Open source newspaper set to challenge Swiss media landscape -

Attack on French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo

Wikileaks' Julian Assange loses extradition appeal

Since Google rolled out its latest changes in Google Reader, we’ve seen a fair number of complaints on the Internet, and if you’re one of those people who is looking for an alternative, we came across an interesting option this morning.

Instead of hunting for another RSS reader which looks and feels like Google Reader, why not take a completely different route and ditch your RSS reader, and use Twitter instead.

Most of the major sites and blogs you follow are bound to have Twitter accounts, where they share each and every article that you’ve been reading in Google Reader, and Ben Guild has come up with an easy way to get those subscriptions out of Google Reader and right into your Twitter feed.

With Ben’s Twitter Migration and Networking Tool, all you need to do is sign in to Twitter, download your Google Reader subscriptions OPML file, and the web app will do the rest, by extracting each site and finding it’s Twitter account, and in some cases, even the personal Twitter accounts of the people behind the site.

Ben provides a direct link to your OPML file in the service, but if you want to get it straight out of your reader – go to Reader Settings, click the Import/Export tab and scroll down to the table, to download your subscriptions.

You can then manually follow the accounts of your choice, or better yet, create lists as a way of keeping your Twitter feed neat and tidy. If you use a service like Tweetdeck, you can even receive notifications when new updates come in, so you’re sure not to miss a thing.

It might be slightly tedious having to do it all manually, but it does give you a chance to review each account and make sure you want to follow it or add it to a list.

Now there is one major caveat to using TMNT – it can only extract details on sites that are not organized into folders. If you’re planning on ditching Google Reader anyway, you could always delete your folders or tags in Google Reader’s settings, which won’t affect your subscriptions.

There’s no denying that this is a wildly different solution to an RSS reader, and some may find it a lot less convenient, since you don’t get previews of articles on Twitter. On the other hand, with this method, you have one less app to worry about, and can get a lot more out of Twitter than you already do.

If you’re planning on sticking with Google Reader but do want to keep up with your favourite sites and blogs on Twitter as well, you could always take the somewhat roundabout route and import your OPML file into another Google account, delete the folders or tags, and then go through the process described above.

Would you consider using Twitter instead of Google Reader? Let us know in the comments.

Sums up the "collective action paradox" pretty well

Gorilla Tales #1

Ecrite par le journaliste suisse Olivier Grivat, la biographie du roi de Thaïlande interdite à la vente

A Visual Guide to the Ampersand

Originell und sprachmächtig - das ist die deutsche Erzählerin Sibylle Lewitscharoff. Im November hält sie drei Poetikvorlesungen in Zürich. Als Romanautorin hat ihr der jüngst veröffentlichte, eigenwillige Roman «Blumenberg» viel Lob und Literaturpreise eingebracht. Das Buch berichtet vom faszinierenden Eintritt eines veritablen Löwen ins Leben des deutschen Philosophen Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996). Im Gespräch mit Hans Ulrich Probst stellt die aus Stuttgart stammende Wahlberlinerin ihr Buch und die Fragestellungen ihrer Poetikdozentur vor.

The Speciation of Science Journalists

Klout Is Odious

A new phylogeny of the mammals

Selon une étude menée par Monsieur Prix, l’accès à internet est nettement plus cher en Suisse que dans les pays voisins.

Lancement de la campagne «Notre bois, notre fierté» #OFEV

Shara Worden, the pop chanteuse behind My Brightest Diamond, has worked with indie rock royalty from Sufjan Stevens to Fatboy Slim. Her third full-length...

Von Marc Böhler und Thom Nagy

Das Jahrbuch «Qualität der Medien Schweiz - Suisse - Svizzera» verärgert Exponenten klassischer Medienunternehmen. Diese enthüllen Schlampereien bei statistischen Auswertungen und monieren wissenschaftlichen Boulevard. Die Vorwürfe bleiben jedoch oberflächlich. Dabei wäre Kritik an den Prämissen und der Methodik des Jahrbuchs durchaus angebracht. Das Fundament des Jahrbuchs beruht auf Öffentlichkeitstheorien und Qualitätsindikatoren einer längst vergangenen Zeit.

