Hey everyone, I know I have been MIA, and just wanted to say I am sorry. I am taking a small break from the blog and everything. I am in a pretty creative funk/slump right now.

If any of you out there who did read the blog are still checking it, I will be back at some point.

- Josh

I didn't remember about this until late last night, so I was sad I didn't post it sooner to remind everyone.

FUTURAMA IS BACK ON COMEDY CENTRAL!

The new season premiered last night with 2 great episodes. I enjoyed the little joke in the beginning about getting cancelled etc. I aso thought the episodes were top notch and that it didn't really miss a beat being gone all of these years.

So if you want to check it out and get Back to the Future with Fry, Leela, Bender and the gang, it is on Comedy Central Thursdays @ 10

* The photo is the Kidrobot Futurama figures that I have on my desk. My collection is getting quite large.

We have been having some pretty crazy storms around here lately. The tornado sirens have went off at least 3 times in the last week and I lost power for 8 hours on Friday (of course right as my family who was staying the weekend walked in the door).

Last night was one of the most intense storms I have seen in awhile. Truly what you would call rolling thunder. It was almost one constant rumbling sound. While that happened lightning streaked across every direction of the sky, constantly, for about an hour. I wish I could have photographed it but my balcony is in a very bad spot for that.

I did enjoy watching it. It was slightly cloudy so sometimes it would just be the entire sky turning white as the clouds diffused the energy, then a streak would come down and touch the ground as another snaked through the sky.

Why does all this matter? One, because lightning is pretty cool and that's not my photograph above, but it is pretty great. Second, because I went to post last night and the storm knocked my internet and cable out, better then the power I guess.

I wanted to throw in a non-photograph lighting piece of art too. As always I am a sucker for letterpress, and the above card from Etsy is pretty great too (check out the rest of their stuff, great patterns, love it!).

[photo from Flickr and card from Etsy ]

This is what happens when you volunteer to be the guy that goes to IKEA and picks up a lot of furniture for the office...

We moved to a bigger studio, so now we have a little more room and needed more storage. We had stuff just stacked up in piles in our old space.  Plus, we have added a person who didn't have a desk yet. Since I was already heading to Chicago I said I would stop and get the furniture.

Packed into my car (which seems quite spacious, possibly to a point of deceiving me though) is:

• 2 HUGE glass desk tops (these were the trouble makers)
• 2 desk frames
• 8 desk legs
• 2 book shelves
• 4 door inserts for bookshelves
• 3 file cabinets
• shoe cabinet for home
• lamp
• various small things, hangers, metal basket, etc.

It was pretty much a game of giant heavy Tetris to get it in there. I am guessing I gave my suspension a run for the money too. I know the bookshelves are 90lbs each, and the desks are even heavier. We also had to move the seats up quite a bit. Enough where I wouldn't be able to drive the car, so my wife drove while I crammed into the passenger seat.

As an added extra you get to see my awesome taillights. Too bad they weren't lit up, they just light up as bright red circles. AND yes, it was raining, which made the drive so much fun and taking it all up to my office a pain (it was a one man job to take it all up to the office, thankfully we have an elevator).

No, I don't think I am going to post on the new iPhone because most likely you guys have already heard/read about it and don't need my ramblings on it.

Would you hang the above graphic on your wall? Maybe blow it up to nice size and hang it above your couch. When people asked about you could make up an insightful story and how it represents some random thing. Or you could tell them the truth, that you used IOGraph to track your computer mouse's movement for the day.

Yes, that is what it is! The software will track your mouse's movement and create a graphical representation of it. The circle represent the points at where your mouse was at rest.

I am definitely going to try this out because of a few reasons. 1. That is pretty cool. 2. I would like to see what my patterns look like (if you check out their Flickr page you can see someone's photoshop session and what we do over and over again, like go to the layers palette). 3. I am curious at the files it outputs and if it would really be able to blow it up to a giant size (raster vs vector) From the look at a photo on a Flickr Page it looks entirely possible.

