/ Don 1 Comment

Overdue Casualties of the Recession

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

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Public Enemies Font

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.

To get the type face of the title just right, Mann commissioned a special font from Neville Brody who says:
“Michael Mann understands the power of a good title sequence and always commissions his own. For Public Enemies, he wanted a font that evoked the Depression era, so I got inspiration from publicity posters for Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative. “
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The Future of New York

As imagined by an unknown artist (c. 1910), the future of New York is filled with low-flying bi- and tri-planes and train trestles that run through skyscrapers. The above postcard is part of the Walker Evans collection of 10,000 currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in NYC. I recommend visiting by tri-plane as the elevated trestle is normally congested.
Doesn’t this sorta remind you of GM’s Futurama from the 1939 World’s Fair?
/ Don 6 Comments

Spam-blocking sub-domains

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, ERA404, 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 don.citarella@) and what is a spam-blocking forwarder (i.e., hsbc@ temporarily forwards to don.citarella@).

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.“?