And by that I mean good design. Or its making a resurgence. Years ago, you’d wander through any neighborhood and find contemporary homes designed by the great architects of this century. While Frank Lloyd Wright may be best known to the masses for Falling Water, you’ll also find his homes buried in little neighborhoods like Oak Park, Illinois. Nowadays you have to check with the home-owners association before you’re allowed to paint, let alone build something that isn’t red brick and colonial.

But the times are finally starting to turn around again, and, I dare say, on an even more cutting edge basis. (Good) Design is finally starting to show at least a little bit of an impact on the general population. You don’t have to dig quite as deeply to find it. It’s on vodka bottles. It’s on bed sheets:

And the architects are coming back to the neighborhoods. Check out the work of M.J. Neal who’s been sneaking stunning architectural gems around Austin, TX:

Or perhaps the most guilty of all companies, Apple. Regardless of the constant battle between PC and Mac lovers, no one can deny that Apple has made huge leaps toward making the general public accustomed to impressively good design. I don’t recall seeing any PC’s in MOMA’s collection.
Even the Art Directors Club recently had a seminar called Designism, which unfortunately I missed. Their aim? To “join in a debate over advertising and design as instruments for social and political change. Can practitioners use their talent to shape life in these changing times?” You can listen to a podcast of the discussion here.

So what’s it all mean? Great, we’re seeing more design out there. It’s happening. Let’s sit back, relax, and watch it happen. HELL NO! We need to do MORE. We need to support it. We need to buy it. We need to tell the companies that we appreciate it.

But beyond that, we need to TAKE PART IN IT! We’re advertising and marketing professionals. We make all of that junk out there that people are training themselves to ignore. We make every bit of communication that tells people to buy something, to sell something, to do something. We have a huge amount of input on the culture of communication. It’s time that we use it and use it wisely. It’s time to bring the art back into what we do.

Think about it; forty years from now will someone be paying to hang our ads in their living room?

Photo credit for the bedspreads goes to The Cool Hunter.

Yes, a couple were a result of the now infamous Z-list.  Thanks to Troy over at orbitnow! and the crazy kids over at The New Shelton Wet/Dry.

Anyway, I wanted to share this video from the Black Heart Gang. It’s fantastically designed, tells a great story, and is just plain impressive to watch. The story is called The Tale of How.

I saw this on Saturday and was REALLY impressed.  Not Oscar material, but then what good movies are these days?  But good.  The visual design of the opening sequences were outstanding.  I guarantee that styling will pop up in a commercial or few very soon.  And I find that this sequence can often be pretty telling about how much I’ll like the movie.

I’m not a huge Will Ferrell fan, but he was good.  None of his over the top BS that people refer to as comedy.  I guess Stranger than Fiction is to Will Ferrell as Truman Show was to Jim Carrey.  I wasn’t really familiar with Maggie Gyllenhal, though now I’ll definitely keep an eye out for her.

I got a kick out of the plot from the time I saw the preview.  And I wasn’t disappointed.  I also didn’t feel like the preview gave too much away, which they tend to do these days.  And I smiled through the whole movie.

Customer service is a constant annoyance to me.  Or rather, the lack of customer service.  I’ve bitched about UPS and, for the time being, will do everything I can not to use them.  Bank of America continually pisses me off, though I continue to use them for various and sundry reasons.  Even FedEx got under my skin the other day when I walked in and had to watch the guy eat his pretzels and banter with his colleagues for a solid two minutes before he acknowledged my existence (I was the only customer in the room).

But Apple.  Apple has it almost nailed.  I signed up for a time slot.  Actually spoke to someone within 5 minutes of my assigned time.  And I walked out with a brand new mouse for free.  My only complaint?  The genius bar needs an express lane for things that take under 5 minutes.  But hey, I’ll live.

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Today’s ventures online somehow pointed out that the fixture is called the Metronome Clock. I believe this includes the odd, steam puffing maroon wall to the right of the digital numbers as well (on a side note, the hand at the top of that fixture is said to be an exact replica of the statue that sits directly across from the wall of a man on a horse).

Now for the interesting part. Decoding the clock:

In addition, there are seemingly meaningless numbers which actually represent the time: if the clock reads 070437XXX235516 it means that it is 7:04 A.M and 37 seconds. (7 hours and 4 minutes since midnight) and that there are 16 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds remaining until midnight. The three middle digits are a blur and cannot be read.

Thank you Wikipedia.