Author: phillydesign

Pier 24 SF

Everyone is a photographer now, and that’s wonderful. We all document moments both important and mundane, scenes both amusing and stunning, creating a colorful whirlwind that turns into an extra layer of the fabric of life. Step into the serenely industrial galleries at Pier 24 in San Francisco, though, and you’ll be reminded that photography can also be art.

pier24sf-narrowdoorA huge variety of photographic prints make up the current exhibition (“A Sense of Place,” open through May 2014), but it’s the gallery space itself that is most intriguing. Continue reading Pier 24 SF

Five Phrases (2014 Jan 11-26)

“Lena Dunham in a jock strap” — (about Adam)

“would grow chest hair on a kale martini” — Craig

“News of the errant rock” — Ian O’Neill 

“A Pigeon Apparatus for the World” — Alexis

“Time waits for no carrot” — CP Gurnani

South StreetSunrise on South Street

GABF Fort Collins Bus Trip: A Photo Tour

It’s 8 AM, and I’m standing in front of what looks like a mix between a celebrity transport and a secret-ops van — matte black with tinted windows and indistinct silver trim — waiting to go drink beer. More accurately, continue drinking beer, since the day before I’d spent on the event floor of the Great American Beer Festival, hopping from tasting table to tasting table with 40,000 other beer fans.

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Glancing around, I see one person I know slightly and several I don’t know at all. By evening, I’ll feel like I’d known them all for years.

Ed Yashinksy, the Troegs manager who appears to be somewhat in charge, herds all dozen of us onto the black bus and gives the driver the okay. We’re off, pulling out of Denver on our way to spend the day in the nearby brewery mecca of Fort Collins. It’s 8:30 AM.

“Ready for liquid refreshments?” someone yells, and coffee is swapped for cans of breakfast beer in hands all down the facing benches. Continue reading GABF Fort Collins Bus Trip: A Photo Tour

Five Phrases (2014 Jan 4–10)

“It looks like her boob is trying to escape by pretending to be a Band-aid” — Anna

“Magniffy” — Sam

“a world wracked by people” — Rob

“gravitational playground” — Alessondra (BFF.fm archive?)

“linguiful” — Burrito Justice

ramen
Ramen at Cheu Noodle Bar

It’s Alright to Die

If someone dies and you want to tweet about it, go for it. You’re doing them a favor.

records

Last week, New York Observer editor Peter Kaplan died. I didn’t know him, I didn’t even know of him, by name. But I felt like I should’ve.

While I was sad to hear of a brilliant man’s relatively early death (he was 59), I was grateful for the flood of tweets memorializing him. Peter Kaplan was a person worth remembering, but also a person worth discovering.

These days, even minor celebrities’ fame explodes when they die. Instead of dismissing the surge as a symptom of pop-culture obsession, consider it an opportunity to learn about one more human and extend whatever impression they made on the world just a little bit further. Continue reading It’s Alright to Die

Coffee vs Tea

Coffee makes you feel strong and mighty, tea makes you feel puny.

Coffee helps you get work done, tea helps you feel better while you’re procrastinating work.

Sure, sometimes maybe you like feeling subservient because you’re respecting cultural traditions like kneeling on tatami mats or reading dusty novels with a blanket over your lap. Continue reading Coffee vs Tea

Turn It, Flip It, Pack It, Seal It

By flipping a to-go container top upside-down, Cuba Libre restaurant in Old City, Philadelphia, successfully solves one of the pressing issues of packing a restaurant dish to go.

The cold parts of the dish — in this case, a side salad — are placed in the bottom of the container, then a plastic top is turned inside-out and placed over it for protection. The shallow opening is then used as a double-boiler style container for the hot items (a trio of very tasty empanadas), which are capped by a second plastic lid.

SONY DSC

Continue reading Turn It, Flip It, Pack It, Seal It

Go Wiki Yourself

Quick, name the one marketing step you can take that will have the largest possible effect on your company’s online presence, yet is totally, completely free?

I’d have been hard pressed to come up with a good response before last week, when brilliant young CBS Interactive editor Andrew Nusca tipped me off. The answer is: make sure you have a Wikipedia page.

A Wikipedia page not only immediately lists your business in one of the most-searched global databases, it also adds organic (and valid) search engine weight to your own website, when you make sure Wikipedia links back to it.

Nusca and his wife, with some beerNusca and his wife, with beer

Continue reading Go Wiki Yourself

Noted

When I really want to remember something, I write it down where it could disappear at any moment.

An unsaved, unnamed notepad document, open on my screen. Its analog equivalent might be a scribble on a piece of tissue so light it could be blown away by the slightest window breeze. Continue reading Noted

Meetings Meetings Meetings

My least favorite part about meetings is they often provide incontrovertible proof that other people are not as smart as you guessed/hoped/thought they were.

Face to face to facepalm.

Mug