I’m in love with outer space.

It began on July 28th, 2008. I was reading the news like I usually did over my lunch break, and found this story in the Mojave desert. I knew about the Ansari XPrize, and that the first private flight to space had been done. So I was surprised to hear that not only had Sir Richard Branson founded a company called Virgin Galactic behind private space flight, and not only that they had a working prototype viewable by the general public, but that they were also expecting to send tourists to outer space en masse by early 2010.

That’s just next year. At the current rate of technological development, every one of you reading this will be in space, in our lifetimes. If that doesn’t excite you, nothing will!

My appetite grew. I started learning more about NASA. I contemplated the profound implications of the Hubble Deep Space image. I discovered how utterly massive some of the stars in the sky are.

I recently read reports about how much debris is floating above our atmosphere. I’m not a big anime person, but I started watching Planetes, which is a fictional (but very realistic) account of an attempt by international space programs to clean up space debris.

I bought and played the game Mass Effect because of its space setting.

I found the song “Major Tom (Coming Home),” recorded by Shiny Toy Guns. Usually I don’t pay much attention to the words of any song, preferring the instrumental track behind them. But these lyrics have enthralled me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Standing there alone the ship is waiting
all systems are go; “are you sure?”
control is not convinced, but the computer has the evidence
“no need to abort;” the countdown starts

watching in a trance the crew is certain
nothing left to chance all is working
trying to relax up in the capsule
“send me up a drink” jokes Major Tom
the count goes on

Earth below us drifting falling
floating weightless calling calling home…

second stage is cut, we’re now in orbit
stabilizers up running perfect
starting to collect requested data
“what will it effect when all is done?”
thinks Major Tom

back at ground control there is a problem
“go to rockets full” not responding
“hello Major Tom, are you receiving
turn the thrusters on we’re standing by”
there’s no reply

Earth below us drifting falling
floating weightless calling calling home…

across the stratosphere a final message
“give my wife my love” then nothing more

far beneath the ship the world is mourning
they don’t realize he’s alive
no one understands but Major Tom sees
now the life commands
this is my home I’m coming home

I listen to Space Station Soma in my free time. And I watched the new Star Trek movie with my wife.

It’s a fun obsession, one that I hope to continue as long as it doesn’t interfere with my work or family life. I hope to share other related links as I explore space further.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bridget is actually my dad’s old nickname (long story). I had originally intended to give my first daughter the middle name “Brian” after my father. But she turned out to be a girl. And when the second one (still in holding) turned out to be a girl, I remembered the nickname my grandmother gave to my father when he was little. We’re going with the French spelling once again, to match London’s middle name, “Nicholle”.

And I think “Madison” is just gorgeous!

No Spec

You couldn’t get away in any business with asking someone to do work for you, then paying them if you like what they did. You wouldn’t eat a diner, and only expect to pay if you thought the food was good enough. Nor would you get a haircut and only pay the barber if you think he did a good job. So why would you treat a designer any differently?

Here’s why this is an issue with me. I have been asked on multiple occasions by clients to do early designs for free, to see if they think I could do the job. This takes time away from clients who would rather pay me for me work, and degrades the quality of my portfolio. Who wants to have a collection of things they designed that didn’t make it into production?

I’ve also seen people who think it’s a good idea to have a “design contest”. They say they will have a monetary prize, and invite people to do designs for them. They will then pick their favorite design, and give away the prize.

This is a horrible idea. The typical design process has a healthy conversation between the designer and the client, to discover the goals behind the campaign and effectively communicate the message for the client. A design contest is typically crowded by young designers who don’t get the chance to have that dialogue. And the client ends up picking “the prettiest picture” with no regard to the effectiveness of the solution. You’re trying to solve a problem, but you’re just making a mess.

Suffice to say, I will not do spec work. I will, on occasion, do pro bono work for a charity that I believe in. Charities often run on very tight budgets, and giving my time to a charity (like doing the road signs for the Hope Fund) is a good way to help.

What do you think of spec work? Please let me know in the comments below!

Still Alive – THA DnB Mix by hamst3r

GUMC Newsletter – 2008-10

Church Calendar – 2008-10

GUMC Newsletter – 2008-08

GUMC Newsletter – 2008-06

I wanted the signs I was making to be as legible as possible from the road. So I went with a font called ClearviewHwy, which was designed for that purpose by replacing the font known as “FHWA Standard Alphabets for Traffic Control Devices”. I then remixed the font into a stencil, with lines cut through the shapes so we wouldn’t lose the negative space in letters like O or A.

I remade the logo given to me in vector format. I also had a picture of my daughter holding an American flag during Independence Day, and vectorized that also. I printed this stuff out in large-scale, and cut out the stencils in posterboard. Then, a friend brought 5 massive white-washed plywood boards to my parents house, where we spraypainted them on the ground.

I’ve never done anything like this before, and it was a blast.