Summer is really here and I am already busy on tons of work. This summer I am doing freelance design work for my high school, going to be working on some shirt designs, booklets, and more. Will also being working for Behance as a marketing intern from my home and will be going to New York City several times to work in the studio and office with everyone there.

Of course I am going to working on Grab Bag Book which is being published by HOW Books next Spring, if you would like to participate please let me know. Here on the blog I am going to be focusing on some more design content, summer book and movie reviews, interviews with fellow bloggers and designers, and more.

Very soon I am planning on releasing a limited edition series of three prints to be sold together, so stay tuned for that. Also will be working on some other design related projects towards the end of summer, would like to do some work on shirts, pins, and products of that nature.

Lastly, I am available for freelance design work and projects this summer, please contact me if you are interested with the information in the sidebar. I think that is all for now.

Your truly, EB

This has been my life for the past month and an amazing one at that. Below chronicles the end of my secondary education and the beginning of my higher education in the visual arts and graphic design. Within you will find numerous events that include the senior trip, prom, the art show, graduation, an island trip, this summer and the future.

To those people who I spent the last four years with, thank you. The experience of being part of such a small educational community as been very rewarding. When thinking back about these years, the best and most important part to me were the people. Apart from the obvious huge impact that my parents and brothers had, there are many other people that I worked and lived with. Thanks to all of you, the friends and students for the amazing times at school and out of school, the ones I knew well and didn’t know well, the ones that became more than teachers and turned into mentors and friends, the ones that looked over the school, made our food, maintained the school, and everyone else.

The senior class headed to a fancy mansion like place where they normally hold weddings and formal events for our Senior Trip. Here we spent the morning walking around the many fields and woods and then were served a sit down dinner by the senior teachers. This was after classes had ended and was the last event outside of school where it was just us, just the soon to be alumni.

The next event on our list was The Prom, the whole school was invited. It was held in the lobby and reception area of a nearby theater that provided an amazing environment and location for dinner and dancing.

Senioritis was the title of the senior art show that myself and my good friend Brian presented. It was great to see all the work we had created over the year finished and on the wall for everybody to see. The show had an opening reception that a record number of people turned out for along with a musical part. We both got amazing feedback about our work and sold a good amount of work as well.

The Senior Parent Dinner and Honors Ceremony came next and was the night before Graduation. Here numerous awards were presented for every aspect of educational and school life. I recieved The Minnie Rogers Steele Award for Excellence in Art. Every award is presented as a special book that pertains to that award, I recieved Street Sketch Book, Inside the Journals of International Street and Graffiti Artists by Tristan Manco.

The following morning was Graduation. The 140th Commencement at the school, when we were no longer students but alumni, where we recieved our diplomas, when we were all together for the last time, when all of our friends and family were watching, when people shared their advice and wisdom, when we collectively took thousands of photographs, when we formed a receiving line and everybody came through with hugs and hand shakes, and when we celebrated. When all of this happened it was over and it was for real.

At the graduation ceremony I was awarded the Alberta C. Edell Head of School Award for outstanding qualities that have been demonstrated by distinguished accomplishments during my time at the school.

Then sixty percent of us headed off the following week for three days on Block Island off the coast of the state of Rhode Island. Here, it was the most amazing thing to be on an island measuring two by seven miles, beaches on every side, one main street, and the bicycle the easiest mode of transportation. We spent endless hours on the beach, playing frisbee and volleyball, riding around the island, visiting light houses, eating sea food, have bonfires on the beach and so much more.

Then we had a bunch of parties for different people, went to see some movies, and on this Friday my mom and I are going to see John Stewart doing stand up comedy.

Plans for this summer include working for the school doing some design work, continuing to work with Behance as a marketing intern, finishing up Grab Bag Book, and of course tons of content here on the blog.

Thanks to my parents, family, friends, teachers, and all of you for everything. Looking forward to sharing the next part of my life, work, and education with you.

Life has been pretty good these days. Been keeping busy with many aspects of life.

In the past couple days I have had an interview with Armin Vit published online at Speak Up, Josh Spear featured my projects, DesignNotes by Michael Surtees posted about my video of Kate and Mike, and Kate Bingaman-Burt posted about the video. Everybody was amazing with their kind words. Thanks all!

There is around 25 days of school left until I will move on and study graphic design. More about where I will be going to college soon. But school has been busy with tons of end of the year things to do.

Started to design the lights for the musical at school. This year we are doing The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It is based on Charles Dickens only unfinished novel and the show was written by Rupert Holmes. One of the most exciting parts of the show is when the audience gets to choose from hundreds of possible endings and then the we actually perform what they choose. Also have designed the poster for the show which I will post online soon.

