Thoughts, ruminations, observations, and inspiration from theMechanism.
July 22, 2008 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | 1 Comment
In the atomic aftermath of Amercian television shows like “Friends” and other wannabe roommate pap, came a glorious comedy from the U.K. from 1999-2001, called Spaced. Overloaded with more clever and hidden pop-culture references than 100 episodes of The Family Guy, this show – that only filmed 2 seasons – is a classic rivaled by very few modern comedies. Starring and written by Simon Pegg, as a comic book artist (who wants to be a graphic designer someday – see, you knew there had to be a design reference in here somewhere!) and Jessica Stevenson as a perpetually unemployed writer, the show features an unzipped bunch of characters all living at or in the vicinity of 23 Meteor Street outside of London.
Just like the toys and gadgets that litter our desks at the office, Spaced will gleefully litter your creative brain with clever and unhinged plots, quirky direction (by Edgar Wright), twisted acting, and an occasional zombie thrown in for good measure.
Margaret, now residing at the London office, turned the American creative bunker on to the show long before it was available in the states, and I couldn’t be more happy that I’ll not only be able to pick up a copy of the DVD later today (with a wry nod to the poster art of Star Wars on its cover), but I’ll also get to have a copy signed at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square by Simon, Jessica and Edgar – all who were in the East Village a few hours ago (that’s Sharon with Simon before the screening) – treating us all to three episodes on the big screen, and some interesting insight afterward.
Dave Fletcher is a self-admitted Spaced junkie and Founder / Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.
July 21, 2008 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | Add a Comment
The New York Web Standards Meetup Group will meet this Thursday (24 July 2008) at theMechanism at 7:00 pm.
Google I/O was a two day developer gathering in San Francisco, 28–28 May 2008, which covered building the next generation of Web applications with Google and open technologies.
Jeffrey Barke, senior developer and information architect at theMechanism - New York, attended and will talk about what he learned there, specifically focusing on Gears, Google App Engine and the Google Ajax APIs. Prior to the meetup, you can read a bit about his experience here and watch some of the videos he's gathered at JeffreyBarke.net.
24 July 2008 . 7:00 pm
theMechanism
440 9th Avenue 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001 [map]
RSVP now!
Please contact us if you'd like to present at the September or October meetup.
Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.
July 20, 2008 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | Add a Comment
“Plump Dumpling,” a tiny hole-in-the-wall dumpling hut in the East Village has a good following and some tasty dumplings to boot. However, close examination of their current branding reveals strange werewolf-like bloody scratches on their otherwise “happy vernacular” identity mark. I’m not certain why the scratches are prominent as part of the branding, but one could speculate that the logo took some lumps from rival Lucas Lin’s “Dumpling Man” back in the dumpling wars of 2005.
Dave Fletcher is a Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. He prefers his dumplings with a side-effect of lycanthropy.
July 18, 2008 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | Add a Comment
While returning from a client meeting on Thursday morning, I passed through the 42nd street subway station at 8th Avenue. Inside of that station is a somewhat puzzling and eerie strip mall, which has various poster/framing shops and a clothing store with branding resembling the GAP.
I was perplexed to see that they are using “RAG,” printed in their corporate typeface without further explanation.
My initial inclination was that they were promoting a clothing drive or other means of donating to the poor. Later I realized this wasn’t a GAP store at all, but a company that has been around longer than the GAP called RAG New York.
Regardless, this is a perplexing use of corporate branding of a clothing store without necessary explanation for a couple reasons:
- considering the short attention span of the average out of town subway traveler in New York City;
- considering that human fashion trends don’t yet dictate that we should be wearing rags.
Dave Fletcher is a Founder and Creative Director at theMechanism, a multi-disciplinary design agency with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa. After posting this entry, he’s fairly certain that either GAP or RAG will not be knocking at theMechanism’s door any time in the near future.
July 17, 2008 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | Add a Comment
ISOC-NY's July monthly meeting will take place tonight, 17 July 2008, at NYU.
Date: Thursday, 17 Jul 2008
Time: 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Location: Room 317, 251 Mercer Street NYC (SW corner of West 4th)
Note: Use the entrance on the west side since construction blocks the Mercer Street entrance. Must bring photo ID.
Agenda
- Meet new members. We expect and welcome new faces!
- By-laws reform. Needed but a drudge! How can we set about it?
- Planning future meetings and events. Good news is we have just received a sizable grant from ISOC-NY for our Fall program.
- ISXubuntu Linux project progress report. News from our trusty coders.
- OneWebDay planning progress report. Washington Square Sep 22 event taking shape
- Access advocacy program. Just an idea at present—the city needs some kind of central resource for those with connection difficulties.
- ICANN. Tom Lowenhaupt will report on his experiences at the ICANN Paris meet in June.
- Web standards. How can we make our own & OneWebDay sites W3C compliant?
Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.
