The documentary film opens with a scene on a manufacturing floor. I heard the hum of the machines. Saw hydraulic robots set in motion. Tiny white plastic pellets drained from a large container. I could almost smell the melting plastic. A molded plastic chair was born.

How often do people think about the life of objects surrounding them? The manufacture, use and demise of the object. I think about the design of objects more often than the average person. Function and form are always top of mind. This is largely due to being born into a family of engineers but also due to my career as a graphic designer. This documentary pushed me to think deeper. I was intellectually stimulated, entertained and informed. The designers interviewed are sharp, the photography is interesting and the music is modern. I give Objectified by Gary Hustwit two thumbs up. This is a must see!

The general theme of the movie is design for want versus design for need. The following paragraphs are a little food for thought on the things I gleaned from the movie. (I want to watch it again because I will probably get so much more out of it a second time!)

1. Most people don’t think about the objects surrounding them as having been designed. People tend to think about the stories that have been embedded in objects, through life experiences with the objects or through marketing—before the object has even been purchased, a story is linked to the object. Most of the designers featured in the film discussed the need to understand people and what they need before beginning the design process. In my line of work, I design for a target audience. Some product designers are designing for the extremes, not the target, with the thought that the middle will take care of itself. For example, if you design a potato peeler with arthritis in mind, the tool is also going to be easier for the average person to use.

2. Design is moving from the tangible (a spoon or a chair, which have a very specific form to follow their function) toward the intangible (microchip embedded objects like the iPhone which can accomplish many tasks all in one object.)

3. To become better designers, we need to observe the actions humans make unconsciously, with out thinking. Designs based on this behavior make a seamless experience for the user.

4. All designed objects eventually end up in landfills. Designers today are thinking more and more about how their designed object behaves after people have used it up and tossed it out. Thinking about an object from cradle to grave makes one wonder why objects that are obsolete the day after they are purchased are produced to be permanent. Karim Rashad, a designer interviewed in the film, went as far as to ask why his cell phone wasn’t made out of cardboard. People get bored and want new and improved objects almost constantly, so why produce “disposable” objects as permanent?

5. One of the designers in the film discussed his desire to create a marketing campaign to tell people to just enjoy the objects they already have. If a natural disaster were to strike, which objects would you want to save? Most would save the objects that have meaning and tell their story.

I’ve changed my shopping habits in the past year, due the state of the current situation, personally and globally. I used to shop all the time. Always browsing, I knew exactly what the stores had on their shelves. Now, I’ve removed myself from the stores, thus removing the temptation to purchase. Because of this, I’ve discovered I’m much more judgmental of an object I’m going to purchase. I think more, versus just shopping on a whim. And now, having seen this film, I think I will scrutinize objects further. Which is a good thing. Everyone should consume with the mind of a critic.

Gary Hustwit also made the documentary Helvetica. If you haven’t seen it, watch it! For more information, visit objectifiedfilm.com and helveticafilm.com.

About a week ago, I posted my favorite color: Pantone® 3025. I didn’t think it was good for the color to be alone, so I’ve given him a partner. Meet Pantone® 7406. While 3025 is calm, cool and collected, 7406 is wild, hyper and oh so much fun! Opposites certainly attract. And their differences are a great complement.

Now, go forth and multiply!

(Coming soon: This pair will form a palette!)

One of the characteristics I love (and envy) most about my husband is how observant he is. He always points out these amazing, beautiful things that I would otherwise walk right past, oblivious.

His skill in observation gives him a leg up as a photographer. Life through Jesse’s eyes is unlike anything any of us have seen! (Good thing we get to experience how he sees the world through his photography!) For example, we went on a walk last night around Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. It was excellent weather and nearing sunset. There was a storm rolling in, so the juxtaposition of the dark clouds next to the lite-up but fading blue sky was dramatic. I noticed this and took it in. Jesse photographed it. And when we got home, I looked at Jesse’s photo. I saw what he saw. There was much more depth in what he captured than I had observed. The photo below is astounding. Unbelievable. My husband’s skill and artistry amazes me on a daily basis. He has a different way of seeing things and an interesting perspective that he applies to every image he sees and captures. He has taught me to slow down and take in the world around me.

