my life just flashed before my eyes.

thank you hulu. thank you.

before.after

one of my favorite things is product/brand re-design before's and after's. i love seeing how something that has such a presence can get re imagined by someone. that is not my strong suit, creatively, at all. I am sometimes a fan of evolutionary re-design, where something is similar ad is a step away from what it was, but i LOVE revolutionary designs where things are just like crazy different. i would love to know how to take something SO familiar to people but competely re-do it without losing the character and integrity of the product or brand.

my favorite revolutionary re-design of ALL time is the Good Housekeeping seal by my favorite branding/graphic designer Louis Fili.



here are some more of my favorite before and afters from TheDieline.


i think in the 90s, packaging got a little busy.
people wanted to know more about the contents and benefits of their purchases, coupled with mass amounts of competition, leads to TMI. I love how clean things have become, and how the shelves of the supermarkets - AND the supermarkets themselves - are just lookin' so zipped up.

Of course, people will get bored of this "everyone's a graphic designer" stuff - look around - EVERYTHING is getting re-designed. i passed an irish pub with faux capital sans serif fixed width wording on their window. it was kind of a little much. however, i do appreciate the sentiment.

people respond to pretty.

oh barbie

so we went to toys r us today (collective groan) to buy some gifts for Jamie's godson for his 4th birthday. actually it wasn't that bad, as we got to relive a little bit of our childhoods. jamie was in with the legos and i was in my barbie dreamworld. that led me to revisit some of the barbies i had when i was little. so i went on the barbie collector site, and saw this picture of a special christmas barbie i got for christmas when i was little!!

i remember having this!!!

barbie was so pretty when i was little.

now she just looks like a whore.


go to amazon.com to teach your child to trade sexual favors for a dreamhouse.

!!!!!!!!!!

this is amazing.

it's a postcard.

ugh sometimes the world goes exactly the way i want it to.

it's a duck blur

walted milkshake

although i am firmly against animals used for any sort of entertainment
*fight the power!*
this picture is too delicious to be denied.

image found via miehana's flickr

in living color

so basically craft night last night was the least productive night in history. essentially we crafted for 10 minutes then our friend phillip came over and we drank a bottle of wine and/or sake each, and had a 90s dance party in my living room. let's just say the following was liz's contribution and it pretty much made my head explode with wonderfulness.

am i the only one?

who doesn't give a shit about the west side story broadway revival?

i just really really don't care.

alright, listen

i know this is like, super lame, and i am super lame. i know this video is really really old, but it just kills me. it just makes me cry every time. go ahead, make fun of me. 

but if you don't cry, you have a diet coke can where your heart should be. 

please ignore the music.

although, it does give a little bit of 8th grade effectiveness, however, it is really horribly bad so you make your own decisions on how lame you are. 

pop&rock

did anyone else watch disney's pop&rock when they were little?
if not, i feel bad for you.
it's the only video i remember watching from when i was little
and i remember every single song from it .
(well, not off the top of my dome, but when i hear it i think "pop & roooock!")
ugh it was so good and now its like ultimo vhs vintage styles.
if i had a vcr still i'd watch it every single day just to make myself happy.

if you have a vcr, tell me where you live and when you are going out of town
and i break in and i will steal it.

or, click here and buy it from "these sellers" (shaaaady) off amazon.