take out box
last night at mercato in philly they boxed our food on the way out. it was those foil bottom and paper top kind of temporary containers that are secured by folding the sides of the foil over the paper. when i checked the bag back in dc they had written “his” on mine and “hers” on kristin’s. this was such an easy and effective way to communicate which box i should grab on my way to work in the morning.
i love good design and i think the heart of a good design is good communication. i’m always on the lookout for things that just work like this. i’d encourage everyone to keep an eye out for products or experiences or processes that just click (or don’t work at all) and think about why it clicks. i bet it involves unambiguous, simple, and effective communication. feel free to share in the comments
halloween 2009, or, that time i told the congressman who lives two doors down that he could have candy too since he was in costume (only he wasn’t in costume…)
ahwosg
i finally got around to reading this book and it reminds me of an urban photography class i took in college. we had this assignment where we had to photograph landmarks, things that were essentially philadelphia, without taking pictures of statues or the liberty bell or anything that was actually a landmark. i came in with a photo of the kimmel center and was pretty confident about its composition, color, and rhythm. everyone put up their photos for one of those 3hr crits and the instructor, in typical studio style, managed to find something terribly wrong with each person’s work.
the problem with my photo was that it looked too nice—that it was impossible to take a bad photograph of the kimmel center. the architecture was too interesting, there were too many possibilities for success. that’s how i felt about this story. there are some interesting, inventive uses of dialogue, but at the end of the day there was a story to be told and he told it. in an entertaining but entirely self-absorbed manner. but the novel does pose a couple of interesting questions: what are we owed? why are we owed?
tacos
walking to a taco joint in oahu via kuumele then kuukama then kainalu then kuulei then kailua roads.
