—Scene from Flight of the Conchords, in which Brett gets a job as a Human Directional, and his boss gives the most absurd pep talk ever.

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Every time I’m driving down the street and see some poor fellow holding up a sign promoting a nearby store, I think: Can’t the store just give that guy a real job, instead of humiliating him in public like that? Or at least don’t make him dance around in one of those ridiculous costumes! (I say “him” because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a female submit to this.)

In the olden days, they used to wear “sandwich boards”—one sign on your chest and one sign on your back, hung across your shoulders. Charles Dickens referred to this degradation as “a piece of human flesh between two slices of paste board.”

Today’s signs come in a variety of colors and shapes, and are often accompanied by choreography that may or may not include twirling. In trade jargon, they’re called “Human Directionals,” and companies exist that actually specialize in it. According to one of them, Media Nation, “When a real, living and breathing human being holds an arrow directing potential clients to a site, results ensue.” Another firm, Alluring Advertising, promises that “all of our spinners are certified professional and respectful.” Exactly how one receives certification for this profession is not mentioned; I suppose “respectful” implies that they don’t just hire people off the street—like when Cosmo Kramer strapped homeless people to rickshaws.

AArrow Advertising reportedly makes its Human Directional employees go through some sort of “boot camp” to teach them how to hold and spin signs—and, perhaps more importantly, to build the endurance required for standing curbside all day while trying to distract drivers.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the competition in this industry “has turned cutthroat.” AArrow has gone so far as to have its “signature moves” patented. As the firm explains, “We have to take our intellectual property pretty seriously.”

This collection is designed to capture the commercial promotion and presentation of folk music, broadly defined and interpreted, through the first seven decades of the twentieth century.

Say what you will about President Barack Obama’s politics, Obama throws a damn good campaign. With tight graphics. One thing we noticed during the 2008 campaign is that the campaign buttons cast a wide net with their market segmentation. Well, this 2012 presidential election is no different. In fact, they’ve gone hog wild with appealing to every conceivable segment of the population. Take a gander.

Listen to it here!

Moral of the story: great custom photography is worth the investment!

Here are two nice examples:

Love and Lemons—This a beautiful site designed, photographed, curated and authored by an amazing, local friend, Jeanine Donofrio (and her husband, Jack). Thanks to not only a great design, but to-die-for photos of her food creations, her blog had gone from birth to Glamor and Bon Appétit in under a year. Photo credit: Jack Matthews and Jenine Donofrio

Tiny Pies—We’re actually responsible for this sweet little site (literally). To her credit, co-owner and baker Amanda Wadsworth, recognized that great photography would not only  capture the soul of her product, but would also sell her product. Don’t get us wrong, Tiny Pies are amazingly tasty—if you’d have a try you’d be smitten. The trick is getting people to try them….and the photos are the hook. In thier first year of operation, Tiny Pies has gone from home kitchen to the Austin Food Festival and catering multiple weddings a weekend! Photo credit: Jody Horton 

“Below the fold” or “above the fold”, rather, references the olden days of newspapers, where the best, most visible spot was on the top front page, above where the fold was. The concept carried over to digital design, where it was once thought that you had to keep all of a website’s content close enough to the top, so that users wouldn’t have to scroll down.

This is simply NOT TRUE. Admittedly, people will look above the fold first, as that’s where we automatically land, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t know there is more content farther down. Take a look at how you navigate websites—Google search results, Amazon, New York Times, etc. Do you not read things because you had to scroll down? No.

We now know to look for clues that there is more content below, namely:
1) the scroll bar on the side of the browser window—is it there? That means that there is more we have to scroll down to see. (Check out the image below.)
2) Content that is cut of by the size of our browser window. If we can see something peaking up from below, there probably is more there.

User tests have been done to bust the myth of the digital page fold. The image here shows a Heatmap from eyetracking showing scrollbar as cue to page length.

Check out the whole article, “The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing“.

Image credit: CX partners

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Dahlia Green Cleaning Services is the latest worker-owned business to graduate from the Cooperative Business Institute, a training program offered by Cooperation Texas, a local organization dedicated to the development, support and promotion of worker-owned businesses, a.k.a. CO-OPs.

Please help us celebrate their graduation as well as their launch into the real world! Event details here!

We’re especially proud of Dahlia, as Christie led the marketing and branding workshops for the program. After going through some super fun naming and brain storming sessions, Dahlia also asked us to do their logo, which you can see above!

Their site is not launched yet, but please check back to find out their cleaning service rates: http://dahlia.coop/

Here’s a little video explaining more about what worker-cooperatives are about:

But, oh my lovely, Pinterest! I so adore thee. It cheers my mood, brightens my day and boosts my soul. In my experience, it’s one big appreciation fest. As a visual creature, I love perusing pages upon pages of various imagery, sifting and sorting and commenting and liking. I equate my 65 Pinterest boards to visual hoarding. Anything that tickles my fancy, I categorize and pin to my boards. And much like Twitter, I follow other Pinners or Boards which share my interests.

What do I pin, you ask? Well, naturally, there’s gobs of design and advertising related boards (tasty typography, bewitching branding, choice color combos, etc.). But I also have a treasure trove of pop culture items pulled to share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, both in professional and personal flavor (boards: Birthday Bumps, postable pop, words of wisdom). Speaking of personal flavor, I also have boards dedicated to my snarky sense of humor (board: bizarre-ness), progressive activism (board: rEVOLUTION), nesting (board: home haven), personal style (boards: nice hair, my style), desires (Wanna. Go. There., wondrous wants, if I were younger…), and, yes, of course, recipes (board: nom-nom-nom!).

When I have a new design project, screw looking at annuals or idea books. That’s old school. Now I just brainstorm on Pinterest. I can explore content, design style, formats, or anything I can dream up. If the Pinterest community doesn’t deliver, I venture out on the web, exploring images which inspire me, and simply pin them to my Pinterest boards and introduce them to the entire Pinterest community.

One of the most positive benefits I get from Pinterest, is that in the act of perusing and choosing whatever delights me, I’ve discovered a form of appreciation therapy. I’m always feeling happy and uplifted after a pinning session. If you haven’t already discovered it, the act of appreciating is an easy-peasy vibe lifter. And if, on the rare occasion, my pissy mood persists, you can bet my pins show it. They just get a little snarkier than usual. But generally, I adore sifting through imagery and building my own virtual swipe files for life.

If you’re a fellow pinner, I’d love to check out your boards. We do have an official Graphic Granola Pinterest account, but we use that primarily for client mood boards: http://pinterest.com/graphicgranola/  If you happen to be more adventurous (and not easily offended), you can follow my boards, and I’ll certainly check out your boards as well: http://pinterest.com/kellyblanscet/ Here’s to Pinterest, for promoting play, sharing and appreciation.