Das Jahrbuch «Qualität der Medien» basiert auf Theorien, welche von vielen Medien- und Öffentlichkeitssoziologen als nicht mehr zeitgemäss deklariert werden. Kurt Imhof hingegen, der Leiter des Forschungsbereichs Öffentlichkeit und Gesellschaft (Fög) der Universität Zürich und «Head of Swiss Media Criticism», will partout nicht einsehen, dass der Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit als Folge von Digitalisierung und Vernetzung neue Dimensionen erfahren hat. Das Zusammenspiel zwischen General-Interest-Medien und Demokratie ist heute deutlich komplexer als vor der Entmaterialisierung der Informationsträger. Die medienpolitischen Schlussfolgerungen des Jahrbuchs blenden diesen Strukturwandel indes aus.

Wir möchten bei den Methoden anknüpfen und im Folgenden auf zwei Mängel des Jahrbuchs eingehen: Das Untersuchungsuniversum entspricht nur einer Teilmenge der heutigen Öffentlichkeit.
Die Faktoren und Kriterien zur Messung von Qualität sind «out of date».


Nur eine Teilmenge heutiger Öffentlichkeit

Das Untersuchungsuniversum des Jahrbuchs – die Verfasser nennen es die «Medienarena» – entspricht nur einem Teil der heutigen Öffentlichkeit – und das im doppelten Sinn. Das Jahrbuch konzentriert sich auf einen Teil der ehemaligen Gatekeeper und blendet damit zahlreiche klassische Medienerzeugnisse sowie etliche neue Sphären der Öffentlichkeit aus.

Blogosphäre, Wikis, «Social Networks» und weitere Medienangebote – wie etwa auch dieser Medienblog – zählen nicht zur Öffentlichkeit, wie sie das Fög definiert. Monitoring-Dienste, die das gleiche, beschränkte Universum abdecken würden, das im Jahrbuch «Qualität der Medien» untersucht wird, hätten heute im Markt der Medienbeobachtung keine Chance. Die Kommunikationsräume, die für politische Organisationen (Parteien, NGOs etc.) und Verbände relevant sind, sind auch für die demokratischen Prozesse von Bedeutung. Jedes Unternehmen ist heute auch ein Medienunternehmen, und Wahlkämpfe finden zunehmend auch im «Social Media»-Umfeld statt. Der kommunikative Raum, der für die demokratische Entscheidungsfindung der Bürger relevant ist, wird heute von weit mehr Akteuren besiedelt als noch vor zwanzig Jahren.

Der Einwurf, relevante Öffentlichkeit entstehe erst durch die Verstärkerfunktion der Massenmedien, hat zwar seine Berechtigung. Verschiedene Beispiele aus der jüngeren Vergangenheit zeigen aber, dass Kommunikationsereignisse eine grosse Masse von Menschen erreichen können, bevor sie von den Massenmedien aufgegriffen werden. Und es ist zu erwarten, dass sich die Vernetzung der Gesellschaft fortsetzt und sich die kommunikativen Kräfteverhältnisse dadurch weiter verschieben werden.

Das Jahrbuch beobachtet lediglich die «One-to-many»-Szene; die «Many-to-many»-Welt, ihr Einfluss auf das traditionelle Mediensystem sowie die neue Dimension der Organisationskommunikation werden hingegen ausgeblendet. Wir leben aber zunehmend in einer dialogischen Öffentlichkeit. Mit dieser Meinung bzw. Erkenntnis konfrontiert, reagiert Kurt Imhof jeweils lapidar: Die Hoffnungen auf die deliberativen Kräfte der Vernetzung und auf die Entmaterialisierung von Informationsträgern seien unrealistisch. An dieser Meinung hat sich trotz arabischem Frühling offenbar nichts geändert.

