I present an email conversation between myself and my boss:

From: Boss
Subject: Question
Hey, I just got an e-mail from our legal team. It raised a question. Why can't our profession have a cool suffix to our name like Esquire? How cool would it be if I could have a prefix like Prof, but Mstr (webmaster)?

From: Erin
Subject: Re: Question
Genius!

OK let's figure this out.... according to the wikipedia "Esquire" defines either one of "gentle birth" (one step above a gentleman) or in the U.S., a lawyer. It was derived from "squires" who assisted "knights".

So a modern-day knight would be an ... officer of the law? So an esquire assists the officers of the law.

We (web designers) basically assist marketing and advertising. Which in the days of yore would have been what? I'm picturing the medicine show men.. you know the ones that sold "snake oil" and stuff like that. When I pull that up in the Wikipedia I get an entry for con men. Ha! And a con man's assistant is a "shill".

Erin Lillis, Shill

Or a peddler. And a peddler's assistant is an ass.

From: Boss
Subject: Re: Re: Question

So we assist in cons....well it IS the internet. I have no argument worth any merit to refute it. so Boss McBosserson, Shill it is! But to make it more prestigious sounding let's make it SHL.

From: Erin
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Question

Or we could go with the whole "master of our domain" thing and go with Emperor.

Erin Lillis, Empr

From: Boss
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Question

I like Supreme Commander

From: Erin
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Question

Or Dark Lord

From: Boss
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Question

You always go dark don't you?

From: Erin
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Question

It's my natural inclination to be vampiric.

Erin Lillis, DrkLrd

From: Boss
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Question

Congratulations! You managed to use "natural" and "vampiric" together in a sentence. Not easily done

'Tis the Season to put holiday hats on your logos!



I've spotted a few seasonal logo treatments in the wild but I've noticed (while investigating for this post) that MAJOR brand sites (like Amazon, eBay, Overstock.com, etc.) don't touch their logos. They'll add seasonal holiday graphics (e.g. snowflakes, ribbons, etc.) but they leave their logo alone.

Some samples from sites I visit:













Of course the granddaddy of all logos (logotypes) that can/have been "treated" is the Google logo. But their ever changing treatments are now a part of their "brand" so I guess that means they can get away with it without any negative affect. (I don't know what the negative affect would be ... it might simply be the affect of "it is annoying to change all the graphics on a website that is in full 24 hour operation".)

Labels: logos

At work my boss and I have been shouting out funny t-shirt phrases (that only we seem to understand) over the top of our half-cube. For communal joy, I now present a select 10 of these t-shirts for web designers and programmers:


Oh Crop

Give me a break

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

Shift happens!!1

I'm away from my computer

Body tags

No Comment


i > u

Think Globally. Act within local variable scope.

ASCII a stupid question, get a stupid ANSI

Today I found another great resource for "Designers Who Hate Contracts" - it's an eBook explaining things like copyright and "work-for-hire" and includes a basic contract sample that you can revise for your own projects.

Thanks crowdSpring for producing this document!

LINK

Labels: contracts, copyright

I have a gig tomorrow that will require me to come up with ideas for product names and then check to see if they are already trademarked or used in the United States. To give myself a head start I've just looked up how to check for pre-registered marks and names.

Step 1) Google it! The more popular results are likely to come up first.

Step 2) Bing it! Or Cluuz it! Or [insert your second favorite search engine here]. Using a second search engine is like getting a second opinion or an alternate point of view that might lead you somewhere you hadn't thought of looking before. I just found Cluuz.com and it's interesting because it's providing me with the type of business a site represents and shows their primary images and logos. This is helpful in this kind of search.

Step 3) Search the U.S. Copyright office here: http://cocatalog.loc.gov If you haven't found anything that is competing with your idea yet you can try searching here. This seems to only turn up articles and written works though. And since not all published works are required to be registered, you still might turn up nothing.

Step 4) Search TESS! (The Trademark Electronic Search System) This will show records of active and inactive trademark registrations and applications.

The purpose of this searching is to find out whether or not you can register your mark/name for a trademark. You’re searching for marks where "if the examining attorney determines that a “likelihood of confusion” exists" there might be a problem.

First you want to see if there is a mark similar to yours and then whether it is used on related products or services that are like yours. Identical marks could be OK if they’re used on completely different products (i.e. a soda and a computer). Be thorough in your search. Your application for a trademark could still be denied if you don’t find exact matches.

Labels: trademark

Auto Tuning from Casey Donahue on Vimeo.

There's nothing better then geeking out with music.

9, coming out on 9-9-9, is something I've been anticipating. Especially the movie site because I figured it would be something along the lines of the awesome Coraline site. But while it has some interesting marketing gimmicks, the site as a whole is leaving a little to be desired. Well let me step back, the ACTUAL SITE is just a section on the FILM IN FOCUS site (Focus Features?). They've done it a little blog/profile page style with some videos and ad space.

The interesting stuff is the "Before the movie takes place" scenario stuff around the Internet. For example, you can "Join the Rebels" on Twitter and you can "Meet the Scientist" on Facebook. I find it interesting that these tactics really haven't changed, they've just changed location. Years ago I signed up to receive updates from the movie LOST SOULS (starring Winona Ryder and Ben Chaplin). At the time those updates came in the form of an e-mail or several from "Maya Larkin" (Winona Ryder's character) telling those of us on the list that the end was near. The Scientist is saying the same thing on his Facebook page. And I kinda want something more since it's all a rehash of the same ol' smart machines take over the world thing.

The "something more" comes from the 9experiment.com site and the "talisman" site. The intention of the former is to be like an exploration of The Scientist's lab ... it feels a bit like I'm playing Myst or BioShock though it's narrated and introduced by Elijah Wood (as himself).

There are a couple of things that take me out of the experience of the site. The first is the poor color contrast on the bottom menu - I can't read the navigation callouts.



Another is the diagrams and things that I'm supposed to interact with but I can't really see clearly. That is IF I'm supposed to be seeing something important at all.

The Scientist's book is full of backstory and thus an interesting read for prior to the movie viewing but little things like this annoy me:



I'm NOT LISTENING!! I'm READING!! Eek!

But other than the pet peevy stuff, there is some interesting propaganda art on the site.





Then we go to the Talisman site. I think the idea is interesting... being "The world is ending so let's make a time capsule of memories" sort of thing. But implemenation is a little odd. All I really seem to be able to do is upload pictures and then comment on them. Then they do that "fun" thing where I zoom into my picture and it is seemingly made up of more of my pictures like a photo mosaic. Ok...... 10 bucks says this Talisman isn't going to be on the web long enough to really be a time capsule anyway.

Plus my internet is lame so every time I get loaders of doom I get annoyed.



The site ambience is good though. I've had it on in the background for an hour or more and it hasn't bugged me once.

Another interesting promotional gimmick is the 9 bar code posters. Apparently if you see these around, download an app for your smart phone (if you've got one) and then "scan" these with your phone camera - you can unlock some video content. This is cool though unfortunately something that proves we Americans are behind the times technologically. In Japan you can scan your phone on a vending machine for a Coke! Let's catch up with that!

Here's some video about that 9 code:



Overall I grade the 9 site (and I'm counting the 9Experiment.com site as THE site) at about a B. Better than many but not as clean as things like Coraline or as immersive as the District 9 experience.

Labels: movie site review