Did you hear that Wal-Mart has a new logo? Here are the bullet points:
1. The name is no longer Wal-Mart. It is Walmart. At least they didn’t change it to Wally World, am I right?
2. Apparently the logo will be complimented by a burnt orange color. Nobody knows for sure how burnt orange is actually going to compliment light blue and yellow, but that’s beside the point.
3. The star separating “Wal” from “Mart” is gone and so is the blue and white. Patriotic colors are so yesterday.
4. No word on whether or not the yellow smiley face guy is gone for good or not. Cross your fingers.
5. To the right of the logo is a yellow starburst or sun or asterisk or something.
Here is a short video clip showing the logo from Fox News:
[Ok, I just can't let that last comment from the reporter pass. He says "How much does that job pay do you think? Coming up with a little sunshine?" Seriously? What an idiot! How much do you think that jerk makes to wear a suit all day and read other people's words? Moron. Moving on...]
My first reaction to the logo was, I have to admit, a little perverted. My problem is that ever since reading “Breakfast of Champions” by Kurt Vonnegut I have never looked at asterisks the same way. Google it if you don’t know what I am talking about.
I will leave it to the other blogs to dissect the logo more. Criticize the font. Question the color. Scream about the symbol. The usual. I guess my post is more about the positioning. Is this a step towards positioning the company as a more trendy or up-scale store? In other words a reaction to the success that Target is enjoying. Or is it an attempt at a facelift to appease the communities that object to the presence of the giant stores? That is too much weight to put on even a great logo, so they will have to have some incredibly amazing supporting design elements if they are going to pull that off.
If they can’t change their brand image with this new logo then what’s the point of a redesign? As bad as the old logo was (if you can call it a logo), at least it was honest. It was a generic warehouse sign. No frills. It made you think that the money they saved by not having a logo or nice signage was being passed right along to the customer. It may be design blasphemy, but I think there was some merit to that “lack of design” philosophy. It will be really interesting to see how the new identity works out for them.
I haven’t made a music post in a while and being that is is about the middle of 2008 I thought I would give you some tracks from my favorite albums of the year so far. Here is a 12 track mix tape that is pretty darn good, if I don’t say so myself…
Rian wanted to make a movie today so we hooked up the camera, got out his Star Wars guys, and started playing. He had the idea of using the printer as a spaceship and this is the movie we came up with. Enjoy…
Even with our huge 100+ gigabyte hard drives, space eventually becomes an issue. Anything you can do to save space is helpful. As your music collection grows it becomes more and more important to control your music library. For the most part iTunes does a great job. If you have iTunes set to automatically manage your library then you probably already have things pretty organized.
There is one major flaw, however, that you may or may not be aware of. When you delete a song from iTunes it asks you if “you want to move the selected song to the Trash, or keep it in the iTunes Music folder?”
By default iTunes will keep the file and just delete it from iTunes memory. Unfortunately, this creates an orphaned file somewhere in your Music Folder. ITunes no longer knows that it exists and unless you have the patience to manually go through your folders these files are doing nothing but taking up space. Even if you are pretty careful about clicking “Move to Trash” every time you delete a music file there will inevitably be times when you accidently keep the files.
It is pretty easy to see how much space the orphaned iTunes files on your computer take up. At the bottom of your iTunes screen you should see a line saying something like “14118 items, 37.6 days, 66.88 GB.” Compare that last number to the size of the folder where iTunes saves your music. Unless you changed your settings that would be in user/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/. If the size of that folder is larger than what iTunes is telling you then you have some orphaned files.
In my case, my music folder was 3 gigabytes larger than my iTunes library so it was definitely worth it to recover the disk space. Unfortunately, iTunes doesn’t have a built in way of fixing this problem. You could try moving your library then reimporting all the music. That will work, but you might lose your playlists and if you have a large library this will take a long time.
Luckily there is another solution. Doug’s Applescripts for iTunes is a great place to find scripts that extend the features of iTunes. The script that will help us consolidate our music library is called “List Music Folder Files Not Added v2.0.” Follow the instructions on Doug’s site to install the script. It will show up in the iTunes menu bar under the little script icon. Click on it to run the script and then follow the directions. If your library is pretty large it may take several minutes for the script to complete. When it is complete you will have a text file containing paths to all the orphaned file in your music folder.
Now that you have a list of orphaned files you can delete them. You can do that manually, but that could take a while. A better way to eliminate them is to add them all back into your library and the delete them. To do that, change the extension on the text document from “.txt” to “.m3u”. Next, double click on the file and it should open in iTunes and begin adding all the orphaned files to iTunes. Then all you have to do is go to “View” and click “View Options.” Make sure that “Date Added” is checked and click “ok.” This gives you an extra column with “Date Added” as the header. Click on this heading and your library will be listed with the most recent additions at the top. You should see all the orphaned files that you just re-added to your library. Now delete them and make extra sure that you click “Move to Trash.” Empty your trash and you are done.
