February 2012
2 posts
4 tags
“Growing up, one of my favorite books was Automobiles of the Future by Irwin...”
– Jon Wong of ISO50, in a great piece about his creation of the Explorers of Tomorrow book. I’m consistently inspired and amazed by the quality of the stuff on ISO50. It is a marvel for the eyes, ears and brain. The Stambler book can be found on Amazon and eBay.
January 2012
4 posts
3 tags
Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona Couch Kit
I love settling in for these long distance races with all manner of televisions and computer screens at my disposal, like some all-knowing war commander. In reality I am just watching like the wide-eyed fan I am while Andrea rolls her eyes.
Here’s how I’ll manage the 24 Hours of Daytona race this weekend. (BTW, if you’re unfamiliar with the race, read this piece by Sam Posey....
1 tag
A prototype emerges from the lab: Carmagnum
Some people find time to stop and smell the roses, but I prefer the cars. With that, I am happy to announce we’re shipping the public beta version of Carmagnum. What is Carmagnum? See a car, take a photo. If you’ve ever taken a picture of a car on the street to share with a friend, you’ve already “used” Carmagnum. It’s as simple as that.
This bizarre pleasure...
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive...”
– MLK
December 2011
4 posts
4 tags
4 tags
A Brief History of Kongs
The enormous, frighteningly friendly King Kong balloons on the roofs of your louder car dealerships and apartment complexes are in trouble. They’re already banned in many cities in Texas as well as St. Louis, after city councils deemed them an eyesore and a distraction to drivers. When Houston finally banned them, the city’s mayor said: “We want to try to improve the physical...
3 tags
November 2011
6 posts
2 tags
4 tags
Frankenbrands: Rearranging Logos and Relaunching
The fallout from Border’s bankruptcy and liquidation looms large at the shopping center down the street from our place here in San Francisco. Entrepreneur Martin Carmody bought the inventory of the above Border’s Books after it went tango uniform, purchasing the remaining 40,000 books in the store for $50,000 and establishing his own lease, turning ODE into a budget book store and...
4 tags
Personalized Thank You Note Culture
Andrea received an order from J.Crew and inside we were surprised to find this correspondence card from CEO Mickey Drexler. I like that it’s not really on J.Crew stationery, but rather like a personal note from the man himself.
The Lowly Receipt, An Opportunity
Point-of-sale receipts are meaningless and will probably go the way of our protoborg pocketdevices. Which is why they are so amazing when they are done well. And an opportunity.
It struck me again when Andrea and I finally made it over to Outerlands for lunch. We arrived just as they opened at 11:00 am and grabbed a little seat outside along 45th Avenue, catching a good 20 minutes of sun...
Brass Buttons from Waterbury
“Since 1812, we’ve crafted the world’s most popular metal buttons. When Gen. Ulysses S. Grant met Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse, both men wore Waterbury buttons on their chests.”
I’ve probably spent a full hour over the last six months trolling the archives of Waterbury Button, the pre-eminent button maker and the only Civil War-era button manufacturer still in...
October 2011
12 posts
3 tags
Signs and mahl sticks
I’ve never seen a sign painter doing his work, so when I walked into NEST in Pacific Heights a few weeks back I was excited to see Scott Thiessen putting on their new window lettering, all by hand. The shop owners probably weren’t enthusiastic about me interrupting him with my inane questions. Actually, Scott probably wasn’t too excited about it either. But he was gracious...
3 tags
3 tags
Requiem For A Clock Radio: Sony Dream Machine...
Sony discontinued their Dream Machine clock radios in the U.S at some point over the last year. This proved to be a non-event for most of the consuming public, but when I found out directly from Sony’s PR team last week (they’ve moved over to the “Dash” line of clock radios), it struck me as the death of another great consumer brand. Is it that Sony can’t manage...
4 tags
WatchThe wonderful new Spike Jonze animated short, in conjunction with designer Olympia Le-Tan.
3 tags
2 tags
3 tags
Catalog copywriting: Three catalogs, two sizes,...
Those 100-word product descriptions in mail order catalogs are my very own US Weekly, that sort of empty calorie consumption that I can’t help but gobble up whenever I get the chance. I am a hoarder of this bizarre brand of copywriting. It was the Johnson Smith Catalog that hooked me back when I was young and I think it might be one of the reasons I started writing for money when I was 17. I...
A tiny moment Steve Jobs made possible →
“One of the reasons for Uniqlo’s success in Japan is the notion of...”
– Hikotaka Takeuchi, professor at Harvard Business School, in the new (and fantastic) Uniqlo Made For All publishing piece found in their stores.
Clerk-to-Chief is more of a realized dream in Japan and within the Far East, but there are some notable Western examples. The surprising thing is that...
September 2011
8 posts
“Start your day with the ICF-C180!”
– Copy from Sony’s Dream Machine ICF-C180.
4 tags
1 tag
“If it doesn’t make my race car go fast, I really don’t care about it...”
– Tony Stewart provides a refreshing amount of focus, triggered by a boiling over after a series of inane questions that get asked of him week after week. When I did NASCAR for a year, I would hear him say this pretty frequently to a group of reporters. He was right, too — the questions are...
What six hours of Muir Beach sounded like
Earlier this week we did a small bonfire at Muir Beach and I brought my little Olympus recorder and propped it up on a fence post about 100 yards from the shore. My plan was to record our bonfire and the waves. I forgot it there, so it ran all night. The next day I went back and it was still sitting on the fence, still recording. The 19-hour file was more or less useless for the time we were on...
August 2011
12 posts
Link: On paring down a textbook →
This is an interesting peek into how a textbook became a little bit better. It comes from Science Life, the blog edited by my friend Rob Mitchum for the University of Chicago. It’s consistently one of the best things in my reading list.
1 tag
2 tags
Link: How Moneyball Came Together →
I’ve always marveled how film writers are able to create some of the best how-the-sausage-was-made stories about films. They are far more entertaining to read than a straight film review in most instances. I really enjoyed Mark Harris’s piece here.
3 tags
Link: Writers and Index Cards →
Gentex HGU
I am in the market for a motorcycle helmet and, on Todd Osborn’s recommendation, I might look at a decommissioned HGU. The HGU-55, specifically, was created by Gentex to accommodate the high g environment of F-15 and F-16 aircraft. It was made wider and higher along the eyes, for better visibility. Best of all, it is extremely light — the helmet with liner, earphones, cords and...
1 tag
Link: How does 'Free Riding' on customer service... →
(opens PDF)
Is “Free riding” (aka checking out a camera at Best Buy to see it in person, then buying it from Amazon at a lower cost) beneficial to the service-providing company? In many cases, yes, if done strategically.
1 tag
For Optimists Only
One of the best things in our mailbox is the catalog from Taschen, the publisher of pricey and beautiful books on topics ranging from European history to Vanessa del Rio (don’t Google her if you don’t know her). The catalog is more of a magalog, with longer articles extracted from the books and colored with their outstanding photography. Recently they took the magalog concept a step...
WatchMy friend Whit Scott has a very interesting Kickstarter he just launched. He is documenting an epic group of tee-pee artists and the ongoing legacy of the project, that reaches over 30 years. Watch the video and then click through to help him out!
Bonus: The highest of the Kickstarter donation levels includes Whit personally tee-peeing a house of your choice (preferably on the West Coast, he...
July 2011
16 posts
WatchShane Mahoney and Walter Brennan, just doing their thang. June 2011.