Before we got to walking around Lake Calhoun on Saturday night, before Jesse took that amazing sunset photograph, we ate dinner at Dairy Queen. As we walked to the car after eating, Jesse pointed out the sun dog in the sky, which I would’ve missed if he hadn’t showed me. Although he had a camera around his neck, he didn’t lift it to the sky. Instead we got in the car, with Jesse driving. As he backed out of the parking spot, I said, “I can’t believe you didn’t take a photo of that!” He responded with, “Well, I just figured I’d take one once we got to Lake Calhoun for the walk.” I retorted, “Jesse, by the time we get to the lake, it could be gone. Or not at a good angle. Just take the photo.” He took the car out of reverse and drove right back into the same parking spot we had just left. Jesse got out and captured this amazing shot. After having just seen the movie Slumdog Millionaire the night before, I named it Sun Dog Millionaire. I’m allowed to take some credit for the photo since I made him take it, right? (As a side note, when we got to the lake, the sun dog was too low in the sky to be seen from the lake. One point for Lisa.)

These two photographs are © Jesse Valley Photography, Inc. Used here with permission.

You may have just read my post from yesterday and are surprised to see I’m celebrating Earth Day. Just because I don’t use energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs doesn’t mean I don’t do my part. You don’t need to belong to the Sierra Club or wear Birkenstocks with wool socks to celebrate Earth Day. Today I’m going to share two things I do that make a big difference for Mother Earth.

1. I bring my own shopping bags.
I have four black nylon grocery bags that I purchased from ReusableBags.com a few years back. They’re easy to use; on the inside of the bag is a sewn in pouch. The bags fold up into the pouch for an easy fit in my purse at 3 inches by 3.5 inches. I keep the bags by the back door at my house and just toss ‘em in my purse when I’m going to the store. See photos below of the black Acme brand grocery bags. Buy some here. (When I bought mine, they only came in black. Now they are made in a plethora of colors! Orange = awesome! Plus, when you buy 4 or more, you save!)

I shop the mall armed with a cute patterned bag which I always carry with me in my purse. I only use the pretty bag for non-grocery items, to keep it in good condition. It easily folds up into a tubular stuff bag. I get compliments on it everywhere I shop. Plus it is a good reminder to cashiers and other shoppers that being a good steward to the earth can be cute and fashionable. The straps on the patterned bag are long enough to sling over my shoulder, freeing up my hands for phone calls and text messages. These fancy shopping bags make brilliant gifts. For a bridal shower, I used the fancy reusable bag as gift wrap for the cookbook I gave the bride-to-be. Just a little tissue paper and a coordinating ribbon from Paper Source and my gift was the talk of the party! I purchased my Reisenthel brand bag at Patina. There are some really fun designs on the market! Celebrate Earth day by finding a reusable shopping bag that fits your style AND life-style!

2. I don’t buy bottled water. Or personal cartons of Tropicana.
Every morning, I drink OJ. Since I’m not a morning person, I drink it at the office. After purchasing the 6-pack of Tropicana personal cartons for years, I realized it was both expensive and wasteful. Now, I use two Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottles for my beverage needs at work. The 12 oz bottle is the perfect size for my morning OJ. And the larger 27 oz bottle carries fresh tap water to work (the water at work tastes icky). Mother Earth thanks me for my thoughtful gesture of not filling up the landfills with needless waste. My Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottles are leakproof and dishwasher safe. I bought mine at The Container Store, but they are available at many stores. Visit Klean Kanteen’s website to see all the styles!

There are many ways to celebrate Earth Day. Plant a tree, pick up litter in your community, turn off the lights in rooms you aren’t occupying, unplug appliances when they are not in use, recycle everything, collect rainwater to water your garden, bike or walk instead of driving, plan your errends to save on gas, re-use stuff when possible, buy products only from environmentally conscious companies, make a PDF instead of a print out, use reusable shopping bags, use Klean Kanteen type bottles to keep waste out of landfills, et cetera.

Many of us already do some of these things. Challenge yourself to see if there is one more thing you can add to your list.

There is nothing I dislike more than the eerie, nasty, yellow glow of fluorescent light bulbs. They are the bane of our existence in corporate environments. Cause headaches. Flicker ever so slightly driving the normal person to insanity. Most people dislike fluorescent bulbs in the workplace. So why buy them for home use? Compact fluorescent bulbs may use less energy and last longer, but their glow is lackluster.

