Deadline to Apply to Attend TEDxFSU is Today!

Do you know what a TED talk is? Take a look at the short video below so you are more informed. TED conferences bring together Technology, Entertainment and Design and TEDxFSU is an independently organized TED Event that happens every year at FSU. This year, the event will take place on April 12, 2012 from 4:30pm - 7:30 pm at the FSU Turnbull Conference Center. The deadline to apply for attending this event is TODAY, so hurry up if you are planning on participating. Visit the TEDxFSU site to have more details and apply. You can also like TEDxFSU in Facebook and/or follow the event on Twitter @TEDxFSU.

See you at the 2012 TEDxFSU Conference! ... but no, wait! It's not so easy. Here is the message you receive after you apply:

"Thank you for your submission!
Unfortunately we cannot accept more than 100 TEDxFSU attendees. Therefore, everyone's applications are closely assessed, and those accepted will be notified after March 28th, via email, and will be invited to attend."

Why would they do that? I am not saying it is not worth a try, but I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Is there such a thing as "ideas worth spreading" with only some people? 

Video Games as [Surrealist] Art!

...so perhaps the issue is not about whether or not video games should be considered art. For many people, there is no doubt that they are art, but what kind of art are they? I think this video definitely makes a good point. However, they say here that "you can play Mario but you can't really play a Dali painting" - what do you think about that? I am sure some clever and creative art museum educators and exhibit designers out there would probably love to challenge PBS Idea Channel to prove that statement. Perhaps those from the Smithsonian American Art Museum already did!

Video Games as Art: What Lessons Can We Learn?

How can video games help us understand our museum audiences and what they appreciate about art? This is the first question that came to my mind when I read about the new exhibition to open today at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, entitled of The Art of Video Games.The Smithsonian institution took a participatory approach to the planning of this exhibition by reaching the gaming community on their curatorial enterprise.

According to the USATODAY article that inspired me to write this post, the museum received the help of 119,000 online voters who assisted on narrowing down the initial 240 games to the final 80 that will be included in this exhibition. "More than 3.7 million votes were cast" so it occurs to me that we could learn a lot by looking at the final 80 choices. Even though the museum is not attempting to engage in the debate of whether or not video games could be consider art, I personally believe that a lot of interesting data could be collected out of this curatorial effort. What do you think?

Not being extremely familiar with video games myself I could be totally wrong, but it seems to me like video games are getting more and more realistic-looking nowadays and "audiences" seem to enjoy that. As technology advances, game developers acquire new and more sophisticated skills and they seem to be trying to reach as much realism as possible in the games they create. On the other hand, gamers seem to enjoy playing realistic-looking games. What can that tell us about their taste when it comes to art? Would it be safe to conclude that video gamers would prefer representational works of art over abstract ones? Whoever can follow them around as they visit other galleries at the Smithsonian American Art Museum could end up with a very interesting study! Any gamers (or researchers) want to comment on this?

CityMaps is Indeed THE Social Map

Let's pretend you are in New York City and are planning on visiting some of your favorite museums. CityMaps will serve you as a true visual map, using corporate logos to help you find where you are and where you want to go, BUT it will also keep you up-to-date with what is happening right now at your favorite venues, showing their social media activities just by clicking on their logos on the map. How cool is it to be able to take a quick look at the latest tweets from the Met museum, just minutes before showing up at its door? and to find the nearest Starbucks after you finish your museum visit? Yes, CityMaps does have a mobile version for iPhone and iPod Touch, but just to give you the heads up, it requires iOS 4.3, so be advised.

I recently learned about CityMaps via one of my favorite design blogs: David Airey's Logo Design Love and I thought it was a very creative concept, specially because the idea seems to make a lot of sense to me. This is a map for visual people, and many of us are. It's also the right map for social media junkies (AND logo lovers!).

P.S. Another small disadvantage - CityMaps currently covers only three U.S. cities: New York, San Francisco and Austin. I know! It's just getting started. I sure hope it expands its list of locations very soon! Would you let me know if you get to try it?

David E. Carter Released "Logos 2" with Nine of my Logos

What a pleasant surprise! I recently received the great news on the release of one of the new logo eBooks by editor David E. Carter. "Logos 2: Bright Ideas from Around the World" features a collection of logos by a variety of designers, and I was lucky enough to be one of them. This logo compilation included nine logos that  I designed for clients as diverse as professor Pat Villeneuve and her Constructivist Museum Working Group, the City of Quincy, the Big Bend Bird Club of Tallahassee, Ucucha Mineria and American University of the Caribbean among others. My own personal logo, which you can see accompanying this post, was also selected for this publication, and you can also see some of the other ones I just mentioned (and more) on the small gallery of logo samples I included on the side bar of this blog.

David E. Carter has created over 110 creative compilations on logos, graphic design and advertising as ink-on-paper books and is also top-selling producer of books in the history of graphic design. Now, he has released eight new graphic design eBooks through his company, Bright Books, which he founded in March of 2010. The full-color eBooks can be viewed on an iPad, Kindle Fire, other tablet devices, or on any computer. Click on the links to learn more about David E. Carter's books and/or visit the BrightBooks bookstore to buy one of his new e-books. Thank you, David! It is an honor to have been selected for this book!

Where Have I Been?

Well, it has really been a while, and some of you who enthusiastically became followers back in 2009 were probably wondering (or not) if I was going to ever update this blog. I asked myself the same question over and over, along with many others. Graduate school has kept me busy enough to delay this post, but here I am again full of ideas and mostly full of questions. Will I post more regularly from now on? That remains to be seen. For now, I have decided not to take things too seriously and use this blog as a way of venting steam. After all, "Venting Steam as Post" is one of the blogging strategies suggested by Matt Might in his 6 Blog Tips for Busy Academics. You may want to take a look if you are planning on becoming an academic who blogs. I might become one but who knows. For now, I think "venting as post" will become my preferred reason for posting here, just like it did to his colleague, Suresh Venkatasubramanian (check out his blog The Geomblog if you want to have an idea of how that works for him), but we'll see how it goes. More to come, hopefully soon.

Swing'n Sock Hop Logo for the Gadsden Arts Center

Swing'n Sock Hop is the theme for the next Gadsden Arts Center's annual fundraiser event. Executive Director of the center, Grace Maloy, gave me the opportunity of creating the visual identity that will represent the gala in all publications and marketing materials.

Creating a marketing timeline and helping in the implementation of the marketing strategy for this event has also been some of my tasks at the center. However, as a graphic designer, I gave special attention to first creating a memorable logo for the event.

The logo I created (see above) was the result of an obligatory research of the advertisement and signage of the 50's and 60's. This initial black and white version has been used for further designing of the "Save the Date" card for the event, and also for announcements in the quarterly newsletter, website and other publications.

The GAC's 2010 Winter Gala will take place on January 30, 2010 at the Sawano Club in Quincy, FL. For more information on the event, visit the Gadsden Arts Center's website at www.gadsdenarts.org.