What font are you?

I am Dot-Matrix.

And know that because I took my Font Personality test here

Pretty rad.

And if you are feeling part font-ophilic, check out Helvetica, a documentary about the love affair people have with this one perfect font.

Idea Paint - Brainstorm every inch of a room

Admittedly I am one of those home decor people who painted a bedroom door with black chalkboard paint. A bit passe now that I see this bit of a brilliance.

Idea Paint is downright genius. Right up there with giant post-it notes.

Imagine a whole room, wall, hallway, painted with this stuff to create a writeable, wipe-able white board. Its is genuinely a high-performance product.

Read the Fast Company article here.
Check out Idea Paints very cool website here.

Seattle, Chicago, Vancouver, New Orleans, Malmo

Fast Company released its 2009 cities of the year list.

Cities were selected based on their environmental and community innitiatives, their ability to keep their city safe while setting it up for long term growth and success.

I am very excited for Seattle, this year's winner. I find it to be a small city in a big town.

Nestled in the rainforests of the West Coast Seattle is home to creative innovative industries (Starbucks, Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft). I have been very lucky to get to know this city very well over the past 7 years.

I am so proud to say that I have visited 4 on the list and hopefully 5 by year's end....as per the title of this column.

And I would be remissed not to give a big congratulations to my hometown Vancouver and my soulmate city Chicago.

Click here to read FastCompany's article.

Classism

I recently bought Bohemian Modern, a cool book about a pretty interesting neighbourhood called Silver Lake. I have heard its like LA's Williamsberg NY.

In addition to almost packing my camera and buying a ticket to California, it made me think about the immerging 'modern' class structure.



















The Bourgeois Bohemian.

vs.

The Creative Class

There are two quick, but interesting reads I would suggest perusing. One from The Guardian about the BoBo(Bourgeois Bohemian) and the is a Fast Company Q+A interview ofRichard Florida, author of the book Flight of the Creative Class.

I think philosophically they are talking about similar concepts. Where the Creative Class concept speaks to gathering places and how people are attracted to each other in unique, environments. Organic or inorganic the liberal minded are seeaking each other out. The BoBo profile is more in wardly motivated and self-expressive, but motivated by the same cultural and creatively defining motivation.

Quote from BoBo article:

Combining the free-spirited, artistic rebelliousness of the bohemian beatnik or
hippie with the worldly ambitions of their bourgeois corporate forefathers, the
Bobo is a comfortable contortion of caring capitalism. 'It's not about making
money,' writes Brooks, 'it's about doing something you love. Life should be an
extended hobby. It's all about working for a company as cool as you are.' '

A quote from the Creative Class article:

It's been happening since the dawn of human civilization, people realizing
amazing productivity and creativity gains when they agglomerate. What my work
tries to do is link this phenomenon to specific demographic indicators and
economic trends.

Bill Gates vs. __________

Microsoft reported a 48% comp growth in July. But despite these incredible results PCs (Microsoft) have been taking a mighty beating in the brand wars from the Mac/Apple folks. And maybe it is with due reason, but I will not speak to the pros/cons... I have both and I am equally technically inept on either system. But I am curious about the direction their advertising is taking.

This year Microsoft hired Crispin Porter + Bogusky as their agency of record. They are a fantastic shop, and despite the Jerry Seinfeld spots (which one day I may consider genius, but still baffle me) they kept the gig. In a Fast Company article Alex Bogusky said the ultimate challenge and victory would be to get folks like him (ad folks) to use PCs... but that it is not about putting down one's iPod.

Microsoft/PC just released a new ad. Does it make you proud to be a PC or thrilled to covet your MAC?

Here it the new Microsoft spot:


And here is a Apple/MAC one for reference:


My thoughts:
Good ad. Nice use of 100 seconds of time. And I heart Tony Parker.
But despite the nice little smile I have on my face, Apple still comes out ahead.

What makes this so juicy is that PC didn't seem to have a choice, they had to define themselves through the lens of MAC. Is that a branding faux-pas or a gold medal? I say faux-pas; to win this thumb war PC will need to sing loud and proud off their own song sheet.

I am curious to see what comes next for PC, they have perhaps painted themselves into their own corner with this one.

...I am no expert on the art of wars. But this reminds me of some good 'ol Cola War ads.

p.s. as a follow up check out this Ad Age article. oct 03/08