Four Bullet Points From Seth Godin For Doing Design That’s Important, Not Pretty
- Erykah St.Louis posted in Design, Creativity and Seth Godin
Speaking to an NYU auditorium full of self-defined “creatives,” marketing guru Seth Godin began with a rendition of the alphabet song and ended with a call to action: “I have no doubt the people in this room are going to succeed. The question is: Are you going to matter?”
It’s the kind of question Godin poses on his blog, in his 17 bestselling books and throughout his many public talks: catchy, inspiring and vague enough to apply to anyone involved in a creative endeavor.
Intermission: Heavy Metal Quilter is Coolest Neighbor Ever
- Pete(r) Karinen wrote in Art, Creativity and Intermission
Agency Charlie started the “Neighbors Film Project,” an ongoing series of documentary shorts about San Francisco’s creative community, from the perspective of individual members.
This short profiles Ben Venom, a uniquely badass quilter.
Hang out with your neighbors on the last Saturday of April (a day we’re calling “Neighborday”). Click here to say you’ll Do It, and here to download GOOD’s Neighborday Toolkit and a bunch of other fun stuff.
The Home Team: In an Age of Virtual Niches, In Praise of Opening Doors to Unfamiliar Neighbors
- Frank Chimero wrote in Living, Creativity and Cities
I’ve never had a door that wasn’t next to someone else’s. Growing up, my bedroom was nearest to my sister’s; after that, I left home for college and dorm life, then greeted adulthood with successive apartments in the city. Chicago, Portland, then Brooklyn—with each move, I gained more neighbors on each side.
Illuminating Brooklyn’s Sky in Solidarity With Boston
- Lucky Tran wrote in Community, Creativity and Boston
After the bombings in Boston yesterday, the security response was huge in New York. Manhattan was in lockdown, with police swarming everywhere, and people were told by the authorities to run and hide inside their homes. So we decided to stay in Brooklyn and project on one of it’s most iconic and most loved buildings: the Brooklyn Academy of Music. BAM didn’t know about it, and at first security was suspicious, but as soon as they saw the message, they embraced us with approval. Even police officers who drove by gave us a warm nod and beep. It was a sweet moment when we saw a plea for peace trump the rules…
Personality of Parisian Neighborhoods Explored Through Typography
- Yasha Wallin wrote in in Paris, Creativity and Animation
By now, we all know that Paris is a magical place—whether you’ve been there yourself or paid attention to the countless cultural homages to the city through movies, music, books, and art. While Paris’ personality is romanticized, if you dig deeper, each of the 20 Arrondissements, or neighborhoods, that make up this historical city have their own distinct voice. The Marais has longstanding ties to Parisian Jewish life, and today boasts trendy boutiques, art galleries, and the city’s biggest gay community; the Latin Quarter is bustling with students, cafes, and bars, while Oberkampf boasts more “unpredictable” nightlife; and if you visit Père Lachaise you’ll find the cemetery of the same name, forever home to The Doors’ Jim Morrison.
The creative agency Havas Worldwide Paris in collaboration with Flying V explored this varied iconography and characteristics of each area through this clever animation; depicting each hood through a typography based animation.
What’s your favorite neighborhood in Paris?
Murals and Math: One School’s Solution to Graffiti
- Ellie Balk wrote in Education, New York and News
The act of painting murals is empowering. Once a student makes a mark on a wall, it becomes his or hers. When you walk down the busy street of Graham Ave, almost every wall is covered in random tags. We help the students create public art that means something and has significance. Students living in Brooklyn need this kind of connection to their communities because when the students invest in their communities, the communities invest in them. These murals are also made for the neighborhood. The results are not only beautiful images, but also sparked conversations.
Make This Awesome ‘33 Ways to Stay Creative’ List a Part of Your Life
- Liz Dwyer posted in Education, Creativity and Lists
This list pops up on the web every few months—the Steampunk group on Facebook is the latest to share. What would happen if most people followed its recommendations instead of just clicking “like”? How would our society change if schools posted these and then operated accordingly? (Caveat for the kids: We’d have to nix “drink coffee”!) Of course the best thing about lists is crossing things off of them, so c’mon, let’s commit to putting some of these suggestions into practice.
Is Los Angeles Ready For its First Mega-Museum?
- Maxwell Williams wrote in Art, Creativity and Museums
A merger is afoot in Los Angeles, but it’s not a movie studio or a record label this time around. This merger involves the city’s two biggest museums, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). LACMA, an encyclopedic museum with a massive campus, stellar educational program, and a magnificent collection of historical art has offered to buy the embattled MOCA, with its youthful audience and top-notch collection of contemporary art, for a reported $100 million.
