For years, I’ve collected folders full of old ticket stubs, receipts, catalogs, booklets, invoices, postcards, labels and other printed pieces dating from 1900 – 1975. These items are best defined as “ephemera” — things that were created to serve a practical, short-term purpose — not really meant to be saved (or written about in a blog post some 50+ years later). But being a designer who loves history and design history, it comes as no surprise that these items interest me. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever met a designer that doesn’t like rummaging through shelves of thrift stores or antique malls looking for cool printed “stuff”. I believe that collecting and studying these artifacts is really important — we can learn from the past and can find inspiration for current work.

I realize that some may classify all of this “stuff” as trash, but I see it as treasure. I appreciate the printing process, the craftsmanship, the hand lettering, the attention to detail and the history behind each piece. So I’ll keep on colllecting — I’ll just have to add some more folders to the filing cabinet.

Here are just a few samples I’ve collected over the years:

What a great script — and the perfectly tracked Futura typestyle.

1900 self-promotional brochure for a Chicago architecture firm

Back of an old photo card showing amazing lettering and detail.

Sheet music with hand-drawn lettering

Camera brochure cover. I love the Pilot logo.

A great example of good design for everyday purpose.

Kodak box cover

Great numbering style on a receipt from my grandfather's hardware store (1968)

Citizens Radio cards.

Invoice from my grandfather's hardware store - I forgive the spacing (kerning) between the W and the A in "Hardware" but love the typographic choice.

Beautiful lettering style and attention to detail on the back of this photo card.

What a nice lettering style and a capital "F". c.1925

Describe a great memory with your mom.

Will Weatherly
99.7% of my early life was spent playing organized soccer. Early in my career, at age seven or so, mom once took me to the fields near our house for mother-son practice. Even at that age, I knew mom wasn’t exactly an athlete, so I expected little out of her. I positioned myself in the goal, and dared her to attempt a shot. Without even pausing to stop the ball I’d just rolled her way, she wound up and unleashed a rocket of a kick that sent the ball soaring what seemed like a mile high and a mile long. It didn’t come near the goal, but that didn’t matter. I knew it had surpassed any of the shots I’d ever taken.

That was the first time mom’s abilities outside the realm of “normal mom stuff” truly amazed and inspired me.

Teresa Coles
My mother taught me the basics of gardening, many of which are a lost art today:

• How to drop seeds in the hole while riding on the back of a planting rig
• How to shell a whole bushel of beans in one episode of Days of Our Lives
• How to get the milk out of an ear of corn without splashing all over your face

Any many, many other farm chores that I didn’t appreciate at the time.
Perhaps the biggest gift she gave me was an understanding of the land, how it sustains us, and what we owe it.

Kevin Smith
Me, Mom and my dog in a U-Haul for 14 hours from SC to NYC. I had rented an apartment at 22 West 15th Street sight unseen. We walked in and were relieved to find it nicer than we expected. Mom stayed the weekend and helped me get everything in place. Just before leaving, she joined me for a walk to my new office to make sure I knew just how to get there on Monday.

Julie Turner
After our first son was born, my mom came to our house every day for a week to help. Laundry. Rest police. Conversation. Started dinner. Advice. And the best meatballs I’ve ever had. It was a generous (and much appreciated) gift of time and talent.

Cathy Monetti
When I was in my early 30s, I got the chance to take the trip of a lifetime with my mother, Posey Rigg. We joined a tour group for several days in the Canadian Rockies, including stops in Lake Louise, Jasper, Banff and more. Mom and I got the opportunity to go white water rafting in Glacier National Park and I somehow talked her into it—something I still find unbelievable.

Being Posey, she was determined NOT to paddle. In fact, she refused to even hold a paddle while on that raft. Then she somehow secured a seat up on the rim beside the guide.

The rest of us paddled wildly, soaked to the bone as we made our way through the rapids. Mom? She just sat up there on the back of that raft, dry and smiling, fully pleased.

Ryon Edwards
After a grueling day of preschool, I remember my Mom coming to the door of the classroom to pick me up. In her hands was our newest family member — a black lab puppy, named King. I remember the excitement of the moment and the look of pure joy and happiness on her face. Thanks, Mom!

Recommend a good read…

Cathy Monetti

Nightwoods, by Charles Frasier
(my current Favorite Book of All Times)

Teresa Coles

11/22/63, by Stephen King
A page turner I’m only about a third of the way through; definitely need some quality beach time to soak it all in!

