Day 137: Delicious

Fragment:  Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple. 
Font: Gotham
Quoted: Willy Wonka

Day 136: Flight

Fragment: Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
Font: Helvetica
Quoted: George Bernard Shaw

Day 135: Sounds Good

Fragment: Making contributions already
Font: Avenir
Quoted: Cory Gaines

Cory, my super manager, made this comment after hearing I had already finished an xls spread. Granted it wasn't very hard work, but I cranked it out at surprising speed. I guess I would say I love my job, cause it's good to know I'm getting things done.

Day 134: Response

Fragment: It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Font: Helvetica
Quoted: Rene Descartes


... Helvetica on the other hand, looks good on just about anything..........
I'm really happy at my job. It's nice to have something that flexes my brain, and makes me think on my feet.

Day 133: Pride

Fragment: Hope will never be silent
Font: Gotham
Quoted: Harvey Milk

I was at Pride in SF this weekend. It's really a crazy place.
I'm sincerely impressed I've never used the same title twice. I always think I've accidentally overlapped, but I've always been able to stay with the original title.

Day 132: Homework

Fragment: Trying to force creativity is never good
Font: Helvetica
Quoted Sara McLachlan

I can't tell if I'm trying to be clever or if I'm really just out of ideas.

Day 131: Get Glad

Fragment: Whatcha gonna do? Can't get Mad
Font: Times New Roman
Quoted: Allene Yaplee

We drove to an office to pick up some stuff, only to find out they were closed.
There's a new zen movement going around.... As Jake says: Be Zen.

Day 130: Streamline

Fragment: Work smart, not hard
Font: Garamond
Quoted: Jamie Brenkus

Oh, 80's workout videos...But this is my life strategy.

Day 129: Longevity

Fragment: Like the universe, like a river, like the ocean... quiet but the most powerful.
Font: Univers (I really need to stop being clever)
Quoted: Mom

Day 128: Vocabulary

Fragment: They can SWAG it.
Font: Gotham
Quoted: Jennifer Tran

I was sitting in on a meeting, and nearly laughed. In cool kid lingo, swag is the way you carry yourself. If you have swagger (swagga') you have a confidence.
*According to urban dictionary: confidence, style, and demeanor. Swag can also be expanded to be the reputation of your overall swagger. You gain swag, or "Swag up", by performing swag worthy actions that improve this perception. A person can also "swag down," by being an overall pussy and garnering negative swag for their actions. Swag is a subtle thing that many strive to gain but few actually attain. It is reserved for the most swagalicious of people. Swag can also be quantified, with point systems existing in some circles of friends.
But in PayPal Lingo, it's a "Silly Wild Ass Guess." Basically an estimate, but no one actually knows, so it's just  a silly wild-ass guess

Day 127: Ignite

Fragment: Break Your Cycle
Font: Gotham
Quoted: Shahid Khan

Innovation speaker. "If you're wearing a watch, I want you to move it to your other hand for the next 8 hours. If you don't have a watch, take what's in your right pocket and put it in your left for the next 8 hours. Anyone I missed? {that would be me} Ok you can switch your shoes.
"The reason I want you to do this, is I want to break your cycle. Take a different route home today. Yes, it will take you 30 minutes longer, but I promise you will see things you have never seen before. Creativity comes from seeing things in a different way."

Day 126: Tea, too.

Fragment: Time is an herb that cures all diseases
Font: Garamond
Quoted: Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanac

Day 125: Flashes of Gold

Fragment: No time for cameras, we'll use our eyes instead
Font: Futura
Quoted: Matt and Kim in Cameras

Just saw a Matt and Kim Concert. I LOVE them live... they're very high energy. But. There are some crazy fans out there.
Also. I touched Kim! :)


Inspiration for the fragment: "So I'll leave these pages in the trees"

Day 124: Do Something

Fragment: And they'll be like, "yeah that would be nice"
Font: Calibri
Quoted: Mira Ross

SO DO SOMETHING!!
I don't know what it is with kids these days, but my mother always taught me that if you want to do something, you'd better do it well. It's rather frustrating to hear my old boss (I used to work at an art camp) talk about how a good idea could pass through the new camp aides, and they'll all nod, like... cool.
There's nothing quite like knowing that you're good at your job, so why not try it out?

Day 123: Love, Accordingly

Fragment: Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.
Font: Garamond
Quoted: Chrissy, age 6 in Love According to Children

Oh man, that's serious. The article.


