BrainFuel

I was going to skip this month since I hadn’t seen any good logos and then I had a discussion with someone who works at Fender Guitars and decided it was worth telling their story here on BrainFuel.

Fender Guitars is based right here in Scottsdale, AZ and is celebrating 60 years at the moment. They have a ton of sub brands and manage them all very well. Something you might not be aware of however is that there are many variations to the Fender logo. I’ve shown the main one above which they use now. For years they used a different one (see below) and they still do today! It’s really a great story of a company throwing all of the common branding principals out the door. While they are careful about their brand and meticulous when it comes to using the proper identity, they also use a slightly different logo depending on what era the product was made in (several projects have been in continuous production for 50 years). So they basically have products on the production line with several different variations of the Fender logo. Very cool!

After talking with this guy for over an hour I came to the realization that this company treats the brand with respect but they also realize it’s all about the product. So they’re quite casual about how they run their creative department.

Then I dug a little deeper into the whole guitar industry and realized it’s big and deep! Quite a bit of history goes into this industry and as a result all of the companies have older brands (50 to 100 years old).

I’m sure you are familiar with some of the bigger brands however here’s a logo spread I made showing some of the players. I think I threw in a few amplifier companies, too.

Now the main thing I noticed in this case was that almost all of the logos are using a sort of handwriting font or a loose variant. I’m not a typography expert but I know all of these are similar enough to be gathered together here. What do you think?

Another little gem from my days learning Latin (I was never that good at Latin and made up for it by researching things like this). I’ve added useful links to offsite resources (they didn’t have as much back in 1996!).

AQUA APPIA -Finished in 312 B.C.
To bring water to Rome, mostly an underground tunnel that was 10 miles long. The first aqueduct in Rome. View picture.

AQUA MARCIA -Built in 144 B.C.
To bring water to Rome from 36 miles away. First aqueduct to have high arches with a concrete water channel on the top. View picture.

AQUA CLAUDIA – About 38 A.D.
120 miles long, mostly above ground. Remains today are scattered near Rome. View picture.

AQUA ALEXANDRINA – Built in 226 A.D.
Largest and the last aqueduct built in ancient Rome, stretched 58 miles. Built by the praetor Marcius. View picture.

FOUR AQUEDUCTS – All built during the Republic.
These were built over a span of 200 years, the conduits were almost 300 miles in length, with about 50 miles being underground. They brought water from Anio and the springs of Fracati into Rome. View article.

EMISSARIUM – About 40 A.D.
To empty Lake Fucine into the river Liris and restore some land in central Italy to farming. It was mostly underground and was about 3 miles long. Claudius finished the work of Gaius.

I’ve seen all of the Wallace and Gromit films and having just seen Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit I must say it takes top honors for best execution. The film is simply outstanding in its quality and definately a step in the right direction for Ardman films.

I’m having a difficult time deciding whether I like this movie best or The Wrong Trowsers. In The Wrong Trowsers a very cool penguin takes centerstage in an elaborate plot to rob a museum. While that film employs more subtle cues and less spoken word it still has a very, very good story. In this new film there are way more characters than ever before in an Ardman film and so it is just that much more action packed.

The plot is simple: Wallace and Gromit live in a small English town where the annual Giant Vegetable Competition is held. Rabbits have infested the town and Wallace’s company Anti-Pesto is considered the best company to manage the pests in a humane way.

Back at the home Wallace and Gromit keep all of the rabbits in the basement and feed them presumably until after the competition is over.

I won’t go into details but the next bit is where the film really shines. A giant rabbit starts terrorizing the gardens and eating the huge vegetables. There are some wonderful chase scenes and good character development at this point. There is even one scene where the giant rabbit climbs a building ala King Kong.

One more interesting note: throughout the film I was expecting to see a nod to Jimmy Stewarts film Harvey in which a giant invisible rabbit is also the central character. I didn’t see it. Checking the Wikipedia however reveals this (now obvious) tidbit: A large carrot sign advertises “Harvey’s” vegetable shop, a play on the film Harvey.

Overall I give it 4.5 Rabbits. Go see this one folks. Here are the rabbits (with a couple of their friends) and some vegetables:

External Links:

• The article about this film on the Wikipedia.
• IMDb entry.
• More reviews on Google.

Has anybody managed to successfully get a WYSIWYG editor working in WordPress? I’ve tried about four with no luck.

We’re building a blog for a client who has a huge amount of content and described the text editor from WordPress like this: “The current ‘editor’ seems to be the technological equivalent of the Windows ‘Notepad’ program — put another way, the current editor reminds me of my days coding HTML in 1996-1997, when I coded exclusively in Notepad.”

I was thinking about responding that 728,912 people so far don’t seem to mind but that felt wrong. Then I was going to say something about CSS and actually coding by hand and that felt even more wrong.

To be a true Gentlemen
This was written by General Robert E. Lee to his son.

To be a true gentleman is an ambition worthy of the best and greatest men. In as much as that term properly understood includes the possession of all good and noble qualities of heart and mind.

To be gentle to the weak, generous to the poor and just to all men,

To carry the grace of a heartfelt courtesy into all the affairs of life,

To restrain the passions and to cultivate the noblest sentiments of his nature,

To be true without rudeness, honest without self-interest, brave without braggadocio, and polite without servility,

To be clean of body, pure of mind and reverent of heart.

This is to be a true gentleman.

(My grandpa was a big fan of this poem)

Cameron Moll has a new article up on A List Apart you should read. It’s called Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign.

This is an important article folks and here’s my take on why: Design isn’t about pretty aesthetics and consistent typography. Instead, as this article points out, it’s really about branding. I notice this with blog designs. Design is one way we identify a weblog, another is the content style, and a third is the personality. You could argue that name and web site address are a fourth variable however let’s just presume for a minute that someone doesn’t remember your name.

When someone does a complete overhaul of their weblog it actually modifies the perception people will have of them. So it begs the question. If a major overhaul is in order should it be done in bite size chunks or all at once or not at all?

In other news, we now have a slightly new header image (where I’ve no doubt broken this very rule). Props to the first person who can guess where I got the picture of the space ship.

It’s FRIDAY! How did that happen? I’d like a refund, and an apology. Ok, enough chit chat. You know the drill. Come up with a caption for this photo that will cause the goat in the previous post to jump over the fence. Keep it clean and if you want to do a political caption please keep it friendly.

I’ve been going through old documents (many dating back to the mid ’90s) and finding some gems. Here’s a humorous skit I was a part of in Tucson during a Latin convention. Yeah, I actually went to a convention about Latin back in the day.

So without further ado. I present this skit mostly written by Jared Fox while I contributed in some parts of the story. I don’t remember exactly how the audience responded.

NARRATOR: (Nasal and snotty) Our little story today begins in the small province of Gallia Narborbensis, where the three stooges are gardeners by occupation.

(Curlius enters while Larius and Moeus are working).

CURLIUS: Hi, Moeus. Hi, Larrius. Get it, Hilarius nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

MOEUS: Yes, I get it. Let me know if you get this. (he kicks Curlius).

CURLIUS: I got it, but it wasn’t very funny.
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