Blackbird turned three months old last week. She’s matured a great deal in one month, in many small ways that are coalescing into the first bits of her personality. She’s still a baby, no doubt: crying, eating, pooping, fussing, sleeping, repeat. But her looks and responses are becoming more complex and her preferences are starting to surface. I admit, I’m more excited by what this all means for the future than right now, but I’m trying to drink it all in as it happens, because I know these days will be memories very soon.

This is probably my favorite photo of Blackbird so far. In many photos, she looks kind of freaked out. Honestly, most of the time she does. Here she has the appraising look that I’m fascinated by. I suspect this look will come out quite a bit when she’s older. Also, notice the KISS t-shirt. Add all that to the great sunlight in her room and you get prime photo-taking situations.

The rest of this post contains quite a few photos, so if you’re on a low-bandwidth connection, beware.

Logos can be the simplest visual end-products that a designer works on, but they are often also the most complicated projects. A logo is typically a spearhead or a flagship for an organization’s branding, so most people have seen thousands of them. They know what they like and they know what they don’t like. They know what brands are powerful and which aren’t. For this reason, it feels very easy to the average non-designer to critique, poke fun at, and speak about logo design. In many ways, this is great. Sometimes the biggest hurdle in a project is a clammed-up client who is fearful of speaking their mind in front of a design professional. In other ways, it can be the designer’s bane, because most people have a skewed view of logo design.

This past week was all about the cost of things. The cost of health. The cost of luxury. The cost of living. Fortunately, for all its annoyances, it wasn’t such a big deal. When counting what you’ve paid, it’s always good to be mindful of what you’ve received in return.

I’ve had The World According to Monsanto playing in the background as I work today. In short: Monsanto, throughout its history, has acted on a policy of poisoning, lying, legal bullying, and bribery. They are in the process of spreading their genetically modified crops around the world, both through commerce and the simple fact that plants spread themselves, to eliminate unmodified crops and to, quite literally, own all of the major food crops in the world. Think about that. You wouldn’t be allowed to grow, for example, corn without their permission and without paying royalties. Think it isn’t happening? It already is. This isn’t something that will happen, or might happen. It already is. The only thing left to determine is how much it happens. Think the government will do it for you? Wrong. The government and Monsanto have a revolving door between them. The last three presidential administrations have connections with Monsanto. This is not a party-specific issue, either.

As I learn more and more about the corporation named Monsanto (which began as a chemical company, not an agricultural company, by the way), I become more disgusted and confused by the people behind the name. What do these people think is the inevitable result of something like this? What do they tell themselves to make the destruction of lives (both professionally and literally) seem acceptable? The worst part is that I’m sure sitting down with them would only yield groomed PR doublespeak. But I would love to have a frank conversation with one of them.