so according to su, the most interesting thing to happen in chicago this halloween was the eagle’s full moon contest (get it? get it?), and that’s just sad.

apparently, “none of our contestants came in costume…so we’ve provided one!” each contestant was given a set of adhesive jack o’lantern eyes and mouth to slap onto his butt.

this town. yukkin’ it up. i tell you. eesh.

okay, quick. click this link before it gets changed. save that picture of bush and the missus (or view source) and check out the filename. i mean, that’s some frustration. i love.

UPDATE

damn. they changed it. the image file now called “georgelaura135.jpg” was called “asshole.jpg” last night.

the new dior collection is just garbage. click “collections” and then “dior logo flowers.” it’s the most vapid sort of design: commodified fashion. fashion as proof of your worth. this says nothing about the wearer’s sense of style. all it says is that the wearer knows that it’s pertinent to be seen in dior to be considered stylish. asinine.

bitchy little liberals of america, you are pissing me off. if anyone sends me that piece of xenophobic, bigoted anti-southerner garbage one more time, i am going to sign you up for every porn marketing list under the sun and i can totally do that.

what’s interesting the whole fuckthesouth.com thing is the amount of blatant scapegoating going on. pretty much the same amount of republican votes ended up coming from the plains states as the south.

i have also seen the IQ versus voting results chart (several times this week via email). wasn’t funny either. now grow the hell up.

this is an interesting conversation about style. in this case, it’s about film. i am of the opinion that style can never be separated from an object while allowing the object to remain intact as a recognizable rendition of itself.

many designers online believe that style is a simple veneer to be laid atop something, and that is a direct result of CSS and CMS-based design management. while i appreciate that both technologies allow me to change things at a moment’s notice, i believe style goes much deeper. style seeps into the content and colors its appearance to the outside observer, regardless of the actual content. this is true in every medium.

for example: i am fairly well spoken and jovial in public. but my style includes a small, red mohawk, machine boots, and a black t-shirt. this colors my perception to almost anyone, so i take on a patina of meanness–even if it isn’t there at that moment.

the design industry bourgeois (oh god i totally just said that) has been in an identity crisis for years now, largely due to the decimation of the discipline’s integrity during the dot-com period. currently, it’s quite fashionable among the dkny-and-honda-accord-set to accuse design education as the very thing undoing us. the accusations range from laissez-faire professors to abundant photoshop training, sans context. some of it’s worthwhile thought, most of it’s the usual armchair jockey bullshit. maybe it’s time for teacher to defend herself from the volley of flying apple cores.

now there’s a decent online voice for design educators to meet and discuss their goals and obstacles. designed was begun by tony brock, who works with denise gonzales-crisp at the ncsu design department. tony has one of the strongest readings on his students of any teacher i’ve seen in a long time; indeed his influence is strong enough to elicit emotionally charged reactions of either extreme from his students. all of his students have a love/hate affair with tony. that polarization of opinions is a good thing: tony’s making them think.

as a disclaimer, tony and i were alums of the same class from the university of tennessee (y’all). at the time i fucking hated him. clearly things have changed with our maturity.

there are some who confuse design and business. the two intermingle often, but they are not the same. business dictates that the customer is always right. i wish i could remember the name of the clever sycophant who dreamt up that bon mot.

in design, the client isn’t always right. if you, as a designer, give a client exactly what they want, you waste their time. you do not surprise them; the commissioned object will never come alive in their eyes becuase there is no friction between what they ask for and what they need.

nobody ever asks for what they need—only for what they think they need. more often than not, they’re about 70% correct. the remaining 30% is entirely up to you. it is your job to look at their request, wrap yourself around their ideas, and draw out the truly inspiring bits of their notions.