Wired just posted this interesting article.  They say, we focus so much on the impertinence of good nutrition but don’t always consider how important it is to have a balanced diet in our media intake.  It should be a diet that nourishes us and doesn’t deplete us or leave us empty.  This illustration by Jason Lee says it all.  Enjoy.

Damien Hirst is an artist I became familiar with through an article in Fast Company titled, Most Creative People of 2009.  I was instantly captivated by his 22 ton shark preserved in phamedlahide and suspended in a modern container with an apparent weightlessness.  His work is considered highly controversial by many.  He also has an incredible project where he uses a number of these modern containers to house sequential cross sections of a cow which in total make up the entire figure.  Each of these cross sections are spaced out far enough for an observer to walk around it in 360 degrees.

I am inspired every time I watch a presentation on TED. This story however takes it up a notch. Watch this video presentation given by Lewis Pugh an explorer and endurance swimmer who successfully completed the extraordinary challenge of being the first man to swim at the Geographic North Pole.  Without fail, make sure to watch the award winning commercial on the home page of Lewis Pugh’s website.  It is incredible.

If you are a lover of random facts, take a look at this brilliant website dedicated to communicating tidbits of factual information through rudimentary drawings submitted by loyal fans and fact enthusiasts. This site is an example is a simple idea executed to perfection.

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Visual design is more than styling. It is function. And not only because it communicates, but also because it makes us feel. And between feeling and communication, people find things easier to use. – Stephen P.Anderson.

This week we finished a web development project for CAFA – Christian Advocates for Adoption, a non-profit organization committed to helping families raise funds for adoption. It’s essentially a system whereby an adoptive family can broadcast through social networks or email a “family ID” which friends and loved ones can paste into the CAFA donation page and e-donate tax-deductable funds to that family via secure PayPal.

McDonald’s worldwide sees nearly 47 million customers through it’s doors every single day. If you are at all interested in great design, you’ll love this collection of 40 clever advertising campaigns of McDonald’s through the years posted on The Design Inspiration.

View All 40 Now

*All images copyright McDonald’s Corporation.

I just finished watching an incredible presentation on TED about the “Surprising Science Behind Motivation” by Dan Pink.  He reveals a number of practical examples about why the typical intrinsic motivators we use every day in business stifle creativity.  One such example is the contrast between Microsoft Encarta and Wikipedia.  Microsoft hired a highly-trained team of developers committed to delivering the project on time and on budget.  These developers would receive rewards as motivation for meeting tough deadlines.  Dan pink calls this type of motivation “carrots and sticks”.  Encarta is set to be terminated on October 31, 2009.

Wikipedia was created with an entirely different model.  No one was paid one cent, one dollar, one yen… The project was conceived out of passion and the belief they were on to something incredible.  Dan poses the question, “What would economists have predicted would have been the more successful method?”

Further, Dan Pink talks about Google having a 20 percent time policy where developers are given 20 percent of their day to dedicate to whatever they wish.  These ideas are later proposed in meetings.  I was shocked to hear that over 50% of the Google products in a typical year are produced from this 20 percent time.

I just finished reading an interesting article in Wired featuring concepts from leading designers about what Craigslist might look like if it were to have an interface makeover.  Anyone whose ever used Craigslist knows it’s both incredibly helpful and incredibly cluttered.  Craigslist doesn’t appear to be interested in a makeover, but as nerds we can’t help but wonder.  What design do you like best?

Read Article on Wired.com Now

This afternoon between projects and meetings I found a little time to walk over to Marie Catrib’s on the corner of Diamond and Lake Drive to grab a Russian Sandwich on thinly sliced holla bread.  Because my job is output so much of the time (creating concepts for client videos, directing short films, creating websites, designing brand identities, ect) I’ve found it incredibly rewarding and imperative to take short amount of time each day to listen, watch and read about the most interesting people, products and concepts in the world.  This afternoon I watched a video on Vimeo featuring Seth Godin at the 2006 Gel Conference.  He partnered to create a website called This is Broken, a project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it.  He showcases things poorly designed and why they are that way.  We all have something to learn from this seminar.

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.