Building Block #9: Become a Member of a Culture Institution
- Joshua Neuman wrote in Creativity, Living and Culture
You walk into a contemporary art museum and spot two doting parents hovering above a child in a stroller parked right smack dab in front of a sprawling Jackson Pollack canvas. “Look at the silly painting!” says the daddy. “Look, at all the pretty colors!” extols the mother. The kid’s eyes wander off to the adjacent, bright red fire extinguisher. The couple sees in the action painting an opportunity to foster their child’s appreciation of culture—and they’re right in doing so. All of us need help integrating a steady diet of art and culture into our daily lives. That’s why obtaining a membership to a cultural institution is such a good thing. Unlike the mug and/or tote bag they might send you as a token of your commitment, you cannot put a price on supporting culture and the arts—especially in an era of austerity measures. So, don’t just stand there pointing at action painting, this week take action by becoming a member of a local museum or cultural institution.
WATCH: Strangers Philosophise in a Ball Pit
- Pete(r) Karinen wrote in Living, Creativity and Soul Pancake
The fine folks over at Soul Pancake find yet another unique way of spreading joy, connecting people, and tackling life’s big questions.
Celebrate International Women’s Day With the Ladies of Skateistan
- Skateistan wrote in Living, Creativity and Skateboarding
On March 8 Skateistan will join the global community in celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD), with events at Skateistan’s project sites in Afghanistan and Cambodia. Worldwide, Women’s Day is a celebration of respect, appreciation, and love for women and their achievements.
This week leading up to IWD, Skateistan has been running a series of small workshops at our facilities so each class can learn what IWD is all about. Although the IWD events will be exclusively for our female staff and students, these workshops will include the male students in Kabul and boy’s groups from our partner NGOs Friends International, Tiny Toones and PSE in Phnom Penh.
The event will provide the girls and women of Skateistan a chance to meet other women involved in Skateistan around the world, both at their local project site and through a live video interaction. The video will make it possible to connect with the women of Skateistan internationally—sharing greetings and smiles across borders.
‘What Good Shall I Do This Day?’ Asked Benjamin Franklin Every Single Morning
- Yasha Wallin wrote in Living, Creativity and Lifestyle
We all have different ways of working. Some make lists of their day ahead, others charge right in and see where that takes them. Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the lighting rod and the odometer to name a couple, not to mention his work as a author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat, was a list man. How he managed to get everything done in 24 hours still seems like a miracle, but clues to his productivity lie in looking at his daily schedule.
Why We Love Beautiful Things
- Phillip posted in Design, Creativity and Mathematics
We think of great design as art, not science, a mysterious gift from the gods, not something that results just from diligent and informed study. But if every designer understood more about the mathematics of attraction, the mechanics of affection, all design — from houses to cellphones to offices and cars — could both look good and be good for you.
![Remembering Nina Simone as a Siren and Powerful Civil Rights Activist- Yasha Wallin wrote in Politics, Music and Creativity
…using music as a soap box wasn’t an easy choice, as she once wrote, “Nightclubs were dirty, making records was dirty, popular music was dirty and to mix all that with politics seemed senseless and demeaning. And until songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ just burst out of me, I had musical problems as well. How can you take the memory of a man like [Civil Rights activist] Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three and a half minutes and a simple tune? That was the musical side of it I shied away from; I didn’t like ‘protest music’ because a lot of it was so simple and unimaginative it stripped the dignity away from the people it was trying to celebrate. But the Alabama church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers stopped that argument and with ‘Mississippi Goddam,’ I realized there was no turning back.”
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Remembering Nina Simone as a Siren and Powerful Civil Rights Activist
- Yasha Wallin wrote in Politics, Music and Creativity
…using music as a soap box wasn’t an easy choice, as she once wrote, “Nightclubs were dirty, making records was dirty, popular music was dirty and to mix all that with politics seemed senseless and demeaning. And until songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ just burst out of me, I had musical problems as well. How can you take the memory of a man like [Civil Rights activist] Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three and a half minutes and a simple tune? That was the musical side of it I shied away from; I didn’t like ‘protest music’ because a lot of it was so simple and unimaginative it stripped the dignity away from the people it was trying to celebrate. But the Alabama church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers stopped that argument and with ‘Mississippi Goddam,’ I realized there was no turning back.”
Stop Working So Much (and how that helps you work better)
- Casey Caplowe posted in Work, Productivity and Creativity
My favorite article in a while: Tony Schwartz explains in the NYT how taking breaks, sleeping, and other kinds of not working make us so much better at our work. Ninety-minute increments is the way to go apparently…
Illustration by Golden Cosmos
