Melding a love of data, a razor-sharp wit, and an old-school comic strip aesthetic, Jessica Hagy crafts simply drawn charts and diagrams that play like philosophical punchlines. They contemplate complex issues, like the challenges of choosing which ideas to nurture, and simple truisms, like the relationship between joy and bacon.

— from the 99% blog

found at everydayUX

At least I’ve been relatively consistent about posting (mostly Charlotte-focused) info and events to Twitter. So, if you don’t follow @cltcc yet, and you you should start! (And, my personal account is @budesigns.)

But, just know: I do plan to begin posting here regularly, again.

After another successful Pecha Kucha Night*, we are starting work on Volume 4 of Pecha Kucha Charlotte. And more than ever, we want your help to make it happen. So please join us tomorrow, Thursday 05/28/09 at 6:30 at the bar/lounge area of Pewter Rose (1820 South Blvd. Charlotte 28203), as we start planning our next big inspiring, provocative, entertaining night.

“Cloud” Installation by Wonderworld @ Pecha Kucha Vol. 3 on 04/2/09. Image courtesy: Mitchell Kearney

Vol. 4 will be back in Charlotte, most probably in late August. We haven’t decided on the exact date or location. We would love to have your help and input in all aspects of the event, including:

• Selecting the day and the venue,
• Finding presenters, communicating with them, and in putting together the final show,
• managing the website/web pages for the series,
• help at the venue during the event…

…plus there are many other things that you could be involved in. Be a part of one of the most exciting art/design-related social events in town.

Moreover, this time we will also be discussing the future of the series, beyond Vol. 4.
The success of these events were far greater than what we had imagined when we started off. While it is wonderful to have that kind of popularity and recognition, managing such a large scale series is also pretty demanding for an all-voluntary, informal group like point8. So we would like your input on whether or not to continue the Pecha Kucha series, and if we do, how you can be involved in it.

So please stop by on Thursday, grab a drink, and join the conversation.
Let us make it happen once again!

Thanks,

Manoj P Kesavan
www.point8.org

~~

* Pecha Kucha Charlotte Vol. 3 was held on April 2nd 2009 at the Gettys Art Center, Rock Hill.

We had 12 presentations and over 160 attendees – a capacity crowd for the historic courthouse space in downtown Rock Hill. We had some of the most engaging, and often intense presentations we have had so far. Thank you for making it such a big success. Thank you also for all the compliments, critiques and other feedback since the event. All that would really help us improve the quality of the upcoming ones.

Missed it? Get a quick taste of it here: http://cltblog.com/2689
The full event: http://cltblog.com/pages/pknclt3
— videos courtesy of Justin Ruckman & Erik Button of CLT Blog

…And do check out excellent the Photos:
By Zan Maddox, Gallery Up
By Mitchell Kearney

House Industries most recent project pays tribute to the modernist designer Alexander Girard. In my opinion it is their most impressive collection to date. It includes a Type Family, a Nativity Set, t shirts, alphabet blocks, lettering, Marilyn Neuhart designed Casa dolls and more.

Catch the interview with co-owner and art director Andy Cruz at grain edit.

Below is the script (plus details that time did not allow for), with some links to further exploration.

The Incredible Shrinking Media will explore a (very) brief history of modern media, and offer some tips on how creators can thrive in a world of fragmented media channels and microinteractions.

In the beginning, there was mass media. Designed to reach the widest possible audience, one message was broadcast to all. Consumers had few choices, and few have access to communication channels. It’s a consumer culture, and marketing is largely a one-way conversation. Even through the 80’s, only the most proactive are publishing content of their own – self-publishing, zines, public access TV, or guerilla methods like jamming the media, amateur and pirate radio, graffiti, billboard alteration…

Then along comes the internet, and everything changes. everybody and their brother can set up an online presence. Grab a free Geocities site, and share your thoughts with the world — complete with MIDI sound files, animated GIF logos and colorful, blinking text.

Of course, the media arms race continues… in an effort to stand out amid the noise, those with the money or the skills turn to theatrical intro movies, animated menus, bloated screens full of flashy flash content.

But ultimately, function has trumped form. The trend has shifted to clean layouts, legible type, systems which reveal the data in more useful and meaningful ways. Users find ways to get to the info that they want, bookmarking, indexing and sharing… The tools for searching, sorting, and tracking content are so powerful that in many cases the user can consume your content without your context. They don’t even have to go to your website, or view your ads. Newly published content shows up in the RSS feed reader for them to consume at their leisure. Clearly, this can present challenges for marketing in the traditional hi-fidelity way.

It is a radical shift, that many may find challenging to deal with. It takes some creative thinking to find a way to keep your message intact as it gets sliced and diced, indexed, aggregated and shared.

Tiny notes are being passed around the globe every second. Millions of people are now tweeting messages — in 140 characters or less — to their friends… who might pass it on to *their* friends, and so on. Word of mouth has never been so powerful…

The “social nervous system”: how long until the earth is blanketed in nanobots which feed sensory data into an Orphidnet of information that all can tap into, effectively becoming omnipresent? Postsingular explores this idea against the backdrop of a fantastic adventure story.

This is the era of the decentralized web presence. This is a snapshot of places where I create content online. This is an incomplete picture. Even if I didn’t have a personal website, I could maintain a web presence solely built on free services. The top google search results for my name, after my website, are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Social Media Charlotte, Fast Company, Plaxo… each of these is an opportunity to connect with new people, contacts, customers.

Not to say that you should be selling all the time. Few things are more off-putting than constant self-promoters.

But we’re all on the market for some reason, whether you’re selling a product to a customer base of millions, or just selling yourself, in your career, or personal life… giant corporations and individuals alike are turning to social media tools for communicating, and learning to co-exist in this new media space. It’s wise to be aware of the image you’re projecting.

When you want to build a strong presence online, you should have a strong focus on consistent, comprehensive branding. All the parts should bear your mark, not always visually, but in the style of delivery, tone of voice, and general demeanor.

Writing for the web has always been challenging. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure story, you can’t be certain where your reader came from, or where they’re going. This is even more apparent now, when readers may come across your content somewhere other than the site you published it on.

Try designing from the inside out — instead of designing a home page, and the framework for your content, focus first on designing the content itself, the specific, small pieces that the user is likely to interact with, and will potentially be shared, distributed, or otherwise viewed out of context.

Use microformats, a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Use them to add portability to content, such as calendar items.

Even if you aren’t creating content, there are tons of tools available to help you monitor the online activity. See who’s talking about you, your brand, your product, your competitors. See Twitter search, Hashtags.org, BuzzMetrics, and many more.

Free tools, and even content, are available for you to use, remix, aggregate, and mash up as you please. Just tread carefully, as IP laws have not kept up with the technology. Those who support the continued expansion of copyright (to the detriment of the public domain), and oppose net neutrality threaten to return us to a state where large corporations control all content and delivery channels. Read Lessig for more on this topic.

Support copyright reform, support net neutrality, protect fair use, protect the public domain, and cultivate creativity.

Thank you.

This is one track from Israeli remix artist Kutiman’s new project Thru-You, which is getting a lot of attention lately. He has composed a series of amazing videos, composed entirely of images and sounds from existing YouTube videos. Check out the Thru-You site for the full experience.