Once hosted here at Drawger, Lou Brooks (with a bit of help from me doing some weekend and after-hours programming) has brought The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies back!

Do the right thing: Here it is

Details for Dorks

In the past, we did interactives such as this exclusively in Flash. For this one, we programmed the entire interactive in javascript and for certain, this will be the way we handle these sorts of projects going forward. It was faster to deploy, and at the end of the day, it looks better than having to rely on a Flash player. Not only that, it runs on hand-held devices, which Flash currently can not.

Getting our final code delivered to the National Geographic server provided an interesting look under the hood of this major site, which AdWeek recently named as website of the year. We were provided with access to the NatGeo CMS (content management system), which allowed us to simply paste our full code straight into a text field, save and then view. Having designed and delivered CMS systems for the last nine years or so, it wasn't exactly the most intuative or elegant interface, but at the end of the day, it worked and that's all that really matters, one supposes...

It was also a fine thing indeed to team up with Rob Covey again. Rob is heading up online creative for NatGeo these days. Back in the day, Rob made working with US News and World Report a real gas and at NatGeo, he's still making every project a real pleasure.

1. I wonder if source books work any more.

2. I wonder if direct mail works any more.

3. I wonder what reps do these days.

4. I wonder if social networking brings home any cabbage.

5. I wonder if big portfolio sites like theispot and folioplanet deliver a return on the investment.

6. I wonder if blogging pays.

7. I wonder if dropping off a portfolio actually exists any more.

8. I wonder if winning awards still means anything.

9. I wonder if just sticking with it still works.

10. I wonder if it's even possible to answer any of the things I wonder about.

We've all read a lot of hang-wringing editorials about the demise of print and been equally subjected to the same lament about editorial content on the internet as well. Everyone seems to agree on one dreary fact: Editorial content can't make money in an information-rich world where everything is free for the Googling.

A recent article in Time Magazine by Josh Quittner has been on my mind a lot lately. The article, The Race For a Better Read does a few things which are remarkable and right out in the open: Begging, confessing the obvious in public, and finally, offering an actual solution that I can relate to.

First off, it's an article that starts out asking for a dime (in the online version). I think this is funny, but only in a sad sort of way.

Secondly, Quittner goes on to confess the obvious: Online editorial content isn't making any money for the owners. In an odd new world where the print side of journalism can't rub two nickles together and their online counterpart doesn't deliver the cabbage either, Quittner asks a timely question: What's next?

Kindle is a huge success story in the making. It proves that people are willing to pay for digital content ($10 per book right now) if the process of obtaining and paying for that content is easy to understand. Capitalism being what it is, success stories get noticed quick. Sony decided it wanted to play by introducing it's own book reader, which by most accounts isn't as friendly as the Kindle but at least proves the point that there's a rapidly emerging market for pay-as-you-go digital content.

Where I think Quittner stumbles is when he imagines a world where a news article is worth a dime - or a world in which anyone will be willing to pay for one article at a time. This is the same idea that Quittner originally bounced back in 1995 in his Way New Journalism article for HotWired. That didn't happen and it's not going to happen.  What's going to happen is what's happening right now with the proven model of the Kindle. People will gladly pay for rich content that they can take anywhere, but are they going to pay for it one page at a time? Not now, not never.

David Kaplan, reporting at PaidContent.org from the American Society of Magazine Editors Awards yesterday writes that the editors he spoke with all "seemed to feel a need to mention the 'dignity of print' and that even in the digital age 'print has value'.” I think everyone can agree with that. Print will never disappear. The reality is there are compelling alternatives arriving that have the real potential to be more profitable than our old pal, paper. 

A couple of years back, my daughter Lila got the idea that she needed to take a semester out of high school to work on the pre-production of an independent film, being shot in our little town. She convinced me to also get involved by naming and designing some bogus products to be used by the cast. Being that it was my daughter asking, it was an easy decision to make. The film made a remarkable journey after Lila went back to high school. From very humble beginnings, with no budget to speak of, a complete cast of non-actors and guided by the single-minded and brilliant vision of director Chusy, Anywhere USA has landed itself in the dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

Finally they needed a fake dating website that was geared towards plus-sized singles. Once again, it had to look and sound cheap, but believable. I settled on RealBigLove.com. Incorporating some advertising for BUB cola and Kegger into the site just seemed like a natural thing to do. Director Chusy also wanted part of the site to feature a dramatic close up of a penis, which I am not going to be subjecting anyone to here, but I will say that sitting with the director and retouching that photo was a uniquely unsettling and hilarious experience. I may never live that down...

When a recent job came in to do a logo for a NYC recording studio, I thought back (for one reason or another) to how darn cool those Kuba Clothes were that Rob Dunlavey made a gallery about.

Rob D pointed out the Hammill Gallery where you can get a real fine sampling of Kuba. Here's some favorites: one and two and three

The first real job I ever did for a real magazine was in 1978 for Mother Jones Magazine. I was living in Oakland at the time, and I rode my little Yamaha 400 across the Bay Bridge in gale force cross-winds with the illustration in a backpack. I arrived at Mother Jones and handed over the art to the art director (can't recall her name).

She said she liked the piece very much, but that there was a slight problem. That being, Mother Jones didn't have any money to pay me for the job. I don't mind saying I was counting on the money to pay for some much needed food at the time and the news came as a serious blow to my complaining stomach.

The art director asked, "Do you like Ralph Steadman?" I said that indeed I did. She asked me to follow her and I was escorted to a room where there were perhaps 10 or more signed prints of Steadman's spread out on a table. She asked if I would accept one as payment.

After picking out a print, she provided me with a mailing tube which I bungied to my little Yamaha and faced the cross-winds of the Bay Bridge home.

The print, signed in pencil below a printed signature and numbered 56/100 depicts J. Edgar Hoover and has hung in my house ever since.

New house! Move accomplished!

Very cool to see some new faces here. I guess there were no major bombs while I was disconnected, so the code works whether I watch it all the time or not. Yeah!

Best advise to anyone who is planning to move: Hire someone else to do it and pay them whatever they want. I'm too old for this and my feet are killing me.

. . . . .

I won't be around for at least a few days because I bought a house and now I need to move into it.

I've moved many times over the years, but I never seem to realize, or I simply forget between moves, a few simple truths about myself:

I have too many books and should never move at all, because they are just plain heavy.

There is little to no point in saving every illustration I ever did. They take up a lot of space and they don't do anything but lie in state.

Every time I move, I spend more time looking at archived stuff than I spend packing. If I didn't save old drawings, I'd move much faster.

My refrigerator is actually filled with condiments and very little food.

All of the socks I thought I lost are behind the dryer.

. . . . .

I'll be gone for a week for my annual birthday escape - just to let all here know that there's no one watching the store. My partner in Drawger, Josh Carpenter leaves as well for a tour with The Nein, where he'll be playing at South by Southwest on March 18th. I'll be checking email.