If this is the future of design...

I want no part of it. 3M just introduced a new product called Visual Attention Service. How does it work? You upload a design, the program analyzes it, and when it's finished you get feedback that's supposed to help you revise asset placement. Which in turn, is supposed to increase the visual impact of your design. They're having a free trial right now, so of course I did what any good designer would do. I took a screenshot of 3M's website and ran it through their own Visual Attention Service to see how well they designed their web page promoting said product (see attached images). Now, one would think someone at 3M would have thought to do this, but It looks like even their page could use some asset placement revisions in order to guarantee maximum exposure. They did however, do an excellent job of placing their logo as the main focal point of the page. I also like how it claims that 64% of people would rather give multiple viewings to a baby (with crap on his/her face) than the actual copy trying to sell their service. Also, 33% of people will most likely stare at the blank white space in the middle of the page? Really? I guess this means that I need to start loving negative space a little bit more than I currently do. I'm not really sure what to make of this whole thing (Hell, I'm not even sure that I properly understand it), but It seems to be an algorithm based on the rule of thirds and the fact that people would rather look at anything else but text. I wonder how long we have until clients start using this service to check a designers work? I am ancient.

Anyway, Here's the link to the service:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/VisualAttentionService/WT.mc_id=GD_eNews_July

U of I MFA 2010 PUBLIC READING

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The English Department at The University of Illinois was kind enough to hire me to design
posters for this semester's events. I must say that it's been a lot of fun, as deadlines often help my creative thinking.

For this poster I wanted a vintage paperback vibe, so I used a couple of old Penguin Publishing books as reference. Here it is:

Early Spring Literary Festival

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Designed for the University of Illinois Creative Writing Department

11.75" x 11.75"

(An homage to the wonderful Henry Mancini Cover)

Engaged.

Saturday - January 16th, 2010 - 5:15 PM Central

Yes Yes Yes!

FREE LIMITED EDITION DEATH/ROUGH FRANCIS POSTER

A limited number of these will be given out at the end of each show. Three color screenprinted with an Edition size of 200 signed and numbered on the back.

Death with Rough Francis

9/25/09 Magic Stick Detroit MI
9/26/09 The Empty Bottle Chicago IL
9/27/09 Beachland Ballroom Cleveland OH

Go see them.

DEATH!

Why yes, that is the band Death playing my drum set in the studio next to my office. If you don't know the story of the band you should really read about it here.

Death - Keep On Knocking from Howlermano on Vimeo.

Count Me In, I'm Good To Go

My First Days on Junk filmed a video for their single "Count Me In, I'm Good to Go" It's based on Godard's Breathless. It came out spectacular. Steve asked me to design the poster that is hanging above Michel's head around the :39 mark.

Here are some really low-rez photos of the posters (in color) as seen hanging on my office wall. They were printed on a large format inkjet. Some people would call them giclees...i would never. They're inkjet prints laminated onto board. They look great, but i really wish they had been screen printed. At some point I should probably try and take better pics of things, but I think you get the idea and you know, if you really want to see them in all their high-rez glory...i will sell you one...or two...etc...or you can just stop by my office and say hello.