February 2008
Gus Design Group | Elegantly Minimal Furniture +... →
for sloan. this part reminded me of you: “we delight in the simplicity of everyday objects.”
January 2008
“In short, Tumblr wouldn’t exist if we said “yes” to every request.
Imagine the...”
– CATSLOCK
peacock tail →
jakoblodwick: A beautiful new Tumblr theme. Via Marco.
“i think design can be much more like art. i work with intuition. if they say...”
– -jaime hayon this one goes out to mr. michael gluzman.
amo inquiry attempt
(i began by sending an email explaining what i was trying to do for professional practice - get in touch with someone to begin a dialogue with throughout the semester)
AMO PR person: Dear Travis, I hope this finds you well. Thank you for your email and your interest in working for AMO. Can you please send your CV to us which we will then forward on to Marieke Rietbergen? We look forward to receiving it!
Me: hi isabel, i will be happy to send my CV to you, but i am not actively seeking employment with AMO. instead, i am seeking contact with someone who works there as a part of a student design journalism assignment. if it is possible for you to simply give me the contact information of someone at AMO who would be open to answering a few questions from a student once a week, that would be wonderful. please let me know if that sounds agreeable, and if not, what i might be able to do to make it work. thank you for your time.
AMO PR person: Dear Travis, Sorry for the misunderstanding. Although your assignment sounds very interesting and is indeed a good way to get an insight into how a company works, it unfortunately will not be possible for an AMO staff member to be your design mentor. Marieke Rietbergen is currently very busy with new acquisitions and ongoing projects that leave her only very little time to work on requests as such. I hope for your kind understanding. Thank you again for your interest in the work of AMO and the best of luck for your project!
oma/amo
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is a leading international partnership practicing contemporary architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. The office is led by Rem Koolhaas. The counterpart to OMA’s traditional architectural practice is AMO, a design and research studio based in the company’s Rotterdam office. While OMA remains dedicated to the realization of buildings and master...
gang related
for the few people who read this who aren’t in my professional practice class, there are about to be a lot more posts about assignments i’m working on in professional practice. this tumblr is now doing double duty as my internet-interesting-thing-shelf and professional practice journal/log. in particular, i am tasked with staying in communication with a designer of my choosing. the...
“in the end, the dilemna is, do you tell the client the truth at every stage, or...”
– -jan lorenc, lorenc+yoo design for a corporate exhibition at eli lilly, lorenc+yoo was terminated by the client for telling them that the project could not be completed to the client’s expectations in the time span set by the client. the company hired another design firm, which in the end...
on buying art
James: Hey T-Bones, I need an art opinion, was thinking of buying some of this guys work (I already got his "egg" print), but I am thinking if buying something larger and more expensive, I just wanted to hear your thoughts.
Travis: i like it. i'm not sure how much my opinion matters.
i have had trouble recently figuring out what art means to me - and, to me, that is the only question that matters when asking yourself whether or not you are going to buy art.
lately, i buy and re purpose commercial objects for display, or i buy and display the work of my friends. i do this because, for me, these pieces have narrative that i have imposed onto them - the story of how a $10 piece of shit from target is on the wall; or how cat, the girl who takes my coffee order at octane, took the photograph that i gave to stacy for christmas.
i find myself grasping for the personal connection of late. something to make it less of a commodity. this is probably also due to the fact that i have limited means.
“it is the business of the future to be dangerous.”
– a.n. whitehead
Tumblr is not a CMS
If you think Tumblr is doomed because it’s missing your top hundred favorite features from x, you’re missing the point. — jstn
“‘Seeming impossible’ is practically a requirement for a truly great...”
– Joel Spolsky, confessing having thought neither eBay nor Wikipedia would catch on, with “Inspired Misfires” in February’s Inc. He stresses network effect (popularity leading to more popularity), which also helps Tumblr. - Reblogged from Bout of Context blog. -via Julia Allison
"I have the feeling our talking won't get us...
When I am on the phone with someone and realize everything has been said, I ask to hang up –– without making up an excuse, but stating that real reason. — mareen
“Elope with me, Miss Private, and we’ll sail around the world
I will be your...”
– belle and sebastian, “piazza, new york catcher” stacy and i talk about traveling a lot. the other day we talked about how fun it would be to elope instead of the huge ceremonial marriage thing…to take all of that money and time and funnel it toward a wild and wooly trek to...
Glass Booth →
Comparison shop for Presidential candidates. — jstn
“if you focus on the new trends, you are already behind in creating new ideas.”
– mike cina, weworkforthem
4 tags
“there should be no separation between spontaneous work with an emotional tone...”
– armin hoffman
quick Tumblr interview (thedeal.com) →
“Forty percent of our traffic comes from referrals. If we focus on the people who really love Tumblr—the artists, musicians and other creative people who are doing the most brilliant things with it—and we help them to take what they’re doing to the next level, then they will inspire and magnetize other people to Tumblr.” Why don’t more websites have that policy?...
Okay, so I just watched another BBC documentary,...
1) The white light at the end of the tunnel has an actual physical reason (cells, I don’t really care to explain), as has the feeling of joy and peace (endorphines). Now here is the reason I post this: 2) Out-of-body experiences (people watching the scene from the outside, and sometimes even seeing details when they physically had their eyes closed and were unconscious): Two scientists, one...
6 tags
“there is a distinction - how we see as opposed to what we see. i believe that...”
– mack scogin of mack scogin merrill elam architects, atlanta
why tumblr?
Carleton: What is it that's different for you about Tumblr? Why after multiple attempts at starting a blog and multiple failures you actually stuck with tumblr? I don't mean to single you out, This seems to be a almost universal phenomenon. Countless people I know have stuck with tumblr after so many neglected blogspots and livejournals. As someone who has been more or less consistently writing online for almost 4 years now I'm a little perplexed as to why tumblr has taken off as it has. Is it just the expectation or lack thereof for longer a more detailed text posts? As far as I know there's not much difference between tumblr and other services on a technological basis. What are your thoughts on this?
Me: i'm very interested in this, but for now, for the sake of brevity, i'll say that the most captivating thing about tumblr is the framework. you're right; technologically, it's nothing new. however, i think tumblr has succeeded in creating a new paradigm for bloggers - one in which the 'blog' typology is reimagined as a scrapbook or exhibit....
i know you read lodwick, rvv, zklein, etc....they've all written (i think) about their fear that tumblr is another way of devaluing written word in favor of a text-message-slang mentality...i share that fear....twitter especially scares me...there's this idea that tumblr is an oscar wilde "life as art" thing, and that's kind of interesting, but again, also a bit scary....i believe in objective quality of creative work and i don't think that every joe on the street shooting self-portraits on his iphone is "good." however, reading jakob lodwick, who, in the past, has been good at "curating" his life on tumblr, is interesting and good to me. he's testing new ideas and trying new things and that's exciting to me.
does this make sense?
“my goal is to replace my soul with coffee and become immortal.”
– a dilbert comic strip
“I still only travel by foot and by foot, it’s a slow climb
But I’m...”
– fiona apple, “extraordinary machine” the singer seems to describe some sort of race or game against an opponent who she is constantly outwitting and outlasting by virtue of her ability to “be uncomfortable” and thus, constantly open to change. the part about seeking...
music power
i derive a lot of joy from listening to music. over the past five years or so, i’ve noticed that my listening emphasis has shifted from away the lyrical aspects of each piece, to the music itself. whereas i used to value poetic lyrics, i now place a higher value on musical innovation or performance. however, for the past few months, i’ve been attempting to listen more carefully to...
“and you choose, you chose
poetry over prose”
– leslie feist
i want a redo of the past 24 hours