Somehow I doubt this was the kind of context Amazon had in mind when they made this media buy.

Spotted on TechCrunch.

By the time Apple made its formal unveiling today of the iPad, the only real surprise was the price point.  (Jobs’ presentation is worth watching.) Read More

I was searching for a fun gift for a friend and because she has a bit of a fascination with the green fairy, I tracked down a bottle of Trillium Absinthe online. When it arrived, I was struck by how absolutely beautiful the bottle is in both shape and graphic design. Everything about it, from the shape to the wax covered top, makes me want to try it, even though absinthe has never been of interest to me.

Trillium Absinthe is one of the first legally produced absinthes in the United States. Its from Integrity Spirits in Portland Oregon and the bottle was designed by ID Branding.

Package design may not have played a direct role in my purchase decision this time because I ordered Trillium online after a specific search. But, had I seen this package at retail, it would have caught my attention and pulled me in.

And with the ever increasing number of choices we have, that’s critically important.

Recently while shopping at Brix, a local spirits store with nearly 1000 wines, 800 international and domestic beers and a 100 single-malt Scotches (my personal favorite), it became clear just how important great design is when faced with a sea of possible options.  Especially for a consumer who may not have detailed or intimate product knowledge.

Inevitably I spent more time looking at and considering products when package design caught my attention.  And in the case of the beer my husband and I purchased, it was the packaging that clinched our choice, because we knew absolutely nothing about beer options from the Czech Republic and didn’t have the patience nor inclination to talk to the store’s beer expert.

What I didn’t see on the Trillium label until I looked closer was the alcohol content.  No wonder Van Gogh and Hemingway were so inspired and creative.

The suspense level is amazingly high. The net is a buzz about what new product will be unveiled by Apple on Wednesday. Apple has been mute on the subject, which seems to be part of the grand marketing strategy because the silence only seems to feed the speculation, chatter and suspense.

Apple issued invitations for a media event scheduled for 10:00 AM Pacific Time on January 27th. The event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the invitation’s tag line reads “Come see our latest creation.”

All the info, rumors and speculation about the “supposed” tablet has been coming from companies and partners that Apple reached out to as part of this project.

I know I’m curious and will tune in Wednesday.  Steve Jobs is a master presenter, so I’m sure it will be a good show.  PC World will live blog from the event.

Kim Mickelsen will be a panelist at the January event aimed to further students’ understand of various career fields.  Youth Leadership Omaha was designed to help build the interest of area high school students in becoming future leaders in the city.  Creighton University and AIM teamed up to take over the reigns of the Youth Leadership Omaha program, formerly coordinated by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce.

We pay a lot for access — think about your cable or wireless bill.  We may not like it. But that’s the way it is, and we accept it.  Could the same premise work for news? Wednesday, The New York Times announced that it would begin charging for content in 2011. It won’t affect the one-click wonder or casual viewer because The Times plans to use a metered payment system that would allow users to view a certain number of articles for free each month, before having to pay for more. Those affected will be frequent, loyal readers…like me. I visit the site daily and read dozens of stories, but I don’t shell out the $600/year to subscribe to the printed paper (print subscribers will have unlimited free online access ).

I’ve been following the pay wall discussions for months (see previous post) and still have the same question: Will consumers pay for news — in big enough numbers that it will offset the decrease in traffic that pay walls will create? Obviously, the declining revenue situation for newspapers is not getting any better.  In Q3 2009 The New York Times posted a loss of $35.6 million, as revenue fell nearly 17% from the same period a year ago. So something has to change. There’s certainly little chance print subscriptions will increase given changing consumer media behaviors. And the advertising venues and options continue to proliferate online. But I believe website pay walls, as currently positioned, are very risky bets. And seem like a backwards move. A push in forward-thinking and innovations in information delivery and customization seems less risky and a better potential source of long-term revenue.

For The New York Times the bet is especially big, because it not only runs the risk of TimesSelect 2 (the abandoned payment approach in 2007), it risks losing its mojo as top digital (non-aggregator) news site and could retard its digital ad potential if it fails. If readers run into pay walls and quickly move on to still-free (and top-notch) sources like the BBC, Reuters, NBC, NPR and many more — then the model could fall apart. And, The Times, as the leader in advertising revenue with more than 17 million readers a month in the United States, it has a lot lose if the move backfires.

There was one line in the release yesterday that intrigued me and provided a signal of some forward thinking. “NYTimes.com will be building a new online infrastructure designed to provide consumers with a frictionless experience across multiple platforms.” The concept of a frictionless experience is very appealing and could be a major move, IF The Times can pull it off well and quickly. In the age of ubiquitous smart-phones, Kindles, the long awaited Apple tablet, and eventually the Internet-mediated livingroom TV monitor, readers are already coming to expect easy, and smart, access to the their content wherever, whenever. They also will come to expect the stories they save on one device to be known by another; ditto email sharing lists, stock portfolios, favorite sports team preferences.

If The Times can provide such synchronicity, then readers who are asked to pay may accept the charge as, in part, an access charge — like their wireless access charge. And that perception change could change the game.

Poster image from the show.

Saturday, we visited the Durham Museum in Omaha Nebraska to see the American Letterpress-The Art of Hatch Show Print, which is in its final week.

The posters have a wonderfully organic nature to them since each one is hand pulled and therefore has variances within a series. They like to call them monoprints for that reason.

The earlier posters were simple but so impactful and memorable…the overlapping triplicate image of Johnny Cash is one of Hatch’s signature prints.

Layered effect created from multiple runs in the press.

I was most drawn to the newest posters in their entire series, where they took old pieces and parts of plates and wooden type, and repurposed them into new, multi-layered posters. They have thousands of wood and lead type in their archives and feel that “Preservation through Production” is what is going to keep the art of the letterpress alive and well.

Check OUT all the wood type! HEAVEN!!!

Even though the wood type was used many years ago, the way Hatch reuses them, and breaks them into many layer, colors and forms, feels very modern in its new translation.

American Red Cross launched a mobile fundraising effort on January 12, approximately three hours after the earthquake struck Haiti. As of 9am today, less than two days later, more than $3 million has been raised. And it keeps coming. Read More

There’s nothing like a bookcase that has its own attitude.

(via brooklynmutt)

I want one.

What may have started as something that was visually beautiful, has turned into something incredulous.  And it just keeps coming.

Read More