TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE: July 2008

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

A Change in the Air

In continuing with the political theme for another go, I found a nice critique of Obama's logo (I'm trying not to let my inner greenie show, but I just cannot help it) - (one) because it's used in so many creative ways, and (two) because there's never been another like it. I liked this overview critique on Obama's branding from Under Consideration. If you didn't already notice the clever ways in which the logo is being used (a "flag" element being added to the name of each state as necessary, a school ledger type pattern added to the logo when referencing education, etc.) it's worth going back to the Barack Obama Website to take a look at the multitude of treatments. Shout out to the logo designers: Sender and mo/de, both of Chicago.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Political Base

Since I'm on my political horse today, I also wanted to pass along a new website co-created by the former owner of CNET that tracks politicians across the country in local and federal elections. It's called politicalbase.com and is a HUGE resource if you are looking into campaign donations, religious affiliations, education, past political maneuvers or even simply the first name affiliated party of specific politicians. Today, they have a great opinion piece on the decision the New Yorker has made to run an issue with what many believe is a tasteless satirical cariacature on the cover. See that here. It's user friendly - my mom, who claims to be completely disinterested in politics, has even expressed interest in this. You can get the information with as much milk as you need, but being a wiki in nature, you can easily find yourself browsing one politician to the next for hours.

Visualize Change

Obama's website is getting a lot of really great feedback and I wanted to share the information I have found regarding his designers. The team is basically an Art Director and a script guy. Their info is as follows:
John Slabyk of Chicago, Art Director
Celsius Design
he has a great ethereal sort of portfolio that is worth a look.
Scott Thomas also of Chicago, design and coding, etc.
simplescott
Very cut and dry, to the point design. These guys make a dynamic team, if you ask me. (Although the very "I have a dream" photo of Obama is a bit too cheeseball for my personal taste.)

The Good Fight

Now, more than ever, there are fewer rules to being female. Fewer guidelines that make clear what is feminine, what is acceptable and what is successful. We at TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE believe that there is liberation in that ambiguity. We believe that beauty and innovation come out of contradiction. We believe that as designers, we can be, all at once, feminists, daddy's girls, mothers and activists. We believe that if the world which we want to inhabit doesn't exist, then it is up to us to create it, to design it, to figure out a better way.We are of a generation that was raised on optimism, dot com promises, trickle down economics and the belief that we can and will do anything. We were raised to believe that we are men's equals. That the women who came before us - our mothers, our aunts, our grandmothers - fought the good fight for us and passed down to their daughters the promise of a better life. We were molded to believe in a dream - to believe that we were born into a world where women can "have it all." That if we choose to put our minds to it, at our fingertips are: groundbreaking careers, stable marriages, a houseful of children and the ability to carry it all off with a Martha Stewartian air of perfect dinner parties and coordinated towels. However, the burden of being female in the 21st century hasn't been lessened; it was expanded by this progress and by our entrance into professional society. We are now just as likely to be judged for the degrees listed after our last names as for the cleanliness of our bathroom floors. And so, the mantle of responsibility that our predecessors have passed down to us is choice. Seemingly limitless opportunities for advancement, diversification and progress have been handed to us. We are "Generation Y-ers." We are team oriented, naturally collaborative, more likely to take initiative, less sensitive to organizational constructs and often compelled to reach out across boundaries. So here we are: reaching out. We are a generation of intelligent, beautiful, open-minded young women who have been asked to navigate a complex, unclear and sometimes discouraging world. There is nothing to be gained from shifting the responsibility of the uncertainty of our position to our brothers, financees, husbands, fathers and friends. There is nothing to be gained from demonizing men. It is up to us, in the face of what is sometimes an oppressive amount of choice, to stand together and unravel what is chivalrous and what is chauvinistic. We are designers committed to achieving in our work a balance and beauty, which we find difficult at best, to design into our own lives. TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE supports women who are living the duality of hard-ass creative genius and the reality of being everything else that is typically female.

TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

A Change in the Air

Monday, July 14, 2008

Political Base

Visualize Change

The Good Fight

Some Nice Links

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