Entries Tagged as ‘Trends’

December 16, 2009

Is It Lexy?

The Oxford Word of the Year for 2009 is “un-friend”.
unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
It was a bit of an average list, and I think “un-follow” is more deserving, but their reasoning is:
“Unfriend is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense [...]

November 23, 2009

Prolonged Exposure

I’ve been off the grid for a while, doing all kinds of stuff. A lot of it is actually what my parents would call “constructive”, but there’s been a few time-wasters in there as well, and one of those was the TV show Entourage. I’ve just done the entire 6 seasons.
No idea why, but it [...]

October 23, 2009

And Much, Much, Much, Much More Brass…

Am I sensing something of a steampunk backlash gentlemen and good ladies?
Merlin Mann flies off with that great jazz pen of his at kung fu grippe about steampunk singles ads:
“…printed by hand on authentic parchment or linen rag of the period, using hand-mixed blue-black squid ink and a puckity-puck steam-powered letterpress that’s attached by eight [...]

August 21, 2009

Stealth Branding

I commented on streetwear label Freshjive dialing back the branding yesterday, and it reminded me that I’d seen similar things in the f&b industry recently.
My trendspotting spidey senses are tingling.

This is Burger King at the new Ion Orchard in Singapore, which their press release says is “specially-designed to reflect the lifestyle trends of the new [...]

August 20, 2009

Losing The Logo

For someone who’s designed a lot of logos I know this is going to sound strange, but I don’t wear any unless I really can’t get around it.
The exceptions seem to be the gym and sneakers (where you’d be pretty much naked if you didn’t dress in an assortment of triple stripes, swooshes and acronyms), [...]

June 16, 2009

The Fourth Place

Admittedly I’ve been in Boston less than 24 hours, but I thought it was a bit average until a couple of hours ago when I crossed the bridge to the south side and found the Fort Point harbour-front warehouse district. I got a big rush of “oh, that’s what all the fuss is about”. Actually [...]

June 9, 2009

The Answer My Friend Is Blowing In The Wind

It’s summer in Washington. The weather is in the gorgeous low 30s in the day and high teens at night. There’s a spring in everyone’s step and Capitol Pride is next week.
And there are lots of convertibles on the road. From Jags to VWs, they all have their tops down, and I expected to see [...]

June 8, 2009

How Life Became Grande

I just flew Singapore to Washington via Tokyo, and I’ve managed to pass 7 airport Starbucks cafés. Washington has 5.
I’ve probably mentioned before that I don’t find Starbucks coffee all that stunning. It’s not terrible, and it does the job, but I grew up in a city of great Italian coffee joints, and my preference [...]

April 5, 2009

Buyers and Sellers

I was having a sunset drink on the balcony with my pup Yang last week and we were deep into a conversation. He’s in the real estate research business, and he’s fond of saying how it’s shifted from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market.
I’m in business for myself. Perhaps you are too. What was [...]

April 4, 2009

Surviving The Global Financial Hissy Fit

One of my favourite writers/thinkers, Kim Sbarcea coined the term GFHF (Global Financial Hissy Fit) and I like it so much I want to get tshirts made, because in a way I’ve been struggling with with what it’s all about. Is it a recession or a reorder? My vote is going with reorder.
What’s the difference? [...]