Kevin Archie

A Moment in the Sun, by John Sayles
An ambitious historical novel chronicling the events that marked the turn of the 20th century, this book is a beautifully written masterpiece whose numerous characters intertwine almost as ornately as the words on its cover.

Jody Piland
Cash Mob Boosts Newton Hardware House
I think this is a really cool idea. It’s like a flash mob, but instead of dancing, large groups come to a small business and spend at least $20.

Will Weatherly

The Reason For God, by Tim Keller

Kevin Smith

Old School, by Tobias Wolff

Julie Turner

The Hunger Games trilogy
1. Perfect beach read
2. Book > Movie


Ryon Edwards

Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

The house was a traditional, tiny downtown starter home owned at one point by someone who was quite a gardener. In the time between her and when John purchased the home, the yard and plantings overgrew. Beneath all the tangles and years of neglect, all that beauty was still there, waiting to be rediscovered.

Area by area, we hacked out the clingy vines and cut the wild weedy trees. We pulled out years of thick English ivy. One by one I learned what lived there and how it needed to be cared for. By the time we moved a few years later, I handed the new owner a thick manual of plant placement diagrams, pruning instructions and details of improvements we’d made. It was no Biltmore Estate by any means, but I think we managed to recapture some of the yard’s original beauty. While the new homeowner managed to destroy most of that work within a year, my green education stuck.

My green thumb had finally taken root.

Three years ago, I decided to graduate from a mildly successful jalapeno plant grower to a full-blown raised bed gardener. My neighbor, who is an accomplished gardener, cheered me through all my fears and insecurities and shared more know-how than a pile of books. I still remember the excitement of seeing tiny starts of romaine lettuce and thinking ‘I could grow lettuce at home!’ I wasn’t thinking at all about the superior taste of homegrown veggies nor was I thinking I’d get much more than a salad or two. I ended up getting weeks and weeks of crisp lettuce that made store-bought lettuce taste like sawdust. So now I am completely spoiled.

My first garden did fine for a complete amateur. My second spring garden did much better, which led to a summer and winter garden that year, too. Now in my third year of gardening, it’s safe to say I am always growing something.

All my life I’d thought my parents had some classical training. How were they able to amble through a yard and identify almost everything? How did they know where to cut, when to plant and if something was dead or dormant?

It turns out, there’s no big secret to cultivating a yard or a garden. You just stick your hands in the dirt and give it your best shot.

I think we’ve been afraid to do things ourselves for too long. What if I fail? What if it doesn’t work? I don’t know how to do that. But these days, fear is giving way to something better, something brighter.

Consumers of the new economy have a rekindled sense of DIY. They are seekers, and learners. They collaborate, cultivate and share. It may be something as simple as learning to garden or joining forces with a friend to form a new company. There’s an exciting fearlessness that’s refreshing after the drought of a recession.

Consider the explosive growth of the digital scrapbooking site, Pinterest. While primarily used by young women, it’s growing by never-before seen leaps and bounds. It’s even managed to sneak its way up in usage right behind Tumblr and Facebook.

The new reality is that nothing is out of reach in the minds of today’s consumers. Trying and faltering is no longer a failure. It’s how we learn.

Being afraid to try is the new failure.

Converge SE attracts the design-conscious and the technically-savvy crowd from all over the country from a wide range of industries: education, government, small business, corporate, solo designers, and more. Experts and industry thought leaders conducted workshops and presentations that focused on topics ranging from the practical to the philosophical. Creativity, emerging technology discussions and the encouragement to push the boundaries of web design were common themes this year.

For the workshops, there were four different tracts attendees could participate in: Design; Development; Front-End Development; Marketing and Mobile. I participated in most of the Design workshops which covered everything from typography to design process to prototyping. I also participated in a lecture by J Cornelius who talked about the benefits of using HTML 5 markup language and why it’s so awesome.

And speaking of awesome, Leslie Jensen-Inman from UT-Chatanooga kicked us off Friday morning with an inspirational talk and encouraged everyone to follow their passion and to simply “make awesomeness.” Last year, Leslie spoke at Converge SE and discussed her involvement in CreateAthon On Campus at UT-C and how powerful the experience was for her and her students. Pretty cool to hear about the impact CreateAthon is making in other parts of the country. Yeah, shout out to CreateAthon!

