Wassel Design

Why the iPhone Won't Cure AIDS... Or Why I Don't Care

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:02:42 -0600

Tomorrow, the world changes forever. No really, the media is telling me it will. The almighty iPhone will "revolutionize" everything ever made - and that's still an understatement. This is the single greatest invention the world has seen. It even beats out fire, the wheel, Newton's Theory of Gravity, Christmas, the color turquoise and refrigeration... combined. Tomorrow, the world starts anew. To tell you the truth, I am excited for tomorrow. I'm excited for all this nonsense to come to an end. The iPhone has hijacked all the technology podcasts I listen to. Hell, it's even hijacked my RSS feeds. It's been everywhere for six months. I'm waving the white flag. I give up. Leave me alone. Yes, I've seen the screencasts. I've seen the UI. I've seen how razor thin it is. I've seen it. Wait, what's that? Google Maps you say? On my phone, you say? Whoa. Holy cow... I can't get that on my Treo. Oh, yes I can and in fact I do. Works great. It has a nifty web browser? Whoa! Wait, my Treo has two installed right now. "Yeah but it has that cool full page and then zoom in thing." Oh right... Opera Mini has that too. "But it only takes three clicks!" Um... My Treo has a "Home" key that leads to the main menu as well. I've yet to see anything that my Treo can't do in the same amount of clicks. Touchscreen? Amazingly, Treos have that too... and have for years. YouTube? You got me here. I don't get YouTube on my phone. But I do get real, live television. The only reason I see to buy the iPhone is for the iPod. I don't have 4GB of space on my Treo. I can play MP3s, but not 4GBs worth. But here's the thing, the only time I actually listen to my iPod is when I'm 1.) in the car driving or 2.) at work, playing music off my computer. Neither situation seems appropriate for me to be playing music off of my phone. I will admit the iPhone is slick. Apple bringing it's design muscle to a cellphone was an infinitely sexy idea and they delivered something that is pretty to look at, no doubt. But really, outside of the prettiness, what's the big deal? I don't see it. Maybe I've been over saturated with the ads, the rumors, the endless hours I've spent listening to people talk about this phone. Maybe I'm annoyed with the fact that Apple has personified iPhone (notice how they don't use "the" before it). Maybe I'm tired of Apple fan boys drooling over every, little thing Apple produces. But at the same time, I have to admire Apple's marketing scheme that can create such a juggernaut. Just please, after tomorrow, can this end? Really? Pretty please? P.S. This article, in no way, will stop me from pledging tomorrow to WBEZ who is raffling off an iPhone every hour between the hours of 6am and 7pm. You pledge once and your entered into every raffle of the day. Just do it... iPhone or not.

Thoughts on 'Helvetica'

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:42:21 -0600

"Helvetica" opened in Chicago on Friday night. Unluckily for me, I was out of town. Luckily for me, it is playing all this week at the Siskel Film Center. So last night, after a little tag team client work, a friend and I headed over and bought a couple tickets to see the hottest movie to hit the design world since... well, ever. For a Monday evening, I was quite surprised at the turn out. There were good 40 people in the theater. We could overhear conversations going on all around us, most of which centered on design, a refreshing change from the usual "waiting for the movie to begin" banter. Finally, the lights go dark and we're in a letterpress shop watching the typeface being spelled out and pressed into the name of the film. We're off. We're in New York, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Zurich; we're circling the globe. We're stopping to look at every day street scenes, the kind you'd pass everyday but pay no attention to. As we stare at them a little longer you realize that Helvetica is the typeface on that cab's "on duty" sign. Or on the box the UPS man is carrying down the street. Or on the subway signage. You realize the one common thread in all these scenes is Helvetica. It is about this time, maybe 10 minutes into the film, that I realize something I must've glossed over in the past. Helvetica is a display type. How did I not realize this until now? This is one of the very first typefaces I learned in art school. I saw it in numerous projects over the years. It's the most distinguishable typeface ever drawn, and here I was just now realizing that the only time it's used is on posters, signage and logotypes. I rack my memory. Is this true? Have I ever tried to use Helvetica as text? Yes I have... but I gave up trying to kern it and used another face instead. How did I not figure it out then? Meanwhile, back on screen, we make stops with Massimo Vignelli, Matthew Carter, Neville Brody, Erik Spiekermann, Paula Scher, David Carson. I refocus on the film. This dialogue in my head can wait until afterwards. These giants of design are candid about their love or hate ofHelvetica. Vignelli? Loves it. Spiekermann ? Calls it similar to McDonald's - crap. Neither of these really strike me as a surprise. What did, though, was how intimate these interviews were. They reminded me very much of the Hillman Curtis Artist Series. We get a feeling for how these legends think. A little glimpse into greatness. Mashed between the interviews is a brief history on the birth of Helvetica. We're taken to the Haas type foundry in Germany and see the building it originated from. We learn about it's background, how the two creators worked together to draw it, it's original name, Neue Haas Grotesk, and why it wasn't used. We all become Helvetica historians. Cut to the studios doing contemporary work with Helvetica. We see where Experimental Jetset is taking the face, where NORM is pushing it to. We hear about their philosophies. We can see a future full of Helvetica. Fade to black. How can a movie about a typeface provide such a ride?

Filling Up the Tank

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:35:29 -0600

You know on road trips, when the gas tank is getting low but you're in a groove and want to keep on driving? You know you need to exit and fill up the gas tank but, for whatever reason, you take a chance, knowing the next stop is coming up. You risk it. You watch the needle sink lower and lower. First, a quarter of a tank, then an eighth of a tank, and finally your indicator is hovering just above "Empty." Five miles pass, then 10. Your gas light comes on. 20 miles and still no sign of the next exit. Just as you start panicking, trying to figure out who you know living the closest to your present location, you see that green sign of hope. "Exit #20 - 1 mile." You take a deep sign of relief, drive that mile and fill up. That was the feeling I had with this site. I put up a version of Wassel Design back in November that was minimal, to say the least. It involved a simple contact form, a quick paragraph semi-describing what I do and five examples of past projects. There was no "meat" to the site. It was something that I knew would need to be revisited sometime down the road - I just had no idea it was 20 miles until the next exit. Client work came in and the site got pushed back. I knew that this site was losing gas. It was running on empty. I made a conscious decision to get off at the next exit and filled 'er up. What you see now is the result. I've gone though 8 versions of this site since I bought the domain in 2002. Some were straight portfolio sites, one was my personal blog, and others were all Flash sites. To say it's had an identity crisis is an understatement. At the turn of the new year, I made registered Wassel Design officially with the government. Wassel Design LLC was formed and it was at that point I knew I needed a site that would project the maturation that the company is going through. No longer was this about Addam. It was about Wassel Design LLC. With all this in mind, I sat down to design a site that showcased the work I've done so far. After all, that is what makes design firms stand out. I gave the work a much larger viewable space and decided that the 960px grid was the way to go. Things just sort of fell into place after that decision was made. One of my other main focuses while redesigning was the typography. I've felt that the majority of past designs didn't place as large an emphasis on typography as they should. Seeing as I've had my typefaces featured internationally, this should be something that I pride myself on. Sadly, it wasn't until recently that I've decided to "take back" web typography and place the focus on it. In the new version of the site, I've also added this blog. I felt it was important to separate out my personal blog posts from design-related ones. So that's it, the tank is refilled. We're going strong down the highway. Let's see where this takes us, shall we?