Undifferenzierte Qualitätsindikatoren

Als Mitarbeiter von Online-Redaktionen bei Qualitätspublikationen (aber auch bei solchen, die in der Imhof-Studie bemängelt werden) haben die Schreibenden unzählige Debatten über Qualität in Online-Medien geführt. Auch Medienwissenschaftler beschäftigen sich seit rund zehn Jahren intensiv mit diesem Thema. Bei der Wahl der Qualitätsindikatoren wird im Jahrbuch auf solche Erkenntnisse indes verzichtet. Im Methodenteil werden unter «1.3.1. Informationsangebotsanalytik der Gattungen Presse und Online» die Qualitätsindikatoren von Print und Online gemeinsam präsentiert. Anstatt Indikatoren zu definieren, um den Online-Bereich mediengerecht zu analysieren, werden zwei höchst unterschiedliche Mediengattungen analytisch in denselben Topf geworfen. Das ist aus zwei Gründen methodisch unsauber. Erstens sind gewisse Faktoren nicht eins zu eins von Print auf Online übertragbar und zweitens existieren für die Online-Medien Qualitätsmerkmale, die bei Printmedien schlicht nicht anwendbar sind, für die Erfassung der Qualität der Online-Medien jedoch relevant wären.

Ein Beispiel: Beim Qualitätsindikator «Professionalität» findet sich im Jahrbuch die Variable «Quellentransparenz». Für gedruckte journalistische Erzeugnisse ist klar, was damit gemeint ist. Bei einem Online-Text existieren hingegen zahlreiche Facetten von Quellentransparenz. Es ist ein Qualitätsunterschied, ob eine Quelle lediglich am Schluss oder im Lauftext eines Artikels in Form eines «flachen», das heisst: unverlinkten Textes genannt wird oder ob sie im Text als Hyperlink «verzahnt» ist. Es wäre sinnvoller anstelle von Quellentransparenz einen Qualitätsfaktor «Recherche-Transparenz» einzuführen. Dieser würde zum Beispiel untersuchen, ob für die Leserinnen und User ein offener Zugang zur Recherche eines Autors existiert.

Ein weiteres Beispiel: Das Jahrbuch unterscheidet zwischen «thematischer» und «episodischer» Berichterstattung, wobei ersteres ein Qualitätsmerkmal darstellt. Dabei wird ignoriert, dass es online nicht erforderlich ist, dass jeder Artikel die Sachlage aufs Neue in ihrer Gesamtheit abbildet. Praktisch alle Newsplattformen verlinken mittlerweile weiterführende, kontextualisierende Artikel prominent und bieten dem interessierten Leser so die Möglichkeit, sich umfassend über die Hintergründe zu einem Thema zu informieren.

Banale Erkenntnisse

Es ist eine wertvolle, wenn auch banale Erkenntnis, dass die ehemaligen Gatekeeper die Qualität nicht aufrecht erhalten können. Die Verlage und der öffentlich-rechtliche Rundfunk haben das «Monopol» der Nachrichten- und Werbediffusionstechnik verloren. Die Ressourcen zur Bewahrung der Qualität werden daher immer knapper. Das Geld fehlt primär den Verlegern, und insbesondere die klassische Arbeitsteilung zwischen Journalisten und «Verwertungsgesellschaften» gerät unter Druck.

Wer sich jedoch mit der entsprechenden Medienkompetenz im heutigen Informationsmeer bewegt, dürfte heute weit besser informiert sein als noch vor zwanzig Jahren. Die Behauptung eines angeblichen Qualitätsverlustes der öffentlich zugänglichen Informationen ist aus unserer Perspektive völlig falsch. Sie trifft allenfalls auf die Medienerzeugnisse der «klassischen» Medienbranche zu. «Qualität» ist in der Öffentlichkeit jedoch mehr als je zuvor vorhanden. Man muss nur wissen, wo und wie sie zu finden ist. Entscheidend ist die Medienkompetenz der Leserinnen und Nutzer.

Politisches Geplänkel

Das Jahrbuch beginnt mit der Behauptung, das Medienwesen sei der wichtigste (sic!) «Service public» der modernen Gesellschaft. Das Bildungswesen und andere Bereiche des Service public sollen weniger wichtig sein?

Kurt Imhofs politische Schlussfolgerungen zeigen, wo er steht: Die klassischen Medienunternehmen sollen als systemkritisch anerkannt werden und dadurch deutlich mehr staatliche Gelder erhalten. Denn der Staat riskiere den Niedergang der Demokratie, wenn er die «Presse» weiterhin überwiegend unter marktwirtschaftlichen Bedingungen laufen lasse.

