Currently working on a site for JLS Designs, an architecture firm based in Queens, New York. They previously had a site, but it was nothing more than a few images on a page along with contact info. The image shows the beginnings of the navigation system, which was meant to look “constructed”, hovering over a menu link caused it to become highlighted with what hopefully appears to be an under-light. Hard to get the effect across without being able to interact with it, it’s nothing ground breaking but I think it adds a little interactivity without getting tied up in Flash components. Anyway, there’s still a whiles to go, but now that the skeleton is in place, progress should be quick.

Those bastards are at it again! If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Apple, it’s that you never buy the first generation of a remodel or new product if you can avoid it. Invariably, they will update the product a few months later, without changing the price, and you’ll be stuck with a product that probably looks the same, but YOU know is infinitely worse than the new version.

I am, however, in the market for a Apple desktop and will be looking into the iMac more seriously (now that it’s faster) instead of the Mac Pro which is substantially more expensive.

I love this simple ad by designer Jun von Matt for Ikea. They are a series, so check out the others on the Bad Banana blog.

So I spend entirely too much time watching The Discovery Channel and National Geographic and Man vs Wild is one of my favorite shows. That is, it was, until the word spread that Bear Grylls (pictured above eating a raw, rotting Zebra) would actually spend some nights in a hotel while filming the show, instead of roughing it like he swore to us he was.

Well apparently new episodes of his show are coming out, so he’s doing press stuff or whatever and there’s an article on Yahoo where he discusses the hotel issue briefly and talks about the new season. Anyway, there was one particular passage that caught my attention:

In a forthcoming episode in Mexico he killed and skinned a snake, ate it, made a bag out of the skin, and urinated into it. He drank the urine the next day to show people how they can survive for long periods without water.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have drank your own urine (much less from a bag made from the skin of a snake you recently killed, skinned and ate) but I’m willing to forgive this man a few hours in a bed. I think he’s at least earned that.

Catherine and I are in the process of acquiring our motorcycle licenses, we thought it’d be something fun to do during the spring so we could ride while the weather is good. She actually has a 50cc scooter (New York only requires a motorcycle license to drive anything under 50cc in engine size) that she’s been riding since November of last year. She rode it through most of the winter, which I could never do.

Now that the weather is getting great though, I kind of want to see what all the fuss is about. The problem is that I don’t really want to spend as much as I’d have to spend to have something that can only go 45mph, so I really would need a motorcycle license to ride anything quicker.

I’m going back and forth between a scooter (such as the pictured Big Ruckus) and a small, cheap motorcycle. I really would prefer a motorcycle, mostly because most scooters aren’t made to fit a 6′6″ guy. The Big Ruckus, for whatever reason, has always sort of caught my eye. Maybe because it’s one of the few scooters that doesn’t look like it was designed for 17 year old girls, it actually looks utilitarian. It’s also got a bigger motor so it can get up to maybe 75 - 80mph, which would suit me just fine.

We’re planning to take our permit tests this weekend before attending a safety course, hopefully we’ll have our licenses within the next 2-3 weeks. Then we’ll see how the motorcycle/scooter debate plays out.

“Everyday Typography” was an exercise in creating a poster that displayed typography in everyday situations. I choose to approach the project by examining how type is affected over time when placed within the reach of people. The image used is of the text on a parking meter, which someone had taken the time to gouge and scratch at, basically rendering it unreadable.

Logo for a project I worked on a few years ago, meant to symbolize physical labor and activism.