The luckiest color

A big congratulations to my dear friend Mimosa, who has recently been honored by being named 2009 Pantone Color of the Year! Wow, what an honor that must be. Beating out Tangerine, Blue Iris (who took the 2008 honor), Celery, Rose Dust and just barely edging out Super Lemon to take the coveted annual title.
Described by friends as "a warm, engaging yellow," Mimosa looked toward the future during her acceptance speech. "I embody hopefulness and reassurance in a climate of change," says Mimosa.
"The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance," explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. "Mimosa also speaks to enlightenment, as it is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation."
Congratulations, Mimosa, enjoy your time in the sun....
(source: Pantone)

Paper will always live

Sometime soon I'm going to take an entire month and read a book a day. Maybe you can help me plan out my reading list. Feel free to submit ideas. I would definitely need a good ratio of fiction to non-fiction, but would love to get some suggestions. I love books. I love time. Sometime I will have time to read lots and lots and lots of books.
My favorite interior design element is lighting. It can completely make or break a space. Thus, the recent post I had about compact fluorescent lighting. I can't handle it; I think it literally makes my skin crawl. That's no exaggeration. I tend to buy too many lamps. I have to really restrain myself when I see some great lighting on sale. I already have moved things around to fit too many lamps in some small spaces and have a few too many lights in storage. However, I'm still looking for the perfect lighting situation for above my counter/stove in my kitchen....I need a trip to a decent lighting store. But I'd surely be a kid in a candy store and would need to go with someone who could restrain my purchases to the urgent need at hand.
I found a fantastic design shop in The Netherlands that makes beautiful lighting from books. Wow....what a marriage of function, love and beauty. Okay, that may be a bit dramatic, but I'm certain my friends Mandy (the author) and Michelle (the librarian) will appreciate the aesthetic joy of these; they definitely give a new meaning to reading lamp.

Leave the camera at home

The last week has been filled with some odd occurrences, for certain. The topper on the cake was a lesson I learned on Monday......I'll set the scene for you: it was a very sunny, yet cool afternoon as I was leaving my office. I was thinking about how nice it would be to try to get a photo of the outside of my building, now that spring had sprung. Something you may not know about me is that I love architectural photos; I'm drawn to photos of building tops, corners, windows, doors, close-ups of interesting building elements. Oddly enough, there was a maintenance/repair person taking some close-up photos of the building just as I came outside the door. There must have been a light out or something near the door. Oh, and did I mention that Homeland Security resides in my building? Well, needless to say, the man with the camera was surrounded by a bevy of U.S. Homeland Security officers in just moments. It's nice to know I'm secure and sound, but I will prepare for an altercation when I bring my camera.
In honor of the oddities of the week, I wanted to share this advertisement I found. It is a massive floor sticker in a shopping mall in Jakarta, Indonesia. Viewed from levels above, all those people moving through the mall look like fleas moving around an itchy dog. I like it....can you imagine seeing that in an upscale mall in the U.S.? It is a funny thought.

Paper Zen

It has been a busy few weeks here at aha creative, with lots of fun projects and several new clients diving into the creative pool. If you're feeling buried in work or stressed out from tight deadlines, I have found the perfect artistic and Zen-like outlet for you.
When I came across the Instant Origami site, I was first thinking about my grandmother. She was the true artist in my family, across a number of media. My favorite works of hers are the most intricate and detailed pieces she did. Her painted Christmas sugar cookies were favorites among people I meet who knew her and received them as gifts; they were freehand-painted works of art and (despite the fact that they were also delicious) they were saved and rarely eaten. The cookies were not my favorite of her works, though. I loved her origami and paper creations. She and I used to sit and create intricately folded paper animals and objects. She created full-framed scenes made from cut, curled, rolled, folded and glued paper. Origami still makes me think of spending time with her, learning how to cut, fold and curl tiny strips of paper into amazing designs and scenes.
On that note....make sure you take a moment and check out the calm and serene of watching someone create works like "The Mask" and "The Octopus" on Instant Origami. Please let me know if you enjoyed the peacefulness of it as much as I did....

It's a disease

Advertising, at least when it becomes a plague on your brain, is a sickness. Those of us who live it, breathe it and can't avoid it (even when we want to) should probably be quarantined and sent to live on an island filled with peeling billboards, road signs, hand-made posters and crappy restaurant menus. Unfortunately, we become a menace to those around us and, eventually, infect them with this disease of mock and critique of life while we live it.

And I quote, from my daughter in the car this morning while she was browsing the first American Girl doll catalog I've ever let her see, "Mom, why is every person smiling in this catalog? Do they want me to like them and the dolls so I buy them?" She's three years old. Enough said. There's no hope left for my family...

Good green, bad green

I'd be the first to say that I'm all for green design, printing, production and products. I chose an office with wall-to-wall windows for that reason. This century-old building is far from the most efficient, but given my other options, this one requires me to use very little energy above what is needed to power my computer, a small lamp from time to time and this radiator stays off 80% of time in the winter. I try to do my part to conserve what I can.
I have installed compact fluorescent lighting at home, but am afraid it's all about to go out the window. I hate it. I hate fluorescent overhead lighting in EVERY application. Its headache-inducing, horrible light has lost my good graces and I'm going back to incandescent. I'm sorry. I just can't do it. I can't see in my kitchen anymore because the fluorescent lighting is so dim--and my family will be so much happier if the food looks good under proper lighting again. You sure don't see quality restaurants using fluorescent lighting to showcase their food. If I had it in on my office I'd lose my mind in about 30 seconds or less. So, I tried it. The experiment was a failure. I will leave the fluorescent bulbs for other folks and wait for something better to come along, as I'm sure it will eventually. Apologies.
However, on a much better note, I just read about what my community is doing for recycling efforts. I couldn't be more excited about this endeavor. We are already the only city in the county to offer curbside recycling. And, just the other day, I was beginning to wonder if that would continue, given current economic conditions and what I have read about recyclable materials being in very low demand. Not only will recycling continue to be strong here, but we are soon going have curbside collection of organic food waste and paper-based packaging waste, which will be recycled into compost material at a local nursery. Wow! I am so excited about this prospect. One local restaurant/hotel has been doing this for a year now and, because it went so well, the city of Huron has decided to expand the program for residential collection. As far as I can find, we are the first city in the state of Ohio to get a program like this. Let me say kudos to all invovled--great work. Here is an article about the program. The Morning Journal