Winter Is Coming

A Game of Thrones is the first book of George R.R. Martin's masterpiece, fantasy epic. The good news for those familiar with this series (no A Dance with Dragons is not yet finished) is that the series is being brought to the small screen by HBO. If you are a fan of Rome or the Arthurian legends keep your eyes and ears open.

For the last year I have been living without cable, but I will once again be swimming in the deep end when this amazing work is brought to life. Like much of the other series on HBO, this will be a story for mature viewers. It is a story of hard living in a kingdom very much resembling England during the Wars of the Roses. There is a touch of fantasy but it is not heavy handed. The main characters are all human insofar as they are from the human species (at least so far). Another difference is that this story is not the standard Good vs. Evil. It is a human story and in that sense it is a contemporary tale.

If you want to stay current on what is flowing from George R.R. Martin's pen he has an informative website and a blog. If you want to stay current on what is happening with the HBO series read the blog A Winter is Coming.

Rambunctious - Illustration Friday

Since this week has been one of those weeks… I am going to have to dig something up from the old sketch book. I do have all manner of rambunctious children and critters drawn and doodles in the stacks of books, but this logo caught my eye.

I worked on this project over a two-year period, first for Downtown Vision where I developed a direct mail and an online marketing campaign. The following year, the City of Jacksonville took the event over and as they were already a client, gave me a call to work on a new project of theirs. It is funny how things just seemed destined to be. We continued producing the direct mail pieces but the online component was scrapped. Luckily they did want to redesign the existing logo and after filling page after page after page with thumbnails, I came up with the award-winning logo that you see here. It even graced the cover of one of David Carter's logo books! Unfortunately, funding went away and so did the project but it was fun while it lasted. Their new agency liked my photography so much that they lifted one of my photos to use on the Downtown Vision's new site. Lucky me!!

Hopefully, I will have more time to get back to creating new work next week. Happy holidays to those of you lucky enough to be starting early.

Creativity

Ideo CEO Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play. One of the points that struck me in his talk at the 2008 Serious Play conference was that rules make for better creativity. I guess that makes sense. As a designer going into a new project, I do need information and parameters. And the more I know, the better the solution. When I taught at the local college my students would ask me why they had to learn the history and the rules. And usually my answer was so you know where you came from and why things are done. And then I told them that when they knew the rules it was easier to break them.

Take a look if you have the time and visit the TED site. They do have an amazing catalog of high powered speakers at various conferences on many different topics.

Who Keeps the Fish?

Coudal Partners is a great design, advertising and interactive studio in Chicago. Their site is packed with great information. Periodically the post a logic puzzler on their site. Over the Thanksgiving holiday I spent a few hours on this one. And yes, I am 1 in 121,348,731!

This brainteaser, reportedly written by Einstein as a child. It is also sometimes attributed to Lewis Carroll however, there is no known evidence for Einstein's or Carroll's authorship. The first known publication in Life International magazine on December 17, 1962. It is difficult and Einstein said that 98% of the people in the world could not figure it out. Which percentage are you in?

There are five houses in a row in different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a Walleye Pike.

The question is-- who owns the fish?

Hints:
1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

There are no tricks, pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer.

If you get the correct answer, congratulations, you are one of the exclusive group of 121,348,731 people in the world who can.

A holiday trip

If you get a chance, take a trip over to Dot's blog "Dabbled". She is having a little competition called the "Holiday Art Card Challenge". There is some great work ther and all I can say is "Vote for Me!" … "Vote for Me!"

You may have seen this a few years back. If not, you can see it on her blog. It was another self-promo.

Happy Holidays!