***

Der Forschungsbereich Öffentlichkeit und Gesellschaft sammelt Daten und macht Politik. Der Mangel an zeitgemässer Auseinandersetzung mit dem Wandel der Dynamiken zwischen Medientechnologie, Medienbranche und Öffentlichkeit, der Mangel an online-gerechten Qualitätsindikatoren sowie das beschränkte Untersuchungsuniversum führen zu einer Verzerrung der politischen Schlussfolgerungen.

Die Politik aber verlässt sich in der Regel auf die Aussagen der Wissenschaft und sie könnte schlimmstenfalls Massnahmen beschliessen, die den Status Quo zu zementieren versuchen, anstatt sich Gedanken darüber zu machen, wie die Rahmenbedingungen für eine öffentliche Kommunikationsinfrastruktur und -kultur aussehen sollten, die den technologischen Realitäten entspricht und deren Potential ausschöpft.

Natürlich, es gibt noch viel zu tun, was die Qualität des Informationssystems auf allen Ebenen anbelangt. Aber wenn man sich vor Augen führt, welch unglaubliche Entwicklung allein in den vergangenen fünf Jahren stattgefunden hat, dann scheint es opportun, sich nicht nur auf die negativen Aspekte des Medienwandels zu konzentrieren, sondern auch dessen neue Möglichkeiten in die Überlegungen miteinzubeziehen. Das aber wird durch die einseitige Betrachtungsweise des Jahrbuchs von vornherein verhindert.

Marc Böhler war als Projektleiter im Multimediazentrum von Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen sowie als Redaktor bei «NZZ Online» und «NZZ Campus» tätig.

Thom Nagy arbeitete als Journalist und Projektleiter Community bei «20 Minuten Online», bevor er im März 2011 zur «NZZ» wechselte, wo er sich im Bereich Labs Gedanken zur Zukunft des Traditionshauses macht.

Was die Autoren hier schreiben, ist ihre persönliche Meinung.

Siehe dazu auch: Ein wahrer FreundKurt Imhof zur Kritik des «Tages-Anzeigers» am Jahrbuch «Qualität der Medien»Jahrbuch 2011 zur Qualität der Schweizer Medien

Courtesy of Audubon /Promo image

Birding can be fun. Except when you have to get up early and it's cold. That's why Birding the Net may be so appealing to Internet surfers out there, especially those still wearing pajamas late into the afternoon. Just tongue in cheek, folks, this is about a new social media campaign by Audubon called Birding the Net. Virtual birds have been released all over the series of tubes, and being the first one to catch all of them could net you a grand prize trip to the Read the full story on TreeHugger

Steve Parker/CC BY 1.0

Estimating the amount of energy the Internet uses is no small task. We have to take into account everything -- from the embodied energy of Internet-connected devices like smart phones, laptops, e-readers, desktops, cables and wires and of course the servers themselves, as well as the energy consumption of the servers and devices and more. It's a huge task, but two researchers from University of California, Berkeley, Justin Ma and Barath Raghavan, came ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Les exploitants indépendants allemands bloquent la numérisation des salles

Hear hear!

An interesting alternative search engine: DuckDuckGo

Today, this happened.

7 milliards d’êtres humains.

Andy Baio(*) has discovered that Google+ made another unannounced victim am

Google+ adds email verification to your profiles Interesting:

Excellent news: Royal Society journal archive made permanently free to access

Gagné! \o/ Et à présent, excusez-moi pendant que je me remets de mes émotions... RT @zerply: Instagram.png

Nicht Wachstum, sondern Bescheidenheit, nicht noch mehr Technologie, sondern dauerhaftere Produkte sind die Lösung. David Bosshart, Geschäftsführer des Gottlieb Duttweiler Instituts, gibt in seinem Buch «The Age of Less» konkrete Handlungsanweisungen, wie wir eine zukunftsfähige Welt schaffen.  

The answer to yesterdays question: 'I like the internet and big ideas' and the winner is @citizenk

Ship from failed Mongol invasion found off Japan

I'm surprised myself.