The glow of a light bulb should simulate natural daylight as much as possible. (The original intent of electric lights was to bring daylight to the night, after all.) It’s only natural to wish for the warm, soft glow of the sun to fill our homes at night, right?

Compact fluorescent bulbs emit a cool, green-yellow haze. (I don’t mean cool like, “Dude! That is radical and cool!” Cold and inhuman is what I was going for). Fluorescent lights make skin tones look like death. They change the wavelength of color as we see it. The light feels artificial.

My parents painted their hallway a nice, warm, wheat color. Shortly after painting my dad switched to compact fluorescent bulbs to save money on energy bills. The wall color was awful when combined with the color cast from the compact fluorescent bulbs! I convinced my parents to switch to GE’s Reveal light bulbs and the wall color was instantly changed, suddenly beautiful.

Fluorescent bulbs add a terrible color cast to rooms. They’re unnatural and make me feel moody. My eyes cry out in disgust! Besides their terrible color cast, the bulbs have some negatives including mercury content that calls for disposal as a hazardous waste and taking one to three minutes to reach full brightness. The bulbs are quite bright, so mood lighting is nearly impossible. If you want to use a compact fluorescent bulb with a dimmer switch, you need to buy a more expensive, specially designed bulb.

Let’s talk about halogen for a minute. These bulbs have a nice bright glow. Useful for certain applications, awful for others. The tower halogen lamps that have caused so many fires, for example, are awful. However, let’s not discount them entirely. I have halogen bulbs in my bathroom vanity. These bulbs have been burning strong for three and a half years! No replacement needed (yet, knock on wood).

Everywhere I turn, I’m encouraged to switch all the bulbs in my house to compact fluorescent. What made everyone in the world leap blindly on this bandwagon? (And they must have been blind, if they could see, they’d have realized the awful color cast!) The manufacturers must have had quite the PR campaign.

As for me, I will not use compact fluorescent bulbs in my home. Until a bulb is designed to save energy, save money, save the earth and (most importantly) mimic the glow of natural sunlight, I will continue to buy GE’s Reveal light bulbs. (I even love Reveal’s tagline: clean, beautiful light. Now, isn’t that what we all want?)

Right now I’m loving this color: Pantone® 3025. This blue color reminds me of the color of the sky approximately 1 hour after sunset. This sky color signals it’s time to slow down and relax after a day of hard work. It is lush and slightly moody. Yet it’s calming.

My home office is painted a similar hue, but isn’t quite as vibrant, the walls are a little more grey. (Behr Lost Atlantis)

Spring. There’s nothing like it. The smell of soil. Birds singing. The buzz of activity. Today is the first day of weather +70 degrees in Minneapolis. And I’m feeling the amazing effects, even after a long work week. It lifts my spirit and fills my thoughts of a new beginning. There’s nothing in life like spring! Fresh. Invigorating. Energizing. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been peeling away the layers of heavy clothes. Wearing lighter coats. Different shoes. And today short sleeves, with the fresh, warm air against my pale, white skin!

Hibernation is over. Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis is alive with bikers, runners, kids, families. Playing. Laughing. I’m sitting on the shore of the lake just taking it all in. It’s the perfect ending to a hustle and bustle week. Just in front of me, some young children are wading in the water, playing in the dirt, tossing rocks in the lake; splish…splash…giggle, giggle. It feels so good to be outside, even by myself. A chance to stop, observe and think. It’s Friday and the mood is light and hopeful.

The change of the seasons always effects me, both positive and negative. Spring reminds me of the nature of life. Always changing, never stagnant. It’s both refreshing and a little unnerving. It makes me think about how I spend my time. I’ve been way too scheduled this past year, booking out my social calendar a month or two in advance! Why do I do this? Where is there room for spontaneity? Go here. Do this. Do that. I don’t know what my future holds but I do know if I don’t make time for life’s moments like this, relaxing at Lake Calhoun, I will regret it. I don’t want this moment to be over, just like the little boy playing in the water. “Time to go,” the mom says to her little boy. “No. I want to stay right here,” says the little boy. “One…..Two….Three. Let’s go,” insists the mom. The boy doesn’t move. Doesn’t even budge. “Okay. Mommy’s leaving. See ya.” The little boy exclaims, “NO MOMMY!” Yet he is still standing in the lake, and he’s not gonna leave. Sometimes I don’t want things to change. I don’t want to move on. But I know I gotta. The only rule of life is you only get one. Tick-tock. That second, gone. Never gonna get it back.

