Puppy Love

One of Elements' projects du jour is for a puppy-themed promotional mailer for a consumer pet product manufacturer and marketer. Check out all of these adorable pet-related finds and inspiration! We'll post the finished product here.

AIGA | CT Presents Crosstown

Tonight, from 6 - 8 pm, come on down to 116 Crown in New Haven or Firebox in Hartford to sip an interesting cocktail, savor a lovely appetizer and socialize with Connecticut's creatives.

This is the second Crosstown event hosted by AIGA | CT, and if the last event was any indication, a great time should be had by all!

Note: A limited number of AIGA | CT Crosstown t-shirts will be on sale for $15.

Old World Elegance

While I was in Ireland on vacation two weeks ago, I couldn't help but notice how many things were a mix of the old and the new. The food, clothing, and certainly the architecture. All of the hotels we stayed in had been built years ago, some having been partially updated to retain some of the old world elegance, and some completely updated and moving into the 21st Century with zeal.

The lighting in the reception areas of our hotels particularly showed these differences.

Our hotel in Derry, northern Ireland.

There were two of these chandeliers in the lobby of our hotel in Cork, western Ireland. You don't get any idea of the scale from this photo - these things were huge!

I loved these lights and the patterns they cast on the ceiling. These were by the elevator in our Killarney hotel, southern Ireland.

Memorial Day Fun

I hope your Memorial Day weekend was fun. Here's a picture of my son, Cole (riding shotgun with the baseball cap) and his friend, Oren (who's older and clearly is the better driver) crusin' around our neighborhood in Mr. MacBride's '64 Mustang convertable. Oh, to be a kid again!

Wish I Had a Madsen

Business Card 101

"Even if you hate me, you'll keep my business card". This guy couldn't have it more wrong - it's hysterical!

Memorial Day

Around this time of year, I have flashbacks of writing "What Memorial Day Means to Me" essays in grade school. Back then, it really just felt like an assembly with a few uncles or grandfathers in uniform followed by a long weekend.

Now that I'm older (and wiser), I reflect more thoughtfully - especially having several family members (and friends that feel like family members) having served (or currently serving) in the military.

So - this weekend - make like Peter Pan and "think happy thoughts" for all of the extraordinary men and women who have honorably served our country in both past and present.

Happy Memorial Day from all of us here at Elements!

How's Webinar

Today, I'm on How Magazine's webinar: 5 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Your (and Your Clients’) Business. I'll follow-up with notes!

Data over Design

In a recent NY Times article, Google's preference for data over design was illustrated as Douglas Bowman, Google's last top visual designer, was interviewed regarding his abrupt move to creative director at Twitter.

Google's position:

"Mr. Bowman’s main complaint is that in Google’s engineering-driven culture, data trumps everything else. When he would come up with a design decision, no matter how minute, he was asked to back it up with data. Before he could decide whether a line on a Web page should be three, four or five pixels wide, for example, he had to put up test versions of all three pages on the Web. Different groups of users would see different versions, and their clicking behavior, or the amount of time they spent on a page, would help pick a winner.

“Data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions,” Mr. Bowman wrote.

Google is unapologetic about its approach.

“We let the math and the data govern how things look and feel,” Marissa Mayer, the company’s vice president of search products and user experience, said in a recent television interview."

Twitter's position:

BUT Mr. Bowman has found a place that better suits his sensibilities. He is now the creative director at Twitter, where he says he has a greater opportunity to shape the look and feel of the service. Already his team has unveiled a major design overhaul. On the margin of users’ pages they added a search box and a list of “trending topics,” subjects that are most popular with tweeters at a given time.

He has also found a new way to listen to customers: reading their tweets in reaction to the new design features.

“Using data is fundamental to what we do,” Mr. Bowman said. “But we take all that with a grain of salt. Anytime you make design changes, the most vocal people are the ones who dislike what you’ve done. We don’t just throw the numbers in a spreadsheet."

Very interesting...two companies, both successful, and two very different philosophies.

Greetings from Ireland!

Yesterday, we received this postcard from vacationing Kerry who is in Dublin:


Safe travels, Kerry. We're happy you're finding rainbows.

Calling All Trekkies!

I'm hearing nothing but glowing reviews for the newest Star Trek movie. It's on my "must do" list (as opposed to my never-ending "to do" list). Meanwhile, I've got to give props to the movie's website. Its navigation sweeps you through the Starship Enterprise and the graphics are impressive.

Last note: I usually am annoyed by music on websites because more times than not, its not appropriate and distracts from the purpose of the sites message. Here, finally, is an example where the music on the site is so well done it only serves to add excitement to the web experience and for the film it is promoting.

Social Media "Word fo the Day"

If you have ever come across the acronym "RT" on Twitter and haven't figured out what it stands for yet (like me), I did a quick search on Wikipedia and discovered that it is defined as follows:

"ReTweet, in the social networking and micro-blogging service Twitter, to re-post something posted by another user, usually proceeded with "RT" and "@username" to give credit to original poster".

And all this time I thought it stood for "return thanks"! Now I know.

Remember Smokey?

My brother had the Smokey T-shirt when he was really young. I thought it was the coolest. Aren't these stamps beautiful? Brings me right back ...love the illustration style.