Une nouvelle formule magique?

Romania's former King Michael I addresses parliament

A very dignified speech.

I only just noticed, but MovingBrands have made their own website theme available as a free download. It comes with all the page templates that they have used themselves, including: blog, work, offer, client-login, studio etc.

The download link is located in the footer far bottom right.

Excellent resource.

Found on http://www.movingbrands.com

 

 

I was/have been pondering this exact same thought about that shitty white strip. Trying to get it wrapped around the crunched top of a coffee bag is quite the challenge.

Found on http://www.notquitewrong.com

Spanish designer Héctor Serrano gives a new twist to common objects. Héctor´s products are those objects that make say: "Why did not I think of that?". Here we feature one of is very popular designs, the "Dress for Dinner Napkins" the original napkins come in a set and are available in a variety of styles and colors. Great gift idea.2 Vote(s)

The Anatomy of an Agency Infographic created by Grip Limited.

Originally found via http://copyranter.blogspot.com

Brent Simmons on the recent changes to Google Reader:

I’m not an RSS reader developer any more. But if I were, I’d
start looking for an alternative syncing system right now.

 ★ 

This is one of the nerdiest sentences I’ve written in months, but here goes: I loved this iPhone 4S battery-life troubleshooting story by Chris Breen.

 ★ 

Steve Jobs' net.moguls trading card from (ca.

Steve Jobs' net.moguls trading card from (ca.

Good news for you, but I'll keep my "printed on vintage dead trees" edition

You know, he really has a point there: "Why Twitter = concise is a myth"

Check out my Pluss.es Google+ Blog. via @gosimpler

Atterrissage d'un Boeing 727 sans train d’atterrissage antérieur à Téheran

Le résultat est limité pour les utilisateurs de longue date de Twitter, mai

Vous désirez transformer vosbillets Google+ publics en un blog?

If you were also wondering what to do with your blogs now that Google+ is i

The Future of Punctuation includes a cool dudey thing called a Snark. I so want to use a Snark…

Originally found on http://curiositycounts.com

 

I have a real soft spot for condensed typography like the new Ben Sherman logo created as part of the company’s rebrand by Brinkworth. To some it looks plain and boring, but to me it evokes a particular feeling that I find hard to fully describe.

As a standalone logo I really like it, but when you see it applied as a whole it takes on a new level of awesome.

Original Post Ben There, Done That – Brand New.

Mac OS X, like any good operating system with a decade’s worth of development behind it, is full to bursting with little tips and tricks that many users often do not realise are there. Recent Windows switchers, for instance, may not have delved deep enough into System Preferences to find the Hot Corners feature of the OS and turn it on. Even those users who have known about it for a long time may not know another trick that makes it much less intrusive and, therefore, more useful.

What are Hot Corners?
According to the Fitts’s Law, buttons placed on the edges of a screen are easier to hit than anywhere else on it, simply because you cannot overshoot the target. That’s why the menu bar is placed at the top edge of the screen in Mac OS X and the dock at the bottom one. As two of the most central elements of the OS’s UI, it’s important that the user be able to access them quickly.

To extend the usability of the edges of the screen even further, Mac OS X includes a feature that allows you to turn the four corners of the screen into targets that can activate certain features. You can casually slide your mouse over to any one of these corners and, based on your preferences, bring up Mission Control, the Dashboard, the Launchpad or perform any of a number of features.

How do I set them up?
To enable Hot Corners in Lion, launch System Preferences and open the Mission Control preference pane (Exposé and Spaces in Snow Leopard). Click on the Hot Corners button in the lower-right corner of the window.

In the sheet that drops down, you can individually configure each corner of the screen to activate any one of the following features: Mission Control, Application Windows (display all the windows of the current app), Desktop (show the desktop), Dashboard, Launchpad, Start/Disable Screen Saver and Put Display to Sleep.

We have already described the usefulness of the Put Display to Sleep feature in a companion article. You can set the four screen corners to activate the options that you feel are most handy. One particularly nice thing about Hot Corners is that when you use one in the middle of dragging something, it does not get dropped (like it does when you use Multi-touch gestures to do the same thing), making it a really efficient way to perform drag-and-drop operations.

