[d]online

Artist’s statement: For several years, my work has explored a sculptural landscape where human urges (libidinous, predatory and monstrous) are acted out by half-recognizable, otherworldly surrogate creatures. The work reflects my interest in mutated, hybrid forms, and the disjunctive psychological states that they represent.

Since 2005, I have worked with painter Julie Hughes to create collaborative mixed media installations that reflect our shared fascination with reconstituted, fragmented biomorphic form. Installations typically interweave Julie’s paintings on shaped sintra panels with my own polymer clay and mixed-media sculptures across a backdrop consisting of cut vinyl wall drawings. These environments explore the gray areas between seemingly distinct states of being: the alluring and the repulsive; the playful and the threatening; and the natural and the synthetic.

Due to the great success of Random Musings I (and I mean that facetiously), I’ve decided to continue through with a second one. I realize that ultimately, that turns [d]online into a tumblr, but I’ve never been one to adhere to a strict format and still feel myself wanting to get verbose sometime. Read more…

Over the last year, a lot of the way we promote ourselves has changed. The latest casualty in this transition is Creative Hotlist, a paid service provided by Communication Arts.

As you probably remember from previous posts, I’ve whittled my periodical subscriptions from six down to two: HOW and Step Inside Design. Other than the recession itself, there are numerous reasons for this decision. Ultimately the choice was made based on one simple word: value. Read more…

Turns out Michael Mann, the Director of ‘Public Enemies’, is a control freak perfectionist in every area of crafting a movie….. that’s a compliment by the way.

A long time ago, around the time I started compiling my “Best Practices…” list, I began creating forwarders for ecommerce accounts to distinguish who was sending me solicitations and to be able to stop them easily. If you give someone your email address, say “joe@joe-co.com” then you have no idea where the soliciations are coming from and the only way to stop them is to increase your SpamAssassin rating—potentially losing false positives—or to get a new email address.

But, if you create “hsbc@joe-co.com,” and forward that to “joe@joe-co.com,” you can see who sold your email address and promptly disrupt the flow of spam by simply deleting the forwarder. Well, after a decade of online business through my company, era//404, I have a veritable bee’s hive of forwarders floating around. And, as I’d like to do some house-keeping to keep them organized, I’ve decided to create a sub-domain to create easily visual recognition of what is an actual forwarder (i.e., don@ forwards to dcitarella@) and what is a spam-blocking forwarder (i.e., hsbc@ temporarily forwards to dcitarella@).

Here’s where I need your assistance. Fill in the blank:
Solicitor: “Sir, in order for me to process your order, you need to provide a valid email address.”
Me: So I’d like to provide them with: “[solicitor name]@_____.era404.com” where ______ is the word I’m seeking.

Here are a few that I thought of: @firewall, @temporary, @spam, @commerce, @solicitations, @junkmail, @junk, @delete, @block, @protect, @safe, @safety, @protection, @temp.

Here are a few suggestions by friends: @refuse, @trash, @scrap, @waste, and my personal favorite, @is-a-dirty-dirty-whore. (Imagine providing the following: “The email address is: hsbc@is-a-dirty-dirty-whore.joe-co.com“). Ah, it’s the little things in life. It truly is.

So I appeal to you, gentle readers. What would be the best spam-blocking sub-domain? While my preference is to go with @solicitations, I worry it will be too long: networksolutions@solicitations.joe-co.com. And does @trash have that certain je ne sais quoi that I want, so that solicitors think “I see what you did there. Well played, dear sir. Well played.“?

Ironically, the same week I received my AIGA email about the presentation by Scott Stowell (designer of the BRAVO logo), I also started my first 99designs crowdsourcing campaign.

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Over the last few weeks, at odd hours, I was thinking of a few things that I couldn’t quite categorize into a blog post, but wanted to get out of my head. SO I think 2010 will be the year that I begin a subcategory of  Miscellaneous called Math.Random(). These will probably contain design-related thoughts, questions and micro-rants, as well as images of products, signage and brands that I felt were worth mentioning, but not weighty enough to merit their own post. Get a Tumblr, I’m sure you’re saying. And, you’re probably right. I have a Posterous account as well as a FFFFound and Dropular account, but I just can’t see myself committing enough time to using them regularly. I’m sure, others find them useful, but to me, it’s just one more thing. Y’know? Anyway, on with it.

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In January 2007 (three years ago), I started a list of NT Bloggers. If you’re a frequenter of the online design community, Newstoday (now called QBN), you’re probably interested in some of the musings and ramblings from the members. I was, anyway, so I compiled this list of NT Bloggers so that I could have an easy reference for what they were up to and new postings about their work and lives.

Newstoday Bloggers
See the updated list

I was sad to see that tr.im was shut down, quite unprofessionally, back in early August. And since then, the world moved on without them and everyone forgot they ever existed in the first place. In fact, if it wasn’t for a random twitter post by them yesterday, I would’ve never learned that they apologized:

Everyone involved at Nambu would like to apologize again for the hastiness in which we acted last Sunday, announcing the shutdown of tr.im by the end of the year.

…they regrouped, and are now transitioning to being open source and community-owned.

…and you have Eric Woodward’s personal guarantee that he’ll take care of shortfalls in funding to ensure that tr.im never goes offline again.

Like these pieces? Me too. What’s even more impressive is that they were created by a 7-year-old, Kieron Williamson, have a 700 person waiting list to buy and START at $1,500.00 (£900). Hate him yet? Yeah, me too.