In other news, YouTube today released a special player for the original Nyan Cat video, so the progress bar is also a Nyan cat (giving new meaning to the progress in progress bar) 

Day 122: Payback

Fragment: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
Font: Galaxie Polaris
Quoted: Ghandi

Saw the quote and saw a fragment, so couldn't help but do it

Day 121: Sure

Fragment: Nobody can bring you peace but yourself
Font: Galaxie Polaris Light
Quoted: Ralph Waldo Emerson

I remember I used to think Emerson was unnecessarily long winded, though I must have become more patient since then, since I can read through it now.

I think I've become more confident as a person, in general, because I am more sure of who I am, but also because of the outside world. I think I am more confident of my intelligence, because I know I go to Yale, and societally speaking, it's considered a pretty good school. I am more confident before an interview because someone will tell me I'm about to kick ass, or that they would be lucky to have me. I am more confident of being just me, because someone has told me to just be myself or that I am beautiful, inside and out.

Day 120: Sabotage

Fragment: Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well. Think about it.
Font: Times New Roman
Quoted: Elias Schwartz

Today I discovered that Yale has a book of quotations. How convenient.
But actually, The Yale Book of Quotations, which traces the history of famous quotes and idioms, is only $15 for all it's 1104 pages of Hardcover-capped glory.
I also live right next to a library. How convenient.

Day 119: Hard to Handle

Fragment: If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
Font: Galaxie Polaris
Quoted: Marilyn Monroe

She's sassy.

Day 118: Penny in a Parking Lot

Fragment: I never liked the taste of crow, but, baby, I ate it.
Font: Garamond
Quoted: The Band Perry

I had never learned this idiom before, so, for my readers I know wouldn't have either. "Eating Crow" is an English idiom for admitting wrong. I imagine eating crow would be pretty tasteless, and it's also considered illegal, since crows are protected under the Migratory Birds Act.

Warning! This is Country Music. You Lie by Band Perry

Day 117:

Fragment: Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you cannot change. (Kiss slowly, play hard, forgive quickly, take chances, give everything, and have no regrets. Life's too short to be anything but happy.)
Font: Futura
Quoted: Unknown


I've been looking for the author of this quote... if anyone knows, I'd love to hear -- including if it's accredited to 'Anonymous'!
I've been using the whole fading words things a little too often, but maybe it's just my tendency to choose quotes that have to do with letting go, breathing, or some sort of release.

Day 116: The Game

Fragment: Mentality is everything
Font: Gotham
Quoted: Brotips

I love Brotips. Somehow they manage to squeeze out all the advice that I'd like to hear or give.

Day 115: Innovation

Fragment: Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
Font: Bookman Old, Helvetica
Quoted: Einstein

Granted, Helvetica is not that new anymore....
Slew of Einstein quotes!

Day 114: Inspiration

Fragment: The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources
Font: Georgia
Quoted: Albert Einstein

I've really taken to this this rather cynical theory that originality is a myth. I suppose I agree with it in a lot of senses, especially in art. Everything is based on an inspiration, but does that mean it can't be original?
But if you don't remember/know how you thought of it, does that make it original within the frame of reference? What better way to hide than to forget?

Day 113: The Rub

Fragment: But that's what being an artist is - feeling crummy before everyone else feels crummy.
Font: Galaxie Polaris
Quoted: The New Yorker


Oh well that's not so good is it.... but does me thinking that mean that I think I am an artist? Do I deserve to be an artist? Ah There's the rub.

Day 112: Suffer

Fragment: Do what we can, summer will have its flies
Font: Times New Roman
Quoted: Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.  ~Russel Baker

Day 111: Sing of Hope

Fragment: If there was a God, then why is my arse/ The perfect height for kicking
Font: Futura
Quoted: Bell X1 in Rocky Took a Lover

As far as the story goes, Rocky was a homeless man who lived across the street from the lead singer of Bell X1. One night he was with a girl, and the song is an imagined conversation between the two.
Listen to the music here.

Day 110: Together Apart

Fragment: You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think

Quoted: Christopher Robin, from Winnie the Pooh

Font: Futura

Day 109: Learn to Love it

Fragment: If your dreams don't intimidate you, then they aren't big enough
Font: Gotham
Quoted: Ursula Burns

I went to see my brother graduate from MIT and Ursula Burns was th speaker. I do love this quote, but really, my favorite thing she said was, "Don't do anything that won't make your mom proud."

Day 108: Representative

Fragment: The future is yours... make it a good one.
Font: Futura (so clever....)
Quoted: Doc Brown, Back to the Future III

A few days ago I got a fortune cookie with a blank fortune. It still had lucky numbers on the back, thank goodness (What would I do without them). My mom thought it was a rip off, but hey, guess it means I get what I want.

In other news, I think my designs have continued on a steady trend of being representational. While this wasn't my original intention, some of my favorites are the most representational, like Day 30: Taste the Peaches, or Day 92: Inhale. Whatever it is, I'm still having fun designing, and that's really what it's all about.