the mehallo blog. beta.

Photo found via Jessica of The Veronicas

Tags: cool finds, photography, thoughts, typography by steve
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I love when the general public finds brilliant solutions to overlooked design problems.

from south korea
Cold weather + not wanting to remove gloves + iPhone + sausages = productivity!

Snack sausages make great substitutes for browsing fingers. Something Apple’s design team hadn’t quite anticipated. Details here.

And
You too can be productive! Snag some Slim Jims for your iPhone  . . .  here.

Found via Kottke

Tags: cool finds, culinary, design, thoughts by steve
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Joseph Polchin, Sr. (1906-99)

Today is my grandfather’s birthday.

I always thought it was cool that his birthday was celebrated with a National Holiday. He always reminded me of Lincoln anyway. We call him ‘Pappy.’

Pappy spent most of his life in Hazleton, PA (my family is from there). Loved baseball, enjoying a cigar (taught me how to correctly smoke one), could bake a killer huckleberry pie (with berries picked locally, they grew wild in Hazleton) – and I still have a full bottle of the Windsor Canadian Whisky he picked up on his last visit to California (he always insisted on the cheap stuff). At this point – it’s at least 20 years old – makes a really smoooth cocktail.

In the 1930s, Pappy took a printing/typesetting correspondence course. He actually knew a bit about what I do as a graphic/font designer. He was one of the few in my family I could talk to about my chosen profession.

So have a whisky (or martini), cigar, kick back and enjoy Pappy’s Day 2010.

Photo taken by Bob Gray, Winter 1987

Tags: cool finds, photography, thoughts by steve
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‘Always a great read for creatives’ –retinart

Designer Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, begun in 1998.

Read here. Great ideas – many of them resonate with my own design process; which took years to develop and is still constantly evolving.

I stay up late, I don’t clean my desk, I make accidents, my first drafts of anything are often random mistakes, most of my best ideas happen when I’m not working, I think computers really fuck things up (that comes from Tibor Kalman, actually), I’ve been avoiding award competitions like the plague, I ask stupid questions, imitate, drift, scat, jump fences and most important,

I laugh. At everything.

I believe evolution is key to creative growth. If it stops, stagnation seeps in. And things become dull really fucking fast.

Tags: cool finds, design, education, thoughts by steve
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Photo by Katrine Syppli.

Found via Jes Cellophane

Tags: cool finds, photography, thoughts, typography by steve
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Steven Snell’s 10 keys to growth as a designer. Article here.

Sketchbook photos found via Design Mom

Tags: cool finds, design, education, thoughts by steve
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From the most recent SNL. Rahm Emanuel. Trajan. Yeah.

Found via Jeanne Mehallo

Tags: cool finds, thoughts by steve
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No IKEA nearby? Here’s a recipe.

Illustration by Lunchbreath.

Tags: culinary, illustration, thoughts by steve
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NASA STS-1, April 12, 1981

In 1981, I woke up in the middle of the night to watch the launch of the first space shuttle.

And then they scrubbed the mission.

Had to wake up a second night to see the actual launch (above). I recorded the whole thing on a cassette tape (my first VCR was still a year away). Frank Reynolds of ABC did the blow by blow. It was the Columbia. Got the mission patch when visiting NASA in Mountain View. Star Wars-like lettering for the name (below).

We all thought the shuttle launch would look like what they did in Moonraker (1979). It was a bit different.

Tonight, I just finished watching the launch of Endeavour (below). This is the last year of shuttles for NASA. More stuff on NASA TV here.

NASA STS-130, February 8, 2010

Thx to Shandi Pierzina for telling me about tonite’s launch

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, thoughts by steve
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Process imagery, click for larger version/jump

Here’s an excerpt from Tim Brown’s new book, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation.

More about the book here. Order here.

Tim Brown is president and CEO of IDEO

Tags: cool finds, design, education, thoughts by steve
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Seven rules for understanding design and designers.

Found via sfgirlbybay

Tags: cool finds, design, education, thoughts, typography by steve
1 comment  . . .