A few notes and sidebars from some of the other speakers that I found interesting:

• From J Cornelius, a software/web developer:

- “IE7 is the new IE6″ (IE6 is a developers’ worst nightmare)

- 4.8 billion people have never seen the web

- HTML5 gives us the ability to do amazing things. Check out www.thisshell.com to see what’s possible.

- In the end, it’s our job {as web designers} to create an “experience” online.

- And lastly, J suggested that we “Go build some cool stuff.”

• Chandler Van De Water discussed typography and how he uses software to create original typeface designs. SIDEBAR: I won a typeface creation app for drawing a lowercase R! I’ll be using it to experiment with a new type family soon!

• Giovanno DiFeterici talked about historical and contemporary art and the psychology behind it. He discussed the importance of collaboration and talked about the process of creating the artwork for this year’s ConvergeSE marketing materials (which is amazing).

• Bermon Painter showed how he successfully eliminates wireframes and excessive documentation and jumps right into rapid prototyping by using sketches and actual content (as opposed to greek copy).

On Saturday, we heard from nine or ten more speakers who discussed topics ranging from mobile testing, building online communities and the importance of customer service, simplicity in design, coding for CSS, importance of social groupings and identity, design process and much more.

Overall, a great conference and a great venue to meet new people and to learn more about web design and development. Way to go Converge SE — I’ll be back next year!

It’s spring break for some students this week — what would you do if you had the week off?

Jody Piland
I would be relaxing on a cruise in the Caribbean.

Cathy Monetti
lie on a beach. any beach.

Julie Turner
I would plan to do nothing at all and then within two hours have a long list of projects to do.

Kevin Archie
I would go out into some woods with some friends and watch the sun rise and swim in a river and cook food over a fire and percolate hot black coffee and not check email or Facebook or Twitter but read a book and follow a trail and stare at the sky until the sun turned into the moon.

Teresa Coles
I would be parked at Edisto with everyone else in Lexington County who’s there, including my daughter!

Will Weatherly
Sleep late (9am), then go play outside (rollerblade, mountain bike, tennis, soccer).

 What would you do?

The Golden Ratio looks like this:

And is defined as the ratio between two segments such that the smaller (bc) segment is to the larger segment (ab) is to the sum of the two segments (ac), or bc/ab = ab/ac = 0.618.

And can be calculated like this (adding 1 to the ratio is phi, yielding the same basic geometric relationship):

More examples of the Golden Ratio:

Fascinating! Is it an inherent aesthetic preference or is it a design technique turned tradition? How do you explain the proportion found in nature? However you decide to answer those questions, it’s hard to argue that it has had an enormous impact on art and design over the years and continues to influence design today. Next time you see something that just “feels” right, or that you just can’t take your eyes off of, take a look at the proportions and remember – Ahh, it must be the 0.618!

What do you usually have for breakfast
before work?

Teresa Coles
Coffee, black.

Julie Turner
English muffin or half an everything bagel and a small glass of milk. Then, over the next few hours, about a gallon of coffee.

Maria Fabrizio
A cinnamon raisin english muffin with butter and giant cup of coffee at 5:00am.

Kevin Smith
I’ve been on a breakfast burrito kick of late. Skim milk is also key.

Will Weatherly
In order of consumption:

• Half-glass of Orange Gatorade
• Half of a pecan pastry
• Raisin-Bran w/ skim milk
• Full glass of water

Kevin Archie
Lately it’s been a toaster strudel and a glass of orange juice . I guess I’m still stuck in Middle School.

Cathy Monetti
Whatever I can find to eat in the car on the way to work.

Jody Piland
Usually it’s something simple like a piece of toast, one poached egg and some Greek yogurt.

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What would you choose for your last meal?

Kevin Smith
A cheeseburger and french fried onion rings from the Sugar n’ Spice in Spartanburg, SC.

Julie Turner
A pimento cheese sandwich eaten at The Masters followed by a BBQ sandwich for dessert.

Ryon Edwards
You mean if I were on Death Row or something? I guess I would order a Moe’s Homewrecker. Would they deliver?

Teresa Coles
A hunk of beef tenderloin with balsamic reduction and Gorgonzola cheese, a baguette to sop up the juice, and a bottle of Barolo.

Will Weatherly
French Dip Burger  (Roast Beef and Fried Onions piled high on a Ground Sirloin Patty with Au Jus for dipping). Side of Fries. Pint of Avery Hog Heaven.

Kevin Archie
The all-meat Parrillada Para Dos from Tango Sur — an amazing Argentinian Steak House in Chicago — accompanied by a bottle of Malbec.