We just had Bill Gardner, of Gardner Design and LogoLounge here in Austin a few months back. He shared with us his experiences as a designer and gave a presentation on trends in Identity design. Bill is in a unique position. He oversees LogoLounge.com, which currently has over 27,000 logos in its database. In judging the submitted logos for each year’s publication, he gets the opportunity to view where logo design is going. Click here to read an abbreviated version of his presentation.

A friend sent me the link to Ted.com about a year ago. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and is a conference with a 20+ year history of bringing people together from those three worlds. Be careful if you go there. It will suck you in and you’ll lose hours of your life on the site. But, you might actually learn something, and you definitely will become inspired.

This talk is one of my favorites. An oldie, but goodie. Seth Godin, giving his thoughts on marketing. I am a big fan of Seth’s books and blog. In this TED presentation, he gives great examples of why the old model of reaching consumers has failed and where the “purple cow” approach succeeds.

I’ve decided to enter the blogosphere like the 8 million other people out there. I’ll be updating this section from time to time talking about design issues, business issues, culture and anything else that touches upon communication issues. Thanks for stopping by. 

Thats what I just spent watching a movie I didn’t quite know what to expect. I tend to be a tough critic when it comes to movies. Ones that are visually compelling, but empty when it comes to the story or acting, tend to not make the cut with me. Speed Racer is something entirely different. It represents an effort to create a completely new visual medium.

I wasn’t a fan of the series (a bit before my time) but I was intrigued by what I read online. Plus, it was an opportunity to hang out with my nephew, who is at the perfect age for this kind of movie. What I saw was the closest rendition of a live action cartoon to date. And believe it or not, it works—beautifully. Suspend belief—in physics for sure.Suspend serious thought—it is based on a cartoon after all.

Ignore what critics say about the film and go see it for yourselves. I guarantee you, you’ve never seen anything like this before. And that is reason enough to see a movie these days.