[via Unplggd]

By copycats I mean Identity Thieves... yes your copier (or anyone else's) can help steal your identity!

I came across this article the other day from CBS News and it blew my mind. If you used a copier to copy personal info or even a company that has some form of your information used a copier then did not properly wipe it's hard-drive when it was either sold or trashed then you have a chance to have your identity stolen.

Copiers store an image of almost everything that is ran through it and it can be retrieved with free software quite easily. Insurance companies, payroll, police departments, everybody that you might have a connection with could be a victim to this.

With my wife, myself, my parents, my mom again, and many others having their identity stolen (and we take precautions) this is just crazy. It is really sad that nowadays if you ask people who have had at least a portion of their identity stolen there are many more with their hands up now...

Read the full article to have your mind opened and your rage button double clicked.

This is the book I am currently reading. But with these types of books where it is a series of small articles, when I say reading it means more "when I pick it up i'll flip through the pages until an interesting title catches my eye or I find an article the length I would like to read."

I am not that far into it yet so the verdict is still out. We'll see how it goes and i'll have to put an update up later.

The thrill of victory…the agony of defeat. Design Disasters captures the flip side of success, bringing insight, solace, and energy to the act of failure. Not just any failure. Design failure. So public. So humiliating. How do designers who are really, really good (we swear!) turn a disaster into a triumph?

So, are any of you reading any good books? Design or anything else? What should I read next?

Pick it up from Amazon
Review from core77
Review from The Designer's Review of Books

image from core77 because my camera is at the office.

Thank you Pac Man for countless hours of wasted time.

Today if you head over to Google you can check out the Google logo done up in honor of Pac Man's 30th Birthday. But then the classic music starts playing, and that's not all...

YES! It is a working version of Pac Man you can play. Thanks Gooogle!

There is always the saying the gift that keeps on giving. Do you have someone you know that loves posters? Do they have a nice collection going? Would they love for you to add another to their collection?

Check out the top poster by Ty Mattson. It is just one of many over at Lift Up Nashville and the $10 you spend on it goes towards helping out in Nashville from the recent floods. They have a lot of other posters but that one is my favorite. Go check them out. Get a cool poster and help out. 12x18 and printed on a digital press.

If you have slightly deeper pockets and/or a love for Hatch Show Prints you can pick up their poster. It is $100 (100% goes to flood relief) but it is hand printed in an edition of 250 from woodcuts (no new age digital presses here). That store also has a version of Ty's that is 18x24 if you want to fill your walls a little easier.

Go get 1 or 2 or 5 and help Nashville out

[via Unplggd]

Up for today is the always awesome House Industries. If you need a large cast aluminum ampersand, some designer building blog, or the always sexy Eames typeface they've got you covered.

They used to have a really cool mousepad as well but I don't see it for sale anymore.

Check out the rest of their merchandise.

Now that my technical difficulties are over I can get back to business.

If you are in need of a gift for the designer in your life, and quick...Veer is the place to go. Check out their merch here.

They have great apparel, accessories, mugs, portfolios, pins etc. All of them are guaranteed* to put a smile on someone's face.

A few of my favorites are above. The KERN and TYPO GRAPHY sweatshirts and some faux ampersand cufflinks.

I have a hand full of their pins from a HOW conference as well, which were partly an inspiration to a project at school as well. We made a lot of buttons and sold them at our AIGA fundraiser and actually made some good money on them.

*I really can't guarantee this, but I am 98% sure it will!

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know I am having a few technical difficulties... For some reason my own comments are not showing up on posts. Luckily yours at least still are.

This started when I realized that anyone with the name "Josh" got a teal colored comment which is for author's comments. Don't know why, but it is kind of a flaw in the system... So I changed my display name, and now it is all screwed up. Hang with me, and I do appreciate your comments.

UPDATE

Everything is good now. I really don't know why the issue came up, but I was able to switch the comment form style to "pop-up" then switch it back and it fixed it. I really don't know why this happened, but at least it is fixed.