How should I be spending my time? What is really important to me?

I didn’t intend to take my post in this direction when I started to write in my black moleskine notebook while sitting on the shore of Lake Calhoun. I was simply going to talk about the joys of spring and the change in season. I realize that asking these questions and thinking these thoughts is just a part of a fresh start. Just like spring feels today.

People who know me as an Art Director know that typography is of the utmost importance to me. There is nothing I dislike more than the misuse of hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes. I’m just going to dive right in and explain.

A hyphen is a punctuation mark used to divide or compound words. An example is: high-five. Simply use the hyphen key to create one (it is in-between the zero and the equals sign on your keyboard.) Most people know and understand how to use a hyphen to make a compound word. You may be thinking to yourself, this is so elementary, is she really writing a blog post just to explain what I learned in elementary school?!

What bothers me is most people don’t know what an en- and em-dash are. Since they don’t know the proper usage of these special characters, they use the hyphen to do jobs meant for the en- or em-dash! Even worse, they use a double hyphen…yuck! Today your life will change forever because you are going to learn to embrace the power and magnitude of …drum roll please…en- and em-dashes!

This is an en-dash. – You will notice that it is longer than a hyphen. (en-dash is to the left and hyphen is to the right:  –  -  ) Amazing how a millimeter can make such a huge difference! But it does!

An en-dash literally means “to.” As in she lived from 1892 to 1935. To use an en-dash properly, simply place an en-dash between the years. No spaces, please! 1892–1935. Another example is: from three o’clock to five o’clock pm. 3:00–5:00 pm. To create an en-dash on a Mac, hit the option key plus the hyphen key. Voila! An en-dash is born!

What is an em-dash? It’s punctuation used to note a pause in thought—just like this. A person could use a semi-colon to do this, but we are talking about the English language here! Add some flair! Using only semi-colons all the time can be boring and who wants that? Not me! Please do not use spaces on either side of the punctuation as I’m doing here — how ugly does this look? Yuck. Look at the last sentence. The em-dash stands out like a toothless, hillbilly at the Oscars. And the last thing we want is for our punctuation to stand out! We want our reader to seamlessly read our text, and don’t want them to hiccup over unnecessary, superflous spaces! To create an em-dash on a Mac, hit the option key plus the shift key plus the hyphen key.

- – — Here you can see the vast differences in length between the three punctuation. Size does matter. And it matters how you use it, too!

(punctuation shown above from left to right: hyphen, en-dash, em-dash)

P.S. For the PC users—I googled key commands for en- and em-dashes and this is what I found. To make an en-dash hit alt and type these numbers: 0150. To make an em-dash hit alt and type these numbers: 0151. All I can think of is, SERIOUSLY!!!! This is just one more reason I love Macs, they make everything easier! Occam’s Razor.

“Blah, blah, blah.” I use these non-words to fill-in-the-blanks. For example, when I recount a conversation I might say, “Anne said the turtles are green and the sky is blue…blah, blah, blah.” The blahs would tell the listener that more was said in the initial conversation. I’m condensing and distilling only the facts I think you need to know. I use the blahs in conversation like a writer would use ellipses.

I love these three little non-words. Blah. Blah. Blah. But not as much as I love these three real words: whatever I want. As in, what are you doing? Whatever I want. Or, what are  you eating? Whatever I want. This all started after I saw the movie Napoleon Dynamite. While most people got over it, it stuck with me.

And now I’m totally off point. Back to the blahs. Ahem. I love those three little non-words so much! I even bought some cute post-its at Paper Source that say “blah, blah, blah” as a headline and at the bottom have a check box that says “Blah.”

I thought it fitting (and clever) to call this site my Blah Blah Blog. I thought I was a creative genius…..until I googled it. I’m not the only person who dreamed up the pun. Google showed me my idea for my blog title was unoriginal and bland, like vanilla wafers or saltine crackers. Great snacks, but boring.

I don’t want my blog to be boring! In fact, I want to be the opposite of boring. Exciting! Thrilling! Interesting! Funny! Clever! Smart!

So, what do I want this blog to become? I don’t expect to answer this question in one introductory post. But perhaps we should get started by getting to know me. My self description follows: blah blah blah.

Just kidding! (We’ll get to know me later.)

What should I write about? What title should I give the blog?

Hmmmm.

Whatever I want.