Notchcode Creative

The physical side of our studio is taking shape. Porta-Trace,...

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:42:52 -0600

The physical side of our studio is taking shape. Porta-Trace, X-ACTO knives, pens, rules, etc. have all gotten moved into their new digs.

"If a brand is making a promise that you’re going to feel better about yourself if you buy it,..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:40:20 -0600

“If a brand is making a promise that you’re going to feel better about yourself if you buy it, they’re making a false promise. Human beings metabolize their purchases very quickly. … This is an element of what social psychologists call “the hedonic treadmill”: If you’re always looking to validate yourself and get satisfaction from buying stuff or having a bigger house, then you’re on an endless, addictive treadmill. There’s no enduring satisfaction to this. If a brand’s only purpose is to get you on that hedonic treadmill, it might be good for business in the short run, but in the long run, you’re doomed. If you look at the components of long-term well-being, it has nothing to do with material goods. Once you’re past a certain level of material well-being, people’s long-term happiness and wellbeing is about having deep personal relationships, believing in something larger than themselves, and doing something meaningful that they enjoy.”

- Dan Pink on the psychology of consumer culture and how marketers manipulate it. Pair with the science of whether money can buy you happiness. (via explore-blog)
Trendiness in branding can only take you so far. A successful brand relationship is based on deeper attachments than what lies on the surface. Look at the bones and flesh of a brand, not just the skin.

I’m trying to decide if this tweet is intentionally or...

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:40:27 -0600

I’m trying to decide if this tweet is intentionally or unintentionally douchebaggy.

TGIF (by Rtrt67)

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:31:00 -0600

TGIF

(by Rtrt67)

I’ve been dusting off my darkroom this week, in...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:11:25 -0600

I’ve been dusting off my darkroom this week, in preparation for some big projects related to historic preservation documentation of 19th-century mine sites and structures in Colorado. It’s been great to face the darkroom again, as I haven’t really touched it in a while (raising twins+1 all under age 9 takes time!), and it’s good to get the monkey of inertia off my back and get printing again.

(Photo: my trusty water mixing valve above the darkroom sink)

georgetakei: Typography: Boldly going where no one has gone...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:41:12 -0600

georgetakei:

Typography: Boldly going where no one has gone before.

George Takei makes a typography funnay.

ColoRasta Flag Sticker

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:59:30 -0600

ColoRasta Flag Sticker:

It’s 4/20 tomorrow. The first 4/20 since Colorado legalized the Herb. Celebrate with one of my flavorful stickers!

Dribbble - Alan Bucknam

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:10:16 -0600

Dribbble - Alan Bucknam:

I sometimes post snippets of projects I’m working on, so people can see what I’m up to and give me feedback (nothing complete is posted until the project is released into the wild, of course). Mostly these are conceptual ideas, and things I’m doing for myself. have a look and let me know what you think!

This magic moment won’t last.

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:43:38 -0600

This magic moment won’t last.

25 ways a print job can get f*cked up

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:10:26 -0600

I’ve compiled a semi-serious list* that illustrates what a miracle it is that any print project gets printed correctly, ever. Even though printing technology has been around for hundreds of years, each year it gets more complex, with more potential variables, and each variable introduces a potential breaking point. So when a client gets a job from the printer, and calls to tell me how great it looks, I say a little silent thank you to the ghosts of Gutenberg, Lord Stanhope, and Barclay.

25 ways a print job can get f*cked up:

The designer submits the wrong version of the file.
The designer forgets to separate spot colors to process on a CMYK job.
The designer mistakenly uses process colors on a spot job.
Prepress uses spot color assignments in the layout file as process separations.
The client approves a layout with errors/wrong images/misspellings/etc.etc.etc.
The printer orders the wrong weight/finish/color paper.
The paper mill no longer makes the paper you specified and forgot to tell the paper rep.
Prepress overrides your trapping, resulting in on-press chaos.
Prepress fails to override your trapping, resulting in on-press chaos.
Your dot-on-dot varnish was overridden by the RIP, and now the varnish dot is 15 degrees off from the ink dot.
Prepress used their in-house Helvetica instead of the modded Helvetica you sent with the job file.
The pressman hangs the magenta plate on the cyan unit.
The printer’s devil dents a plate prior to hanging and doesn’t tell anyone.
The printer’s devil mixes your spot ink with a quarter unit of extra white. And doesn’t tell anyone.
The designer forgets to set their alarm for the 3am press check.
The printer’s rep forgets to call the designer to remind them about the 3am press check.
Someone from the client’s office other than the person who signed off on the proof attends the press check and finds something objectionable.
The press form accidentally prints top to bottom instead of top to top.
Bindery perfect-binds your saddle-stitched job.
Bindery slips their trimmer alignment by a sixteenth of an inch on one side, resulting in a parallelogram rather than a rectangle.
Bindery trims and stitches your job on the wrong side.
The delivery truck runs out of gas.
The job is delivered to the wrong address.
The job is shipped to a different client. In another state.
The printer went bankrupt in the middle of your project.

*Not that I’ve done any of these things, or that they’ve ever happened to me. For the record, all my pressmen are saints and my print reps are the angels that flutter by their side.

theclearlydope: Every thought is with Boston right now. Photo...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:32:09 -0600

theclearlydope:

Every thought is with Boston right now.

Photo by John Tlumacki

An amazing photo from a horrible event.

zefrank: How To Restore Your Faith In Humanity :: for those of...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:47:56 -0600

zefrank:

How To Restore Your Faith In Humanity :: for those of you who need it right now :: thoughts going out to everyone in Boston… hope your loved ones are safe.

Despite a few idiots trying to convince us to the contrary, humanity is full of awesome.

Overheard at the typographers’ lounge, from Clarendon’s table:...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:37:29 -0600

Overheard at the typographers’ lounge, from Clarendon’s table: “I AM SPARTACUS!”

What I picture in my head when people ask me to make the logo...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:40:59 -0600

What I picture in my head when people ask me to make the logo bigger.

Need to show people how to get places? Understand their...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:11:11 -0600

Need to show people how to get places? Understand their surroundings? Well, Nick Trotter makes great maps.

"Creativity is about the most worn-out, abused concept that used to mean something remarkable,..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:40:25 -0600

“

Creativity is about the most worn-out, abused concept that used to mean something remarkable, something that differentiated someone, something that made them special. It’s a term that’s been usurped … and reduced to a base concept that has come to stand for the opposite of creativity: mediocre, middle-of-the-road, acceptable, unadventurous, and so forth—so that creativity is no longer creative. What was once creative is now uncreative.

Calling a practice uncreative is to reenergize it, opening creativity up to a whole slew of strategies that are in no way acceptable to creativity as it’s now known. These strategies include theft, plagiarism, mechanical processes, repetition. By employing these methods, uncreativity can actually breathe life into the moribund notion of creativity as we know it.

”

- An interview with Kenneth Goldsmith, author of the provocative Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. (via explore-blog)
Sounds a hell of a lot like Dada and Pop Art to me.

I hypothesize that there’s equal value in curating things that are desirable and making things...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:37:35 -0600

I hypothesize that there’s equal value in curating things that are desirable and making things that are desirable. Anyone have some papers that have been done on this subject?

Lamb noodle bowl takeout E

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:40:35 -0600

Lamb noodle bowl takeout E

A little Motherwell wabi-sabi for your day. on Flickr.

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:28:00 -0600

A little Motherwell wabi-sabi for your day. on Flickr.

Quilt on Flickr.

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:02:00 -0600

Quilt on Flickr.