Bret & Jemaine Family Portrait

google is funny

automated suggestions from google after typing in "how to." i'm assuming they're in order of popularity. that's funny.

inspiration / posters

personality type (helen fisher)

19 explorer
24 builder*
20 director
29 negotiator*

DIY Christmas Wrapping Paper

brown/recycled butcher paper
make stamp out of linoleum block, sponge, or potato, etc.
snowflakes!

add these to wedding songs list

brick house
chain of fools
hold on i'm coming
i feel good
locomotion
papa's got a brand new bag
proud mary
play that funky music
soul man
twistin' the night away
ain't that a kick in the head
free ride
rock around the clock
mack the knife

typography

free / cool fonts: hvdfonts.com
down with comic sans: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992364819927171.html
we love typography

notes for Vesta Design Group

- light grayish blue and grayish brown
- biz card (future): paint chip, fabric swatch, paper sample, etc.

designing for the web... designing a website with a CMS

good web design
www.fivesimplesteps.co.uk

joomla vs wordpress vs drupal (sxsw cms showdown)
www.cmsshowdown.com

things artists find funny

funny pictures of children

InDesign to Microsoft Word template

http://creativetechs.com/tipsblog/convert-indesign-file-to-microsoft-word/

Bob Dylan on religion

"Well, religion is repressive to a certain degree. Religion is another form of bondage which man invents to get himself to God. But that's why Christ came. Christ didn't preach religion. He preached the Truth, the Way and the Life. He said He'd come to give life and life more abundantly. He talked about life, not necessarily religion."

A Limmerick for Mopsy by Justin Mayfield

master justin randall mayfield wrote at 11:58am on May 22nd, 2007
there once lived a mangy ol' mutt,
you could hardly distinguish her face from her butt.
not obnoxious except,
that she snored when she slept,
a deep thundering snore from the gut.

well this dog, she was really a treasure,
full of talents and skills that contained no real measure,
she could play with a rope,
other talents... well... nope,
but she gave all who met her great pleasure.

well one day mopsy looked at her owner,
and decided that she'd be best off to disown her,
she surrendered her mind, went insane, deaf, and blind,
left the family and became a loner.

mopsy wrote a small heartfelt disclaimer,
"julie, never have i met an owner that's lamer,
i'm leaving this place,
cause i can't stand your face,
so goodbye!"
let's be real... can you blame her?

C.S. Lewis quotes

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

"I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason 'I knew thee that thou wert a hard man.' Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."

"You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society."

anti-genocide quotes

"A nation is not when everybody goes to church every Sunday, or everyone goes to mosque on Friday. A nation is full of everybody doing whatever they want to do."
-- Abrahim ??? (one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan")

“We good people are a majority in the world, but we are so powerless. We can be powerful if we unite our efforts”
-- Abu Asal Abu Asal (Voices from Darfur)

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
-- Elie Wiesel

“Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”
-- Elie Wiesel

"On the one hand, that sounds pretty depressing: so much effort for little result on the ground. But, on the other hand, not one person... was about to give up. Darfur is still too important to ignore, and we all know we will help convince the world into action, even if it takes us longer than we would like and longer than basic decency demands."
-- Andrew Stroehlein, International Crisis Group

Quotes from Wasted by Marya Hornbacher

p. 65
"Hatred is much closer to love than indifference."

p. 237
"I have a remarkable ability to delete all better judgement from my brain when I get my head set on something. Everything is done at all costs. I have no sense of moderation, no sense of caution. I have no sense, pretty much."

Ben Shahn quote

"Is there nothing to weep about in this world anymore? Is all our pity and anger to be reduced to a few tastefully arranged straight lines or petulant squirts from a tube held over a canvas? All the wheels of business and advertising are turning night and day to prove the colossal falsehood that America is smiling. And they want me to add my two percent. Hell, no."
--Ben Shahn, social realist painter / photographer in the 1920s - 30s

writing tips

how not to write like a designer

books to actually read

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
by Andrew Solomon

We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work
by Jimmy Carter

Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
by Jimmy Carter

tulips

http://www.douggreensgarden.com/tulip-care.html

true/false film fest

"For any documentarian, True/False is nirvana. You walk down the streets of Columbia and you are stopped by students and secretaries, college professors and construction workers, sales reps for 3M and Oscar Meyer -- and they all want to talk to you about your film, the intricacies of its subject and the aesthetic choices made! This is the way it's supposed to be and never is: the town lives and breathes docs. The appreciation, sophistication and enthusiasm of the audience is an inspiration. When I went to True/False, I remembered what I sometimes forget: the unalloyed joy of making and watching docs."
-- Alex Gibney, Oscar-winning director, Taxi to the Dark Side, and 2008 True Vision honoree

AMAZING films from this year:
Over the Hills and Far Away
Loot

Highly recommended:
The Yes Men Fix the World
Burma VJ
We Live in Public
At the Edge of the World

Art from Recycled Materials

hadmatterart.com
langanart.com

books to "read"

the count of monte cristo
war and peace
gulliver's travels
little women
sense and sensibility
history of the united states
jane eyre
wuthering heights
robinson crusoe
a christmas carol
david copperfield
great expectations
oliver twist
a tale of two cities
the three musketeers
paradise lost
the curious case of benjamin button

Yummy Web Design Galleries

Best Web Gallery: bestwebgallery.com
The Best Designs: thebestdesigns.com
Web Design Trends 2009: smashingmagazine.com

Not a gallery, but a great web resource: webdesignerwall.com