I'll be the first to admit that I have an obsession with the 90s'.

 

Alrighty fashionistas, it is time to cast your vote! Go to facebook and vote on who you think should win this showdown. We were given one task; go to a thrift shop and see what each of us could come back with for $20 or less. Remember the goal was to get an outfit to accentuate each of our personalities, and still be fashionable. Cast away!

Thrift Shop Showdown from Honest Agency on Vimeo.

Once or twice a month, we're doing something that gets our creative juices, or minds, moving here at Honest, it aims to spice office life up a bit, it keeps us curious and inspires us. Roberta has been the organizer and has done a nice job getting events together.

Examples of things we've done or will be doing are Yoga, musical performances by friends bands, or creative presentations coupled with wine and cheese, checking out a bike thats rigged up for smoothie making, etcetera.

New perspectives and stories aid in the creation of ideas and inspiration. These ideas and stories give us the ability, or permission, to also think, tell stories, and create interesting contributions to the industry.

This week, Ty Johnston came in and told us a bit about what he's been up to. He laid out his philosophy of design, 10 simple points that we all seemed to agree would be good to keep in mind as we design and work. These philosophies could be applied to life as well. One of my favourites was "think of terrible ideas" ...Keeping your mind open to any idea opens up the conversation to many ideas which leads to great ideas.

Ty and his friends were sitting at a bar one day a few years ago chatting, when they realized that the owner was playing one of the foo fighters albums front to back. Not that the Foo Fighters are bad, but as the night went on, they really wished that they could change a few of the tracks. So, they decided to create an app that works into the wi-fi and pulls songs from Rdio, people can vote songs in and create group playlists for parties and other non-commercial parties. The Anthm app got them to San Francisco and a tour of Facebook, it's set for another release in the near future under a different name. We were able to discuss a few ideas and hear a bit more about Ty's life, the wine and cheese also added to the happiness around the table. Ty is excited and passionate about what he does, recently he has started freelancing and one of the quotes he is close to and spurs him on is a quote by Confucius.

“Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” –Confucius
Check him out here

Apparently, Children's Hospital in Philadelphia has special window washers.



That's an organizational culture that gets your senses tingling.

If you are anything like me then you are probably still writing and/or typing the date as "2012"  and you will most likely continue to do so for the next month or two. If you have somehow managed to beat this curse, then you are one of the lucky ones; if not, here's a little poster for you to help keep you in line. Put it up at your desk, your favourite cheque writing spot, or anywhere else where you may so happen to date things. Download here!

Well friends, Ikea is finally here and it's finally open and I couldn't ask for a better place to spend every dollar I own. That's probably not even true but for the sake of this blog post that's what I'm going with. I have been making a shopping list for months and even dreamed of being an Ikea employee. I literally had a dream I worked at Ikea. I don't understand it either.

Anyways, last week, or perhaps the week before a couple of us cool guy/girls from *Honest moseyed on down to 201 Portage to get in on the Ikea vending machine action. It was its first stop and we weren't exactly sure how it worked. All we knew is that you needed an allen key. So, we searched the office for every allen key we owned. As it turned out they totally supplied one.

After a bit of a wait, we were up to bat. We each took our turn, some of us took two turns ( I won't name names). Some of us walked away with some chocolates, which of course was better than the nothing others left with. Cal managed to wrangle a $10 gift card out of the machine. But, our big winner was Kerri who took home a $75 dollar gift card! Say whaaaa! (which of course would have been mine if someone hadn't cheated, I kid I kid) But, I'm not bitter and the chocolates were sweet!

Goodbye friends, until next week that is. I'm off to Chicago tomorrow to partake in a plethora of good times. There are a couple spots I want to make sure I check out; The Art Institute (the modern wing was closed for repair last time I was there, total bummer), Shedd Aquarium (it was also under repair last time, even more of a bummer), Navy Pier, and so on and so forth. But, for the most part I think I'll just wander around until something catches my fancy!



 

 

 

 

This is quite honestly the most inspirational video on the world wide web. You can challenge me on that, but, I have a feeling you will come up short.

 

I'll start off by saying that I'm as far from organized religion as you can get (I'm still spiritual). Almost everyone I know celebrates Christmas and it's pretty hard to avoid the commercialism in general, what with Scotiabank in Winnipeg Square putting it's tree up in September, for example. I truly want to believe that Christmas is a time to come together, to decorate with blinking lights, and Irish coffee season, but today's news out of America regarding Black Friday "Christmas" shopping is just ridiculous. Here's a small overview: someone pepper sprayed 20 other shoppers at Walmart in numerous departments, 2 people have been shot and 3 people have been robbed. This gives "Macy's" a whole new connotation. There's also been reports of crippled websites, with one person commenting on a forum "screw them. I'm not ordering jack if they can't get their system to work properly. Sent off a nasty email which I'm sure they'll ignore." EARTH TO AMERICA: I'm pretty sure you're doing this Christmas thing wrong. I'd be incredibly embarrassed about this international news, just as I was for Canada with the Vancouver riots. I'm well aware Christmas has nothing to do with it's roots anymore—that's not the point of this post. The point is that in an overly-communicated society, this behaviour becomes more common place and sets an example for younger people. Christmas now dominates 3 months of the year and cheap plastic crap will ALWAYS be available on store shelves. At the very least, could we try to be nicer to each other? It really doesn't take much, nowhere near as much as it does to premeditate a pepper-spray attack; it actually feels kind of good. Forgive me for skipping gifts this year. I'll be with my family, in my house-coat enjoying Irish coffee.

The snark, formally referred to as the point d’ironie, deserves serious consideration for a punctuational revival. Originally used in the 16th century, and more recently in 1899 when French poet Alcanter de Brahm suggested its return, the snark signifies what it’s name suggests - sarcasm.

Come to think of it, there are a lot of punctuation needs that have emerged through our increased use of the written word for day-to-day social and professional interaction. It’s not a need to clarify wording, but the need to convey the intended tone.

I would love a visual cue I could use for the follow up email, something that emits the feeling of being desperate to know when you’ll get what you need, understanding of the difficulties the other person faces, but clearly and politely running out of time.

I don’t know what that would look like, but if it’s anything like those ridiculous sideways winky happy faces, forget it. When I was a six year old girl I didn’t dot my i’s with hearts and I’m not about to start now.

So bravo to Henry Hitchings, who, in the Wall Street Journal, suggested revisiting lost and struggling punctuation candidates from the recent and distant past. We need linguists, graphic designers, bored desk jockeys and keyboard manufacturers to suggest and deliver snarks, interrobangs, their cohorts and their offspring to add depth and contrast to the monotone landscape of texting and email.

:) place snark here.