My own Hot Corners settings are shown in the screenshot below:

Once the settings are done, showing your desktop is as easy as sliding your cursor over to the right corner of the display. It can be annoying to use this feature when you try it for the first time, because you will constantly be accidentally triggering the corners, but as with all good things in life, it gets much easier over time. Well, for most people anyway.

What if I am not “most people”?
If you do not want to be saddled with a sensitive corner on your display while you work, possibly because you cannot be bothered to keep your mousing in check while going about using your Mac, but still want the convenience of a Hot Corner, Apple has an alternative for you.

With the Hot Corners sheet visible in the Mission Control preference pane, click on any of the four drop down menus to bring up the list of options for the active screen corners. Now, press any modifier key (like Command, Control, Option or Shift) or a combination of modifier keys and you will see the drop down menu change to reflect that, as shown in the screenshot below:

If you now select any of those options, the particular corner will be enabled, but the feature will only be triggered when you drag your mouse there while simultaneously holding down the modifier key(s) you configured it with. It does require you to use two hands, and is therefore not as convenient as the default option, but is in many ways the best of both worlds.

Wised up that you are now, go put your screen corners to good use, won’t you?

[Header image courtesy of Alexander Chaikin / Shutterstock.com.]

1976 erschien in Paris das Buch «La volonté de savoir» («Der Wille zum Wissen») als erster Band einer geplanten «Histoire de la sexualité», zu deutsch «Sexualität und Wahrheit» von Michel Foucault. «Wie eine Leuchtrakete» sei das Werk damals eingeschlagen, sagt der Schweizer Literaturwissenschaftler Martin Stingelin. Stingelin ist Professor in Dortmund und profunder Foucault-Kenner: als Übersetzer, Herausgeber und Interpret kennt er das Werk des französischen Soziologen von Grund auf. 2009 erschien von ihm die Foucault-Monographie «absolute Michel Foucault». Mit Martin Stingelin unterhält sich Brigitte Häring.

This is not about free music, this is about good music:

Electronic music production: A beginner's diary - Interview

Créés par Doriane Favre, voici les post-it que vous allez pouvoir vous accrocher au poignet, pour être désormais sur et certain de ne plus laisser filer vos tâches et obligations quotidiennes dans un coin (bien planqué) de votre esprit ! Novateur, offrant des dimensions de 21 x 4 cm et vendus par 100, ils sont d’ores et déjà disponibles sur ce site pour la somme de 9.80€.

Il y a quarante ans disparaissait un des plus beaux sourires du sport autom

How academics call something boring (by discipline)

 

Sometimes there are no words, nor need there be.  When I came across this image, I was instantly no longer reading a newspaper.  A moment before, I had been habitually scanning for information, considering arguments, making judgments, and otherwise getting orientated for the day.  And then I was in another place entirely: a place of suffering and consolation, and of both mortality and the possibility of something eternal.

I had entered a featureless room of earth tones and shadows, as if the anteroom to the underworld, only to see two sides of the human condition: one terribly exposed, and the other disturbingly dark.  It seems an intensely personal moment and yet profoundly universal.  One looks in vain for some way to reduce the terror lurking in the image, to learn enough so that it can be placed back into a sense of order, movement, resolution.  But no face can be seen, and the light illuminating his body is absorbed completely by her black cowl.

The news was still there to be had by way of the caption: “A woman took care of a wounded relative on Saturday inside a mosque being used as a hospital by demonstrators against the government in the Yemeni capital.”  The accompanying report added more.  But I hadn’t seen merely a woman or a wounded relative.  I had seen man’s naked, vulnerable flesh and his throat exposed as if for the slaughter.  And I had seen a figure veiled in black holding the victim firmly, almost possessively, as if there were nothing else that could be done.  And, of course, I had seen a pieta, the classic image in Christian iconography of Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding his broken body after it has been taken down from the cross.

