Apparently we're f*cked.

Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design telling it like it is. If you click play, you will hear naughty language. You've been warned.

America Is F*cked.......(Graphically at least) from Jess Gibson on Vimeo.

Mayday!

May 2009 will be the last issue for Best Life, as the economic downturn has claimed yet another magazine. The Men's Health spin off was only five years old—even in magazine years, that's young. According to the Publishers Information Bureau, it was one of the few magazines to actually gain ad pages last year (as compared to the rest of the industry, which saw an almost 12 percent decline). Despite this fact, the publisher, Rodale, decided the magazine wouldn't be able to weather the state of the economy.

A friend recently told me that the current economy will weed out the bad publications, and only the good ones will be left standing. I can't get on board with that notion. Not when pubs like Best Life are going under. It's unforgiving out there and unfortunately the economy isn't always so discriminating. 

So, get out there to your local news stand and pick up your favorite mag. Renew that subscription you let slide—or better yet, start a new one. I just did ...

www.frqncy.com

Back from break

Holy cow. Long time since I've posted. Apologies everyone. Been very busy wrapping up a couple of projects (soon to be posted on the site) and I took a much needed trip back to Colorado to catch up with some friends and do some riding. Things that came out of the trip: I was reminded that snowboarding is a perishable skill, but still super-fun. Flying 40 feet and landing on your head in waist-deep powder is relatively painless. Grabbed a couple of beers with Eric Likewise from the Skateboard Market and Indylab will be doing some designs for their upcoming shop t-shirts. Fun. I also stopped in and visited some friends at One Tribe Creative, an agency based in Ft. Collins that specializes in socially responsible design and branding. They've got some great stuff happening, including the launch of onetribe.com, an eco-friendly t-shirt project that allows the consumer to give 50 percent of their purchase to global humanitarian efforts. 

Colorado Rocks.

Limited Edition

Pro skater Mark Gonzales was good enough to collaborate with The Skateboard Market and create artwork for these limited edition decks for the grand opening of their new shop. In turn, shop owner Eric Likewise was good enough to send one of them my way. Original, hand numbered art from the Gonz. Am I going to skate it? Negative. That sucker's going on the wall in my office just above Cyber Spawn! 

Know Your Fonts

In the mood for some font geekery? Stop by Ilovetypography.com and try out the Rather Difficult Font Game. It's actually pretty tough. Not enough font fun for you? Then take the Helvetica or Arial Test and see if you know the difference between Helvetica and the rip-off artist, Arial. Send screenshots of your scores to frank@indylabdesign.com so I can post them on the blog! 

Obama's on a Mac!

While I will strive to keep the blog politically neutral, I couldn't resist noting that Obama will be ridding the world of famine, disease, pestilence and war all from the clean and intuitive interface of a Macintosh. Apparently Biden is on board as well. Looks like he's on an Air. Nice work guys. You're off to a good start.