I am having the ceremony for Eagle Scout this weekend. Been writing speeches, printing programs, and asking people to speak. Will be sharing some thoughts and stories from that day and from my career in scouting. Some photos should also be coming your way as well.

This past Friday two friends and I produced Open Mic Night for the school community. We had some musicians come play, some people read poetry, tell jokes, and more. One of the artists that played was Matt Carlson who is amazing and has his first record coming out soon. Designed the poster for this event which I will post soon.

That is all for now. Big thanks to everybody that I have been working with.

Wanted to take a minute and share this animation about the story of Adi Dassler who was the pioneer of Adidas. The video has also been featured on my other online publication called Videos for Creatives. This is a frequent showcase of videos from the online creative community.

Just wanted to take a minute and wish everybody a Happy Easter. Hope everybody is doing well and got a day of relaxation. My two week break from school ended today but its not that bad, plus I got lots of candy.

For the next two weeks we are on break from school. It is a wonderful feeling, let me tell you. I stay up late working and then wake up late and the house is still and the sun is shining through the windows. These two weeks my work will span from Grab Bag Book and College Scholarships to Painting and Graphic Design. And let’s not forget this place, new written work is coming here tomorrow. Looking forward to sharing the awesome things I make in the coming days.

Hope everybody out there is doing well. This blog, as you can see, has got a new design. I finally fixed the terrible typography of the posts and switched to a serif title font. There is a new header and I made it more clean by removing the navigation tabs that didn’t really have a purpose. Other changes include the footer text, the time icon is gone, and new sidebar changes.

So with a brand new look, there is also brand new content on the way. I have just finished a large amount of work and for the rest of the year will be bringing constant content to this blog. I have missed sharing my ideas, stories, and thoughts with you here over the last month and that is about to change. Some articles coming soon include, The Story Behind My Creativity, The Importance of the Internet, Recent Film Viewings, Practicing Design, Literature and Design, Collaborative Consulting, Future of Telling Stories, and hopefully some great interviews.

Lastly, I am going to be re-launching and designing my online brand. There will be a new personal website, new portfolio website, new websites for both of my books, and new logotypes for them all. So keep a look out for those.

Thanks for being part of this all and help spread the word about what I am doing. Talk soon!

Hope everybody is having a wonderful holiday season. Mine was a pretty successful one. Thanks to everyone who has been reading the site this past year, it is much appreciated. I am going to be taking the next couple days off to get some work done and do some relaxing, so I will be back soon. Happy New Year!

[Got some books for Christmas (above) that I will
soon be reviewing here on the blog.]

For a little bit I have been considering why the internet isn’t doing what I wish it was. My frustration is broken down into two areas: how we interact and communicate with people and how we publish and consume information and stories.

People

It seems that all these different tools and sites are just making it harder to communicate with the people we care about.

Facebook is getting messed up. Beacon. Tons of apps on profiles.
Google Reader new social network doesn’t work well.
Open ID doesn’t do enough. (Though it is a good first step)
Facebook isn’t that open.
Email isn’t good enough anymore.

I think the main problem is that I can’t keep track and interact with all the people I need to and want to by using one application. Facebook works for friends, email for family, Twitter for others. This is a problem, I agree that social network portability is needed. Everybody has email, but that doesn’t mean everybody is going to get Facebook. Facebook is great and all, but it is still seen as a social network, and people use email for their business, family, private, and social life.

We need a system that allows us to control all of our sites, allow each site where we have information and content to interact with each other, and make it easier for people to find friends. Open ID is a great start, but it doesn’t solve this problem.

A new system needs to be made. A system that is simple, open, and not for profit. Take Open ID and add some features. Allow people to have a profile that lists all of their other sites, social network profiles, and online presences. Have a way for me to message people and indicate how we know each other. Add a life-stream where what people do online is presented in a stream of information. Just make it so that people can track their friends and see what sites they are using. That’s it, nothing else.

Consuming and Publishing

While it easy to publish content and consume it online, it could be easier and more effective.

Feed readers are poorly designed.
Some blogs are no conversational enough and aren’t that authentic
Passing content around and re-publishing is fine, but making original content is even better.

We need a new tool. It needs to allow us to publish any kind of content we want: photos, blog posts, videos, tweets, and more. Then based on the kind of content, we need to be able to consume it. Videos need special treatment, so design it so that different types of content are viewed properly. Make it easy to share with people and save items for later. Add filters and make it organized. Then use the new system for managing people on top of it all.

Anyways, looking toward the future of the internet…I think that we will see developments in online and mobile video this year, along with re-inventing the way stories are told online. And maybe we can even work on fixing some of the things this post talks about.

What do you think we should do to solve this problem and what do you seeing being the big developments this coming year?

These are just some first thoughts on the issue and might not be the best move for the internet community, let me know what you think.