~via fffound

Creamed Spinach

Yesterday was our first (of many) photo shoots for our client, Seabrook Farms - all of whose frozen vegetable packaging we are in the process of redesigning.

First up, creamed spinach.

Here are our many, many bags of thawing Seabrook creamed spinach. We learned yesterday that not all batches of spinach are the same color. This became important later in the shoot as we searched for just the right color. We also learned - and you probably didn't know this either - that creamed spinach darkens after a few minutes under bright lights. I know. Astonishing.


Pictured below is only small sampling of the many "model" bowls we tried out. I like working with bowls. They were always ready when needed, worked hard all day, and never once complained.

This is Leslie - our very talented and pleasant food stylist - working quickly to get just the right texture on our creamed spinach before the shot. Do not attempt this paintbrush trick on your creamed spinach side dish at home. Remember, she is a licensed professional.


Our equally talented and extremely patient photographer, Paul Johnson, in-between takes as we fussed over bowls, positioning, spinach composition, color of spinach, and so forth, ad nauseum. Please note, this was taken near the end of our day and he is still smiling. (One sign of a great photographer).


Thank you Paul and Leslie for a fun day - and delicious lunch.

Coming soon: The Seabrook rutabaga shoot!

Good Advice

Words from the Next Generation...

Michael Brito is a social media advisor to Izea, a social media marketing firm, member of the blog council, founder and author of two blogs and various articles and all around social media guru. He also has two adorable daughters that speak candidly (and by Brito's count unscripted and unprompted) here about what social media is.



Take it from the Brito girls - this is how brands will have to communicate and interact with a generation of children who don't know a world before Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/LinkedIn/Bebo, YouTube/Vimeo/Hulu, Flickr/Photobucket, blogs/micro-blogs, Wikipedia, Digg/Mixx/Reddit, del ici ous/StumbleUpon, RSS feeds...you get the picture.

Happy Mother's Day

The sad thing is, I can totally relate to this with my brother when we were kids trying to take our annual holiday card photo. Now that I'm a parent, I totally get it and all I can think is "My poor parents - how did they stand us"! This is LOL hysterical. Enjoy.

AIGA Make/Think

AIGA has announced the speakers for their 2009 Design Conference to take place in Memphis, October 8 - 11. Visit the site to register, view presentations from the 2007 conference and more.

Note: AIGA Connecticut's very own student board member Ethan Bodnar is slated to speak - what an honor!

On Location

I was art directing a photo shoot yesterday for Tienshan - maker of high-end dinnerware - with our client, Heather, @ Derek's studio.

The endless piles of product to prop and shoot plus plenty of Windex, to clean the plates.


Heather unpacking and sorting our many boxes of product for the shoot.


My propping the shot - this image is for the "Glamour Square" setting in red.


Photographers rarely use their cameras anymore. Here's Derek working his Photoshop magic.


Here is what the shot looks like placed lo-res into our packaging layout. It's nice to work on cropping right on the set!

Movie Monday: I.O.U.S.A

This weekend I watched a brilliant (and frightening) documentary called I.O.U.S.A, a film by Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley that examines the US's rapidly growing debt and the consequences of the deficit. (Which, as of this post is at $11.19 trillion dollars and growing by the second, or $36,400 per citizen.) Visit the National Debt Clock for an up to date number.

Not only did the documentary bring to light one of the most imminent threats to our nation's stability, but they made the issue easy to understand with fantastic information graphics created by designer Brian Oakes. Throughout the film I was amazed by the animated charts and graphics that made such a complex topic seem so abundantly clear. It takes serious smarts simply to understand our country's fiscal situation and even more talent to illustrate this transparently to the general public. Design Observer has a great interview with Brian Oakes here.

This is a great film that all Americans - regardless of political affiliation - should absolutely see. I couldn't agree more with the statement found on the film's site: "The ultimate power of I.O.U.S.A. is that the film moves beyond doomsday rhetoric to proffer potential financial scenarios and propose solutions about how we can recreate a fiscally sound nation for future generations."

For a mini-version of the movie, visit the I.O.U.S.A website.

Images via designworklife.

Common Threads

From NPR:

Morning Edition, May 1, 2009 · A pill bottle, a losing lottery ticket, a broken umbrella, a long-forgotten trophy: Mostly, we consider these items detritus awaiting garbage collection.

Artist Jean Shin collects them and finds artistic meaning and symbolism in these castoffs. Her creations go on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

This morning on my way into work, I heard this interesting story on NPR's Morning Edition about artist Jean Shin's opening at the Smithsonian entitled "Common Threads" (above) and had these two thoughts simultaneously:


1.) "I was just in Washington DC last weekend - RATS! I missed this exhibit at the Smithsonian by one lousy week!"

And, secondly;

2.) We were just having this discussion at our Patrick Coyne AIGA board dinner the other night about trash becoming art by recycling otherwise discarded materials.


There is currently on exhibit a commissioned art installment at the New Britain Museum which makes use of clear plastic cups. The cups are painted by artist Lisa Hoke and glued into place filling an entire section of wall on the staircase landing. The installation is meant to be temporary and will be taken down when it begins to show its age and another new, temporary work put up in its place. Our group discussion was divided on the question of whether this re-use of approximately 20,000 cups is a waste - or, if we thought it was a good new use of re-used materials.

What are your thoughts?