and digital specialists when it comes to the question of who takes credit for award-winning work."

This is an interesting read.

Thinking back...

I remember being in middle school and everyone around me wearing nicer clothing than what I had. There were a few times I had to wear my sister's socks. The picture I am trying to paint is that I was dirt poor.

Back then, I associated brand name clothing with financial status. Now why is that? When you think about it, most name brands these days are made in other countries in mass quantities, and then sold in the USA for huge profits. What about that item of clothing makes someone better than anyone else?

Here I am, almost 29 years old... I'm no longer dirt poor, and I couldn't care less about material things. Sure, if I need a new shirt, I buy one... if I need a new pair of jeans, I buy those too. However, you won't ever see me walking the streets with a huge Louis Vuitton logo on my back.

How do you feel about brands in today's society?

AARF, new space

Here are some photos from the painting of our new space. A big internet ^5 to Never and Dizo for coming out and helping make it happen.

I am on the road right now; a bit tired.. Hope you enjoy.

Lightview

My buddy Weaver sent over this pretty cool image overlay tool. One of these days I will get around to putting up a better NON Flash site with something like this. Who needs Flash..... Grrr.

Who Will Rule The New Internet?

An interesting article I ran across this morning. Who do you think will rule the internet? I am still waiting for Craigslist to start shooting advertising out into space.

Coolest Slip and Slide Ever!

How do you improve a slip and slide? Well first you can make it go downhill. Then you can hold onto a rope while a jet ski pulls you off a jump. Awesome!!

Cisco Telepresence Magic

Wow, this is amazing! What do you think? What type stuff will we be doing in 5 years?

erokCom.com == no more + other stuff.

So I took down my erokCom.com site. After awhile it started to feel like I had more stuff than I really wanted to manage. But don't worry, I will still post stuff on Flickr. (I have it redirecting anyway)

I have yet to embrace Twitter. I did sign up for Plaxo, but then deleted it. How many social distractions does one person really need?

I am however a Facebook fan.

Here is to a weekend without the computer.

Simple vs. Complex User Interface Design

I just ran across this article about Simple vs. Complex User Interface Design. It's a good read. Here is one of my fav quotes..

" I think it’s a reality. Whether we’re developing using a high-end design or a low-end technique, we need to focus on what the project does and what kinds of needs it actually fulfills at the end of the day. We should think about usability as a continual process.

To be honest, I go back and forth on Craigslist because on one hand, I’d love to see someone take it and make it look good and build a brand around it visually. But on the other hand, the brand is what it is and has formed itself organically. I will say this though, as far as rich Internet applications go, there is an opposite effect. For example, people in the financial industry use very rich Internet financial applications all day long — Web-based and standalone — for trading and other functionality that you just couldn’t do in low design."

Some flicks

I am working down in Fort Lauderdale this week. Here are some photos. Enjoy.