I hope that helps you clear up some space on your computer. I am on a Mac, so if you are on a PC and find that this doesn’t work please add your advice to the comments. Good luck!
If you have ever read Fahrenheit 451 you probably remember the part at the end where the people are all carrying around parts of great literature in their memories because they have no books. I wonder what copyright lawyers think when they read this part of the book. What do the people in the book plan on doing with all that knowledge? Eventually they will write it down and pass it around to all their friends. Without a licensing agreement! I’m no lawyer, but I think that qualifies as blatant copyright infringement! Wouldn’t it be funny to write an alternate ending to Fahrenheit 451 where Guy Montag and his crew are successful in recovering all the great literature but end up imprisoned for copyright infringement when they start publishing the new books?
The firefighters who set fire to the books in 451 are the copyright enforcers of today. They stifle the growth of culture and intimidate creativity at every turn. Ray Bradbury said,
“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches… Every dimwit editor … licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.”
Replace “editor” in that quote with “copyright lawyer” and I think you get the same idea.
The quote that I wrote on the bookmark that fell out of my copy of Fahrenheit 451 says, “Those who don’t build must burn.” Today we don’t have firefighters running around burning books, but there is one area where creativity is being stifled. Copyright law makes it hard for people to create new derivative work without fear of being sued. I bring this up because I think that often copyright law makes little sense in the digital times that we live in.
So if lawyers win the copyright war where will the next front be? When you think about it, digital “content” really has no value by itself. It only gains value when it is connected to your brain. Is it that big of a stretch to think that the next battle ground for copyright infringement won’t be in cyberspace, but in our heads? Will you eventually need a license to remember a song? When technology advances to the point where you can download a movie straight to your mind will you have to pay a licensing fee every time you access it?
The irony of Ray Bradbury’s masterpiece is that his dark view of the future was exactly right even though it was completely wrong. We don’t have a shortage of books. We have an overload of information. Books aren’t burned, they are buried in the avalanche of thousands of books published each year. The hard part isn’t finding a single copy of a good book. The challenge is finding a single piece of quality writing in a world flooded by information. And the biggest irony of all is copyright. Copyright is meant to protect the creativity of the author. But the harder copyright law is enforced the more limitations it puts on the creativity of everyone else. You probably would have less people up in arms about burning a copy of Fahrenheit 451 than you would people worried about the copyright infringement of adding a final chapter to the book like I suggested. That is a sad commentary of the times I am afraid.
My latest side project has been to build an archive of over 1000 fonts that anyone can use on their website. The project is called Font Burner and it makes it super easy to change your website’s headlines from boring system fonts to beautiful creative fonts. All you have to do is copy a chunk of code into the head of your webpage. Head on over to www.fontburner.com to check it out.
Technically the site launched last weekend but I was still working out some bugs so I haven’t started promoting it until now. I am really excited about the possibilities of the site so please let me know what you think of it. Also, if you use Font Burner on your site let me know!
You probably have seen the Nikon commercials where girls steal Ashton Kutcher’s camera and they take flirtatious pictures with it. Frankly, I find the commercials annoying, but does that mean it is a bad advertisement? Nikon needs to sell cameras and the money isn’t coming from geeks like me who take apart broken antique cameras in their spare time. The money comes with selling tons of cameras to the vast majority of people who aren’t particularly interested in photography as an art form. The truth is that cameras serve a different purpose in modern society than it does for people like me. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, it just isn’t me.
Today the camera is a status symbol. The camera is a fashion accessory. The camera is a social toy. To the average person it is just a way to document your life and have some fun. So perhaps the Nikon spots are brilliant. With a market flooded with affordable digital cameras what do you do to stand apart from the pack? More megapixels? New technology? People expect a camera to take good photos and have the latest features. To sell more product camera makers have to find another way to differentiate themselves.
Nikon’s answer is to sell a lifestyle. The Nikon commercial appeals to the average person not because it is pushing “speed and a Nikon lens,” but because it is selling a way of life. Girls like the idea of using a camera to flirt with that cute guy. Guys like the idea of taking advantage of clueless babes. And this all happens in the context of some kind of party that you wish you were invited to. Sex, status, and a party lifestlye. The formula works for beer and deoderant, why not cameras? I guess all that is left to do is smile and say cheese.
Just a quick post before the weekend is over. This one is probably only funny to fans of Kermit the Frog, Elliott Smith, and Royal Tenenbaums. To the other two people in the world that share those interests, here is a video for you:
Logo Design Love Awards is a competition that is going to recognize the best logos in the blogosphere. I was lucky enough to help with the judging, and I thought you guys would enjoy browsing through the logos as much as I did. There are ten categories of blogs and somewhere around 100 logos. Check it out, and cast your vote in the comments of their site.
