Your Space My Space in LA.

I've been down in LA for the holidays. This afternoon I went for a walk through Santa Monica to the famous Santa Monica steps. As I was walking, I had an interesting epiphany. The way people treat their homes has a correlation to the way they act in their cars. When you walk through the different neighborhoods in Santa Monica each home has it's own unique style. No two are the same. There is no common thread to the design style. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that you have to have track homes where every third house is a repeat. But when you see a home that is Spanish style then one that is New England style, it's a little strange. On the positive side you have a better understanding of each owner's style. Now the correlation. When I drive in LA. I feel like everyone is encapsulated in their car with their phone, radio, TV, cup holders with coffee or what not. They can only be bothered to worry about what is going on in their heads and inside their car. You get an idea of who the person is by the type of car, personalized license plate, and attitude toward you as they cut you off. Which brings me to my point. Everyone is only worried about their space. Be it their car or their house. There doesn't appear to be any type of larger community or collaboration.

Child's Eyes

The holidays are really a time to see all the wonder through the eyes of young children. I've been thinking that in the coming year I need to see the world through Peter's eyes more often. I think the view might be better.

Time For The Holiday Games.

Here are a few online holiday games I found entertaining.

The Bernstein-Rodeo Reindeer

Christmas Frogger

Red Christmas

Catching Up With Old Friends.

Back in the day at Ogilvy, we had a low key happy hour every Thursday we called "Thirsty Thursday". This week we had an ex OO Thirsty Thursday. It was great to see people that I hadn't seen in months or even longer. No pictures, just a lot of conversations over a few beers. This made me think about how much time we spend with our work associates. You develop friendships, then you move on to another company and develop new friends. We all have a trail of past work friends. Some you keep in touch with, some you lose touch with. It's not surprising that we develop good friendships with those we work with since we spend a large portion of our lives at work.

Protest with a Message or Vandalism?

I grew up in Claremont, California, home of the Claremont Colleges. While I was home for the holidays, I read my hometown paper, The Claremont Courier, The Courier is pretty small. The article I read was about a protest of sorts. In short, some students wreaked havoc with some graduate student housing that was scheduled for demolition. My mother and I discussed this a bit and came out on opposite sides of the issue. She felt it wasn't right even though the buildings were scheduled for demolition. Since there was no one currently living in the buildings, I on the other hand, I felt it was a perfect opportunity for self expression. You can view my picture here. Here is a link to some online coverage of the issue.

Art Director and Copywriters...

I've been thinking lately about how art directors and copywriters are similar and yet different at the same time. In the present day both art directors and copywriters concept. Back in the old days, it was the writer's job to come up with the idea. Then it was the art director's job to put pretties around the idea. Presently both art directors and copywriters typically bring ideas to the table. Once the ideas are agreed upon each person goes off and works on his/her part. It just seems interesting to me that some people are more comfortable with visual stuff and others prefer words. Although there are of course some exceptions. Some art directors are good writers and some writers started out as art directors. But in general people focus on the particulars associated with either words or visuals. Thoughts?

Will This Blog survive?

It always seems like a good idea to create a blog. I recently read an article that it's a great marketing tool for freelancers. In the article, the author said you should update your blog daily. I'm not sure a busy freelance person can update their blog on a daily basis. My goal for this blog is to post at least once a week. I really wanted a blog which would allow me to post some of my photography and still post comments. My current solution is to blog here on blogger and add photo that I've uploaded to my flickr account. We'll see how that goes.