I don’t know what you did at work yesterday, but I was transported back to high school on a field trip. I had the excitement and anticipation of getting out of my normal “routine”, and spend the afternoon with co-workers to share some laughs, food, semi-competitive sports and a few drinks. A big yellow school bus picked me and my office mates up from work and took us to Fairmount Park for a picnic. It was time for an agency happy hour, we’ve been pretty busy of late and needed to unwind and have some fun outside of the office. Here are some pictures from the event (at least the ones I can post).
It’s a beautiful day in Philadelphia. The sun is shining, the humidity is low, and the Philadelphia Flyers are two games away from a Stanley Cup title. Leave it to Chicago’s WGN sports anchor Pat Tomasulo to mess it up.
Walking down Broad Street I spotted a man wearing white gloves and carrying a large case up to the historic Union League stairs, while being followed by a tv crew. Thanks to the Phillies, I now know the elements of transporting Championship trophies- cameras, white gloves, and an absurdly large protective case.
Immediately I shot a photo on my blackberry. I mean, it’s only natural that the most coveted trophy in the National Hockey League would be in Philadelphia for Wednesday’s game six against the Blackhawks since if they win, the trophy will be theirs (BOO!).
Turns out I was duped by a lowly Chicago sports anchor. When I noticed he was wearing white gloves to simply carry the case, and then saw him put said case on the ground to take a photo with me, I was suspicious. But when I saw him pass the Union League and drop the case after hitting the railing of the Banana Republic, I knew I’d let my Flyers spirit get the best of me.
Like every Flyers fan I hate the Blackhawks, but now I hate Pat Tomasulo as well.
As you may recall, we debuted components of the new brand and advertising campaign we created for Michigan State University during March Madness. And even though MSU was ousted by Butler in the Final Four, we’re still pretty proud of the Spartans, and our work. Something else to be proud of? Yesterday that work was featured in Stuart Elliott’s weekly “Campaign Spotlight” advertising column in The New York Times. Check it out here.
At the onset of our relationship, MSU, the nation’s eighth largest higher education campus community, had a national profile as a large, research-focused public university with a highly competitive athletics program, but suffered from limited public knowledge of their academic achievements and social impact. The school’s massive size had led to hundreds of communicators creating mixed messaging, inconsistent design, and a complete lack of a cohesive brand. Our job as an agency was to develop a brand that conveyed some of those great accomplishments taking place on campus, while still being flexible enough to be used by all those different communicators and designers within the University. Our solution? Take the University’s best known attribute and source of pride, the Spartans, and use it as an entry point into what the school is accomplishing off the courts and fields. MORE
Glockenspiels, graphic patterns on Pyrex bakeware, the Work in Progress Society, cardboard sculpture, and foxes! Fine company for an article I wrote for the fifth issue of Uppercase Magazine – a visual survey of the design and aesthetics of DuPont’s marketing of synthetic fabrics from the 1920’s to the early 80’s. The history of the development of synthetic fabrics is a fascinating nexus of science, industry, design, advertising, fashion and culture. In turn, the same goes for focusing specifically on the promotion of the fabrics themselves. It is a rich core sample of prevailing trends in design, typography, advertising illustration and photography, etc over the decades…
Uppercase Magazine? Let me say again – The clue to what distinguishes Uppercase Magazine lies in its motto “A magazine for the creative and curious” It’s the “curious” – It accounts for the joyful, inclusive sense of collaboration and sharing that pervades the whole shebang. The magazine reads like a conversation between like-minded folk riffing on the impossibly cool thing they’ve drawn, thought, photographed, collected, discovered, etc. No lofty curatorial snobbishness or hipster veneration of the mindlessly shocking or willfully ugly for these cats – just a democratic spirit and a celebration of beautiful things.
The magazine, as a project and physical object, is the very embodiment of what it celebrates. It works on a collaborative publishing model, and is designed and produced with great care and craft. Feels great in the hand. The covers so far have been stunning. The whole Uppercase venture, gallery, books, blog etc… seem of all of a piece. Well worth it. Explore here. Subscribe! Subscribe!
Hey, remember that movie Space Camp, where the kids get accidentally launched into space? Well, I came close to that cinematic glory on my recent vacation to Florida, when I went to (watch) the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch in Cape Canaveral.
It was the perfect experience for an ex-Space Camp Nerd-turned-writer, and a sad send-off to the space program. Needless to say, it was an incredible day. The viewing area was set up about 6 miles away from the Cape Canaveral launch site at the Kennedy Space Center, so we entertained ourselves with Astronaut Ice Cream, flight simulators and IMAX movies about the Hubble Telescope while we waited for the countdown. There was also a “Rocket Park” filled with to-scale models of nearly all the aircrafts throughout NASA’s history, including a replica of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, as well as one of the Mercury capsule, Freedom 7, that sent Alan Shepard to space in a compartment about the size of a bathtub. (FACT: did you know the outside of the space shuttle is made out of silica tile that can be safely handled at nearly 2000 degrees Farenheit, only ten seconds after removal from a high temperature oven?)
The launch itself was really impressive, and the day was so clear that we not only got a great view of the shuttle as it went up, but also got a glimpse of the external fuel tank as it fell off the shuttle, and the after-burners diminishing into space. It was pretty cool to be able to simultaneously watch the flight video on a large flat screen, hear expert commentary, and watch the actual shuttle taking flight. NASA has obviously created many checks, balances, and procedures that go into such a large, complex, and carefully choreographed production. Enjoy some of my own photos of the venue and the launch below. (The shuttle photos were taken with a telephoto lens–click on them to get a larger resolution.) Or for some really breathtaking ones of liftoff, check out this photo gallery.
I have to say, even as I get older, space exploration (like dinosaurs and costume parties) really doesn’t get any less mind-blowingly awesome.
The Launch:
This screen showed the different steps to Countdown, and then video feed of the launch:
it’s like Woodstock for aerospace afficionados:
Zoomed out photo of the stream of smoke:
The Venue:
“Astronauts” attached the roof of the Kennedy Space Center:
The Rocket Park:
To give you a sense of the size of these rocket boosters:
The best photography advice I ever heard: Take more pictures. Google Streetview’s got us all beat there. While I’ve yet to edit the shots from my friend Mitch’s 30 birthday at the Russian restaurant from 2003, they’ve got about a gazillion photos sorted and geotagged. Sigh.