Managing the people that I connect with is starting to become a problem. (Not the people I talk to often, but the other ones that I have connected with that I don’t talk to as frequently) I am fine with keeping all of their names and information in some sort of address book. In this address book I could keep notes on our conversations and what the connection is between us. But the problem is that they can not see the address book. This means that they do not know our connection or can not see our past conversations. My main concern are the problems this leads to down the road. When I attempt to contact someone in a couple years that I only talked to through email a couple times, will they remember? There is a good chance that they won’t and then a valuable connection I made in the past is lost.

I can simply find the last email that was sent and click reply. That way they can see what we have said in the past, but that gets messy, you can’t change the subject, and people don’t always scroll down to see all of that. Facebook, Plaxo, and other social networks and tools don’t work well because not everybody uses them. I really enjoy the way Highrise works but not sure how to make it work for what I need.

Any suggestions out there. How can I make this work?

The leaves have fallen from the trees.
The yard is not raked.
The pumpkin is still on the porch.
It is cold outside.
Hats and scarves have found their way out of the closet.
Winter jackets have come along too.
It flurried the other day.
Thanksgiving is coming.

It is Fall, almost Winter.

Run to Your Grave from the mae shi on Vimeo.

I am currently engaged in a community service project I started. We are building a bench and a sign that is surrounded by a garden. This will act as the starting point for a self guided walking historical tour of my town. There will be a map and brohure that you can take from the starting point or download off the internet and proceed to learn about the town’s history. We have planted the garden and are in the process of finishin up the bench.

When we stopped at the bookstore the other day I was pleased to find the last copy of GOOD Magazine and quickly picked it up before someone else did. GOOD Magazine is as you guessed a “good” magazine.

They describe it as, “GOOD is for people who give a damn. It’s an entertaining magazine about things that mater.”

It feautres stories and articles about people who are doing positive things for their culture and community. Oh, and did I mention that all of your subcription fee goes to a charity of your choice. You really need to pick up a copy or subsrcibe.

(Photo by Steve Rhodes)

For an english class in which I am taking at school, we have written an essay on a photograph. It is an essay with a flow, in a sense it is a mixture of a poem and a personal essay. This is my photograph. This is my essay.

The House on the Corner
There is a sense of mystery with this house, simply because I do not know who lives here, for I have never met anybody from this house, not a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, not even a cat or a dog. I do not know why I have not encountered anyone who resides within these walls, I merely live down the street and up the hill from this home where the sculptor and his wife live. I think it might be better to consider this a home instead of a house, after all people do live in it, I am sure of this. If no one lived here, who would put the two neon tubes of light, one colored red and the other green, out each Christmas, or plant the towering sunflowers on the side of the road, or mow the small patch of grass in the front. It must be the sculptor and his wife.

Why do I assume a sculptor lives here, I often wonder, and the only reason I can recollect is that one of my parents once told me that he was, in fact, a sculptor. There is only one other sign of this, the pieces of metal that have been welded and molded together with other pieces of metal to form the ever changing figures that often sit outside the residence.

I have never seen a vehicle pull out of the garage or parked on the side of the road next to the house, I think perhaps they might walk around or ride a bike around town, and when I see them it is not apparent that they reside within this home.

Perhaps one day I might meet them, learn who they are, find out what they did with their lives, and hear some lengthy stories over a cup of tea in the garden they have atop their home, on the roof of this red brick home, with green plants clinging to its side, a garage door with something behind it, and the metal sculptures standing proudly in front of the house on the corner.

The first day of school was last Tuesday. It went pretty well and in the classes the teachers just introduced what we would be learning and went over procedures. Then for the next three days the senior class headed out to camp and go to the beach. This is how we begin the every year as sort of a bonding experience where we plan the year and do team building. (In the past we have gone camping, canoeing, and sailing) So that trip was pretty awesome in that we had tons of freedom and just went to the beach, played frisbee and more. I brought a Canon Rebel DSLR Camera and ended up taking 500 photos. (160 made it on to Facebook where everybody tagged them all) Here are some from the trip, a couple more are on Flickr, and if you were on the trip tons are on Facebook.

So we came back mid day on Friday and went to a local fair that night, where we walked for a minute and bumped into people, walked for a minute and bumped into people, and so on. Finally, today we had the first day of real classes and we started to learn some things and review the basics from previous years. I learned about the ten principles of economics, the narrative structure, literary non-fiction, interval notation of inequalities and more.

In one of my english classes I will be writing tons of college essays and in AP Economics I will be writing weekly reports on an articles from the newspaper. It has to be from the actual newspaper, so I am considering subscribing to the New York Times which I am actually really excited about. So expect to see those showing up hear. Thats all for now.