In July of 2007, ERA404 was approached by Robert Lovenheim, the founder of MovieBamba, to discuss a problem. As we relaxed over iced coffees in the brightly-lit, air-conditioned Starbucks by the Hoboken PATH train, he voiced his concern: The idea of the site is good, he said, but all the design keeps getting in the way.

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Sorry, I know this isn’t design, illustration, photography or literature related, but I fell off my chair laughing so I thought I should post it here anyway. And, if it really bothers you, I can find metaphorical connections to match this blog’s foci.

Finally! Adobe and Apple developers are working on a version of Flash for the iPhone.

Apparently, Steve Jobs had turned down Flash Lite due to how restrictive it was and Adobe requested Apple open up its iPhone architecture to allow Flash to run as a built-in program, rather than just as an app. Either way, Adobe is finally facing the challenge to have Flash running on mobile devices. Hopefully, they don’t start and end with the iPhone leaving Blackberry owners and mobile application developers disinterested in the outcome.

The entire story is below:

Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen, has suggested that his company is now working with Apple to develop a version of Flash that runs on the iPhone, according to an interview with Bloomberg. Narayen in March of 2008 explained the need to work closely with Apple for the project, as the software would necessitate a close relationship with Safari in addition to the iPhone SDK. Steve Jobs had considered Flash Lite as too limited in functionality, while the standard Flash player would not provide satisfactory performance using the limited resources of the mobile platform.

The software company had originally suggested it could develop Flash for the iPhone by using just the SDK. The statement was later retracted, however, due to the development kit restrictions that prevent third-party code from running in the devices’ built-in programs.

“It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” Narayen said. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.”

According to HarperStudio, who experiments with new publishing models to make books more effective, creative and sustainble, sites for authors and/or books, must accomplish the following five things:

1. Is interactive and speaks to a distinct community
2. Is inherently entertaining
3. Engages someone who has never heard of the book or author
4. Gives the reader a reason to come back
5. Can be found easily on Google

And, happily listed at the top of their examples of sites that “got it right” is the official site for John Hodgman, AreasofMyExpertise.com, which we (ERA404) designed last year.

And while JH, himself, should take credit for the first four and WordPress deserves recognition for the last one, I’d proudly extend HarperStudio’s list by one, and take credit for it:

6. Creatively extend branding across new media

Go us!

Nope, that’s not a dinosaur. It’s a new site that lets you, in the spirit of SimpsonizeMe.com, make yourself look like Shepard Fairey‘s iconic Barack Obama poster / TIME magazine cover.

Since moving to NYC, I’ve been fascinated by Mr. Fairey’s career. Most notably, his OBEY campaign which any New Yorker can’t miss (and which Katherine bought me a cool André face belt from the shop at Fairey’s alma mater, RISD). And his work with various magazines (TIME), campaigns (Obama) and movies (Walk the Line).

He’s fasinating, mostly, because he’s different. He’s part Charles Spencer Anderson of French Paper Company fame because of the clip art stylings and rough edges. He’s part Paul Rand because of the iconographic feel of his work. He’s part Keith Harring because of the graffiti/guerilla nature of his early work. But to my knowledge, there’s really no one that has been like him in the design world. Go create your own Obamicon and think about the above. Let me know if I’m wrong.