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.

A 4-minute time-lapse video of the drive from L.A. to New York City.

Pointed out to me by Steve 'I'm so buff from working out my last name should be Maniel' Laniel.

I’ve seen this view many times since Jocie was born. The light on the stairs as they ascend into the darkened second floor always struck me, so I decided to capture and share this little slice of my late-night traversing.

“Oh, Daddy, I’ve had such a dream;
I dreamt that I saw the pit all afire,
And men struggled hard for their lives;
The scene it then changed, and the top of the mine
Was surrounded by sweethearts and wives.”

—Don’t Go Down the Mine Daddy

I attended an interesting talk this past weekend given by University of Pennsylvania Professor of Astrophysics, Ken Lande. He made an interesting point during the course of his talk on the "post-fossil fuel era." While his ultimate point was that a decentralized energy source such as wind or solar would be far better, safer, and more secure for us, he pointed out an interesting comparison between two other, far more prevalent, energy sources in use today.

Ever wanted to make a quick font? Well, now you’ve got your chance. FontShop just opened up their modular web-based font building tool, FontStruct.

I got a chance to play around with the closed pre-launch version and I can attest to its robustness. I was skeptical when I got the invite, but it does everything it needs to and exports a functional font file to boot.

My only public “fontstruction”, Faketur, is a work in progress containing what I’d call a first shot at the lowercase letters for a blackletter font. It has big spacing issues and some characters in need of intervention, but I plan to keep on adding and tweaking. I’ll likely post when it’s in better shape.

Check out FontStruct. The team did an impressive job for this handy little free web tool. Congrats, guys.