aka Design Dude

This is the second best thing about my job.

Under the guise of creating a dynamic social shopping community, I actually just spend all day trying to figure out how to buy loyalty (in the form of gifts for two year olds) from my daughter.

Before DesignDude was conceived, I was hired by ThisNext to build its baby/parenting vertical, which is more robust (but no less boring) than it was when I arrived. What can I say — baby stuff is mundane, now matter how many celebrities you tie to it. But as a real-life dad, I still see the sexy side the baby world, and I tend to have a lot to say about the imposition of gender identification at a very young age.

Read the rest of this entry »

If for no other reason than the fact that I love the idea of a helplessly indie clothing label devoting itself to ties and pocket squares, I’ve been following Sovereign Beck since spring Pool ‘06. I get the feeling these guys have occasionally been a little bummed out that almost everything I’ve ever written about them has mixed a real fondness for the brand with a very frank mention of a slightly awkward design sensibility. But I keep coming back for more of this compelling label, and I wrote a little more about the brand here and here over the last couple days.

This is sort of how I feel.

MoCo Loco just introduced Magazine Reviews, which I think is awesome. Working in the internet, you get a fucking earfull of how dead print is. But for someone like me, who has only really ever paid attention to niche-market magazines, this industry appears to be as thriving and vibrant as ever. (As if the internet wasn’t paying attention.) Here’s the first roundup, which includes new issues from Dwell, Adbusters, and Qvest.

I ended up getting interviewed by a video news site called TechZulu at the ThisNext Community Mixer I had a hand in organizing. Check out the video here. I come in almost seven minutes into the piece, after awesome setups by ThisNext President Scott Morrow and Mr. Mahalo, Jason Calacanis, who’s on ThisNext’s board.

I still get a little amazed every time I see this Obama AF1. Not so much because I like the shoe, but just for the way that this presidential candidate has connected with young people. And it hardly stops with that shoe. This is unprecedented stuff in my lifetime.

Against all odds, I organized a party for my company last week that drew over 250 people. Alongside one co-worker, I made food/drink, prizes, an awesome gift bag completely held up by the amazing folks at Mimoco, and actual attendees happen in about three weeks. I’d be exaggerating to say it almost killed me, but anyone close knows that the last few weeks have taken their toll.

The good news is that the party was a remarkable success. Nearly twice as many people as we anticipated showed up, we evangelized the hell out of ThisNext and got several dozen people to sign up for and use the site that night, and good times seemed to be had by all involved, including me, pictured above with longtime online pal David Vo, delivering my winning smile. Check out the Flickr awesomeness.

The first article I wrote for 944, on a DIY booking service called Zebratour, ended up never making it to print. There was ultimately some kind of miscommunication between the guy who founded the company, and the magazine about how close the Zebratour site was to launching at the time of the interview and subsequent writing of this article. (No kill fee, by the way.) I’ve finally given up on this ever seeing publication, but this is what it looked like, pre-edit:

Read the rest of this entry »