Today was my Birthday and I'd have to say there isn't much better then an awesome wife that gets you a Happy Labbit. Wait, maybe there is... Add in a scavenger hunt around the apartment to find all of his accessories. YES, that is even better!

So this is my new friend above with his popsicle, piece of grass, gas mask, and hotdog. He will soon go to the office to live with Ribeye, Zapp Branigan and Mom.

The only problem with all of the Kid Robot toys is they are blind assortment so you don't know what you are going to get for accessories (or in the case of dunnys, munnys, smorkin' labbits, the actual figure is a mystery, unless you go to ebay, where you can pick the one you want). The mystery of it though just you want more of them. If you check out the link he has a ton of great little add-ons. Pipes, mustaches, bubbles, drool, all very cool.

I am trying to not get addicted to them and keep the collection small but there are so many cool ones out there. I really want to add to my Futurama collection since they are amazing but there are some specific other ones that are good too. I just don't wan to end up with shelves and shelves of them.

So go check out the Labbit, and right now a lot of them are on sale for "Stop Smorkin'" Month.

In honor of a great gift I think I am going to make this week great gift week. I will show a few of the great things I have found to make every geek, designer, typophile, and eccentric person in your life happy.

Another day warming up on the tablet before I got to what I needed to be drawing. No idea what the heck this is, I just let the pen do the walking.

Anyone want to write a story line for him/it?

I am in search of a new sound system for our office. Any readers have any good suggestions?

Wish list:

• good sound
• internet radio
• pandora
• remote
• ipod hookup
• sexy and svelte
• does design for me when I am not in the mood (yeah I know, even if it existed it would cost too much, or it would replace me).

I am a big fan of the small Moleskine Notebooks, I like gridded page and the Kraft paper cover. I often end up drawing on them or leaving them plain. However, I always thought it would be cool to do some custom ones.

Normally, that would take a lot of work. You would have to buy all the Moleskines (and lets face it, they are not cheap) and then screen print them all.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was easier? BAM Scout Book!

My creative director picked up one of these for me when she went to a printing show in chicago, theirs is to promote AIGA Chicago Design week, and it's pretty snazzy. So I looked up the company on the back.

Scout will print your notebooks with your own graphics on them starting with an order of 50 book (for $195 or $3.90 a book). That pricing can be a bit steep for some, but for a custom printed notebook that really is a steal. You can get the price down to 90 cents a book if you are ordering over 1000 (good for trade show giveaways, or just any promo).

Go check them out. They use 100% recycled papers and soy based inks, so you'll get some green karma along the way.

I'll put them on my list, and maybe some day I could get some cool "The Large Bear" notebooks made up and run a big giveaway. One day...

I brought in my tablet today to work on a project, so for a little warm up (it's been awhile since I have used the tablet) I decided to doodle for a bit.

I don't know why, but I drew a carrot, and then his little friends. But the carrot looked scared, it could be because you are making soup tonight or the fact that something was coming after him. What is the villain to a carrot? A nice juicy steak, since if you have steak, why would you want anything else.

I like the potato too, he just has a simpleton kind of face going, and I think if a potato really did come to life he would probably be an idiot.

So that is just the random little story I made up as I doodled today.

The internet never ceases to amaze me. When viewing the post on swissmiss yesterday with the typography flow chart, one of the comments pointed to the poster above. This is another designers response to Julian's poster. Instead of giving you a lot of choices, you are left with only one answer for everything: Helvetica.

Love the colors on this one.

I couldn't find a lot of info on Ron, but here is a link to the Picasa gallery that holds the image.

[via swissmiss comment section ]

This is a pretty awesome poster created by Julian Hansen from Denmark. If you don't know what typeface to use you can use this handy flowchart to find what you seek. Click on it to enlarge it or go to Julian's site to see the full version

[via swissmiss ]

This is a fantastic image I saw on unplggd today, which was from a different house tour post over on AT.

I don't think my desk could ever look like this (although I did clean mine at work today, score!), but I really wouldn't mind it looking like this. What really drew me to the photo was the print on the right. The simple alphabet, but with the big yellow V in the background it just makes it so much more dynamic.