The pieta is more Roman Catholic than Protestant, but though not Catholic I had no trouble seeing that artistic form as it is part of my cultural heritage.  Whatever the unknown photographer may have intended, the comparison is there to be made and to motivate a powerful emotional and ethical response to the image.  But should it matter that the two people in the photograph are almost certainly Muslim?  Although Islam defines itself as the heir of Judaism and Christianity, the artistic traditions could not be farther apart at this point, for the suggestion that we might be looking at the image of god would be blasphemous.  Worse yet, another reason the image is so powerful is that the black, hooded figure can also be seen as an angel of death claiming another soul.  This demonic vision not only must be far from the truth of the scene, but also sits well with deep-set prejudice.

Thus, the dilemma: On the one hand, seeing the two figures through the cultural lens of the pieta may frame response in a manner that is profoundly appropriate.  Doing so provides intense identification across cultural barriers to reach universal truths of human experience.  On the other hand, transposing their experience into another culture’s symbolism can seriously distort the actual relationship of those in the photograph, while also suggesting a false universality on Christian terms precisely when one ought to be laying down such presumptions about how well people can understand one another on sight.

Thus, we need to see through symbols, but in both senses of the verb: to use them to see more than we might see otherwise, and to recognize and look past their limitations to see what they would distort or occlude.  Nor is this double vision limited to matters theological.

“Libyan fighters regrouped Tuesday during the siege of Surt.”  (The story is here.)  Uh huh, and irregular troops taking a cigarette break is news?  Once again, we are being taken somewhere else, to a place where a death’s head and the peace symbol are part of the same identity.  Once again, darkness and light work together to feature two dimensions of human experience; if less complementary in principle, they are eased together by the global consumer economy.  Culture in the digital age is all about mash ups, but this also could be a study in either irony or illegibility.  You tell me.

Photographs by an unidentified photographer and Mauricio Lima for The New York Times.

Alors là, comment dire… Hmmmm, j’en reste sans voix quelque part !

The recent New Zealand oil spill left many penguins in need of warmth and protection. Sweaters were used to prevent the birds from preening their feathers and ingesting the toxic oil. So far, enough sweaters have been knit to cover the little guys, so you can put your knitting needles away for now.

WAIT A MIN!!!

How did this kitten get in here!?!

Still want to learn how to knit a penguin jumper? Here’s how.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Birds

I had an interesting situation with a very recent client which helped me reaffirm that what I may believe to be right, or most appropriate, for my client may not be right or most appropriate after all.

It was not so much about my choice being wrong or even inappropriate, but that in this case my preferred choice was not the clients choice.

Herein is a lesson in not being an arrogant twat.

A little background
I was approached to work on a highly secretive logo project—it’s still under wraps at time of writing—with a rather tight time frame of 2 weeks. The thing that intrigued me was the name of this new company, and that it would provide a very challenging project in terms of how best to visualise their brand.

I gladly took the project, and spurred on by a generous budget eagerly set to work with my pencil and sketch book.

The agreement was that I would provide the client with all my sketches, thoughts, ideas when I felt I was fresh out of juice. At this early stage the client was not really sure in what direction to take the branding so wanted to see a selection of polar opposite ideas so that the most appropriate one would jump out.

I don’t often do this, but in this case the client was very sure about being able to work through rough idea after rough idea without getting confused or overwhelmed.

Skip 2 Weeks
Time to scan in all the pages of sketches and prepare any digital mock-ups that I had done to send over to the client.

There were a few clear favourite logo designs with one leading design that I felt summed up the brand as well as being a totally awesome play on their tag-line. I was sure that when the client saw all the ideas against my personal favourite they would agree. To help with their decision making I also took time to better prepare my idea to show it in context, and basically push it over the others.

I was so sure they would see the reasoning I put behind this logo idea which was logically conceived as well as having a quaint and visually charming logo mark.

Fail
Given the title of this post it would then come as no surprise that they didn’t choose my idea, but in fact choose a variation of one of my other preferred solutions, but this variation should not have been shown to the client. It slipped in and I was kicking myself for being such a dick head.

Truth be told I was slightly cursing under my breath whilst trying to plan my return strike so that they would ultimately have no choice but to listen to me.

No Movement
Should also come as no surprise that although the client agreed that my reasoning was very sound they simply liked this other idea much more.

