A Month

I thought, for some reason, that there must be a month between April and May — just a bit more time for me to be able to finish everything that has to be done (along with everything else that's kept me away from, well, everything else for the past several weeks).

In the back of my mind, I've been comforting myself with the notion that at least I have more time before May...

Voice

I was told today that my seven-year-old's writing has it's own wonderful, distinctive voice. (This was from his teacher, who said she often uses his work as an example for the rest of his second grade class.) While flattered (by proxy), I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't really noticed — but then, I only see his writing in homework, in short bursts of answered questions rather than stories or journals or imagination. Perhaps this is a side I'll see when classwork is sent home.

Try Again

What a difference several months makes — I started work on this cover almost a year ago! In the interim, I did the book design (though the project would also hang in limbo for several months), and with that finally complete, I turned my attention back to the cover. And quickly discovered it deserved a second look.



I'm not sure how I arrived at the decision that the large open space at the top of the cover worked — but it really didn't. And that name just sort of disappeared in the middle of the cover — despite my best efforts to make sure it was at least legible, it lacked the kind of clarity I think is incredibly important in those fleeting moments when you're trying to catch attention with a book cover.

Fractured

It was a busy week. Lots of unfinished projects to put away — and then my seven-year-old fell and hurt himself at school. He turned out to have two very-difficult-to-identify fractures in his arm, near the elbow (I couldn't tell you exactly where), and will have a cast for the next few weeks. He's adapted to wearing it quite well, though. (I think it helps that his best friend went through more or less the same experience just recently.) And it's made from glow-in-the-dark fiberglass!

Indecisive

I had so many other projects that I wanted to get to today — but I started working on this, and fell victim to my muse.



(I had a few other more complicated ideas that were discarded, in favor of something more simple.) I can't decide which version I ought to submit. I'm pleased with the red cover (that was my initial approach), but that white cover reminds me of books from fifty or sixty years ago — or at least, my imagined idea of something I must have seen along the way.

Today, I am Eight Years Old again.

I've been waiting for this day for months (though it feels as though it's been much longer) — Doctor Who returns to television today, finally, (following the series' hiatus during the past year, which was filled with an intermittent series of specials), with a new cast, a new production team, and a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm. Trailers and brief excerpts from the first episode have been slowly revealed over the past several weeks, building the anticipation. I've been so very excited, like a kid just days away from Christmas! And I've made no effort whatsoever to hide my excitement from my seven-year-old, either. (He may begin watching the show with my wife and I this year.)

I won't try to explain the appeal of the series (which began in 1963 and ran for 26 years in it's original incarnation, before it was brought back in 2005) except to say that, even at 45, it still appeals to the child in me.

Steven Moffat, the incoming Executive Producer said something in an interview recently that I felt perfectly captures the spirit of the series, that Doctor Who "makes children of everyone who watches it. If you're still a grown up by the end of that opening music, you've not been paying attention."

I'm going to go make some popcorn!

Not

I'm not all that adept at putting on a façade. I might try, if it's something I'm curious about, or if I want a challenge, but I think my strong sense of self has left me a bit less malleable than I might like to be.

Fooled

The Internet is just no fun today. It's April 1st, and virtually everyone feels obliged to post their most hilarious and clever pranks — though they are, more often than not, neither. It isn't that I don't have a sense of humor, just that too much of a good thing is usually anything but.

This post, though — on a new identity for the Dunkin' Donuts chain — had me hoodwinked (upon first reading, at least). Not only because a substantial amount of thought and work was put into the presentation, but because I was just thinking about this, not too long ago.

Some logos don't age well — like music, or fashion, or a fad, there are elements of a design that seem inextricably linked to a particular point in time. (For some of us, anyway. Most people wouldn't much care, but when you work in design, you really can't help but notice this stuff.)


The Dunkin' Donuts logo seems very much a product of its' era, having been introduced in — I can't seem to find a definitive answer to this, but from what I remember — the mid-1970s. (The coffee cup on the left was added in 2002.) And it looks, to me, like it was introduced in the mid-1970s. It's a very simple design, just the company name set in a typeface (Frankfurter) that noboby uses any more (because it seems hopelessly anachronistic), in bright magenta and orange.

(I don't think I've ever found a good use for Frankfurter — but over the past several years, the company has extended it across signage and promotional materials, and I think it all works really well, much better than I would have expected.)

Yet somehow, it doesn't seem dated. It doesn't seem modern, either. It just seems — timeless. The simplicity is the key to the durability. Trends in design (they're closer to fads, really) have come and gone at least a dozen times over in the years since that logo was introduced, but they've all been ignored.