The image below is a detail of a huge Greenpoint map made by Mahon Publishing Company in 1980. You can also see a framed copy of this map on the wall in Italy Pizza on Manhattan Avenue.

Greenpoint, Brooklyn has been my home for roughly eight years. I was recently hired to brand the neighborhood for the Greenpoint Business Alliance. To say that this was enormously exciting for me is probably an understatement. I submitted a proposal for the job many months ago and seriously desired to work on this project, which is very personal to me. I’m happy to say that the logo is complete and we’re very happy with it. We’ll be unveiling the logo and other materials next week.

For now, I highly recommend reading the ‘I Remember Greenpoint’ section at this site. Greenpoint residents from as far back as the 1930′s share memories of the days when the McCarren Park Pool was actually a pool, Manhattan Avenue was lined with movie theaters, and the neighborhood was still known as ‘The Garden Spot of the World.’ My favorite quote comes from one fond former Greenpointer, who wrote, ‎”It’s been said that I live in the past. Who could blame me when I come from Greenpoint?” And that’s not the only tearjerker you’re likely to read!

More on this project very soon.

Categorized in: Branding, Diary
Leave a Comment

I designed the website for Coldfront, an online poetry magazine. The WordPress-based site includes an ambitious tiered homepage layout. I also branded Coldfront with a logo that I developed using a cloud image that existed as a decorative element on the previous site.

Categorized in: By Magnetic State, Web Design
Leave a Comment

Here’s a shot of my Planet Booty logo in action behind the band while they get their funk on during a Halloween performance.

Categorized in: Branding
Leave a Comment

You can call it ‘Web 3.0′ if that’s your thing. Or you could be cheeky and call it Megasupertubes or whatever. Hell, call it Carl for all I care. Whatever tech slang or terms of endearment we ultimately invent for the next evolutionary incarnation of the Internet (that’s its proper given name, with a capital I), I believe that it is emerging as an entity that explores the potential of technology to provide a spiritual conduit in our lives.

Categorized in: The Internet
Leave a Comment

“We see design that has no meaning: stripes and swash of color splashed across pages for no reason whatsoever. Well, they’re either meaningless or incredibly vulgar or criminal when done on purpose. Unfortunately, there are designers and marketing people who intentionally look down on the consumer with the notion that vulgarity has a definite appeal to the masses and therefore they supply the market with a continuous flow of crude and vulgar design. I consider this criminal since producing visual pollution that is degrading our environment is just like all other types of pollution.” -Massimo Vignelli (download The Vignelli Canon [PDF download link])

“I really think [visual pollution] is a crime – it’s a word that I use intentionally. Killing culture is no less of a crime than killing people because it kills their mind and their spirit.” -Vignelli elaborates on his point on the podcast ‘Design Matters with Debbie Millman’

Categorized in: Artists, Quotes
Leave a Comment

A short story by Dan Redding

It’s not like I needed another reason to think Geoffrey Dale was spoiled rotten. One of his family’s six cars had a talking computer in the dashboard. His blond hair shimmered broad like daylight and every word he spoke was delivered with cool nonchalance. Half of the girls in our school were prone to wandering the halls in a daze while daydreaming visions of Geoffrey (personally, I never suffered such afflictions). But then – as if all of this didn’t suck enough for the rest of us regular people – on the last day of junior high, Geoffrey Dale brought a goddamn mummy to school.

Categorized in: Fiction
Leave a Comment

Garish casino carpets add to the disorienting visual noise of the environment.
Photo by Chris Maluszynski

I was having a moment. The warmth of the Sunday morning sun soothed my hangover. I walked off the boardwalk and onto the beach. A song by Sublime (‘Santeria’) boomed over the boardwalk’s outdoor sound system as I strolled across the sand towards the tranquil ocean. Click here to read the rest of this post.

Categorized in: Diary
Leave a Comment