Internally I just could not get behind it, but on the exterior I acted like a rational adult.

A Week Later
A week had provided me with some time to get over myself, and accept I was not in control, and we progressed with the project.

The next stage was the design of the business cards so I was determined to do what I could to pull all this together in a way I could be pleased with.

With the business card taking shape I realised my whole opinion of the logo design was changing as I was imagining certain print effects being utilised. Two sheets of 180gm uncoated white card stuck together would give us the chance to emboss both sides with this very minimally designed logo mark.

All of a sudden I could see the finished result and a renewed sense of excitement and enthusiasm came my way. No longer did the logo suck, but it now totally owned this business card.

Simply
Even though you may feel a client is not listening to you on the choice of final logo design, it can lead to a happy ending.

I was so caught up with my own sense of what I wanted for them that I almost totally neglected to see it from their side.

I think the extreme rushed nature of the project as well as the rather unorthodox prep and presention of the ideas contributed to loosing sight of the bigger picture.

The Client Was Right
In this case the client called it totally right, and I am so very pleased they didn’t buckle under my protests.

Ironically I always tell clients never to rush into making a decision the moment they see the first batch of logo designs. I ask them to sit on them for a few days before analysing and making rushed decisions. If after a few days they are still unhappy then we move on.

On more than a few occasions I have sensed their unhappiness at seeing the first ideas, but to then see a change in their opinions 3-5 days later resulting in a positive reaction, and a keenness to proceed.

I could have/should have listend to my own advice instead of becoming ever so slightly stubborn, and saved myself from some internal head butting.

The client was right, in their final choice of logo design, and for that I am happy because I can totally see that they were.
And The Moral Is?
If you find yourself in a similar situation, where you are doubting the saneness of your client after seeing them choose what you feel is the the worst possible design, then take a breath and give it a chance.

You could help yourself by only showing the client the ideas you feel are worthy, but we are not always in that position. As much as I swear on the ideals of only giving the clients the best of the best we can find ourselves giving in and showing EVERYTHING we have done.

We can be our own worst client.

Is old? #recursion

Is old? #recursion

After being Middle-Earth, New Zealand is now...

Too many health warnings may be bad for you say experts

Tagged: awesome, costume, gifs, luxo jr., pixar Submitted by:
TSGIGOR

Via: www.youtube.com

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF/ Reporters without Borders) in Belgium ran a talking print advertisement to raise awareness of the dangers faced by journalists in countries where press freedom is repressed. Two press photographers had died in Libya in April 2010. RSF ran print advertisements showing a person with a reputation for clamping down on press freedom (Gadaffi, Putin, Ahmadinedjad) , with a QR code in the bottom corner. By scanning this code and putting your iPhone on the mouth of the predator, you could hear a journalist tell the true story of that country. “Because some mouths will never speak the truth”. The campaign gave viewers a link to the RSF website where they could learn more about the organisation’s activities and order the book “100 Photographs for Press Freedom”. The talking ads are also online at rsf.reed.be in French and English.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx48zKeJxlQ

The Voice campaign spread beyond Belgium, particularly among people from Iran and Lybia, who found a clear symbol for their own battle. It was largely shared on social networks and made people speak about the matter of ‘press freedom’.

Credits
The Voice campaign was developed at Publicis Brussels by copywriter Kwint Demeyer, art director Daniel Vandenbroucke, creative director Paul Servaes, creative director Alain Janssens, agency producer Dominique Ruys, digital account director Nadia Dafir, web design developer Denis Evlard, shooting/editor Dimitri Ryelandt, account manager Mikaël Ogor, strategic planners Vincent d’Halluin and Tom Theys.

Photography was sourced from Getty Images. Translators were Fabrice Storti and Richard Welss.

Filming was shot by director/producer Gunther Campine via Rabbit, Brussels with executive producer Ruben Goots, director of photography Kassim Ahmed, editor Jan Hameeuw.

Visual effects/post production were done at The Fridge. Sound was designed by Yves De Mey at Sonicville. Sound was produced Think N Talk.

Mimetic food Here's something quite in the spirit of the season, don't you