sketchmonkey; will work for food and/or wifi
Today at work I am designing a set of icons (the sort of dorky illustrations so popular in Conceptual Models) around the concepts of invitees, volunteers, surveys, different means of communication (postal mail, telephone, electronic), and public policy-making. Can't possibly complain about my job. :) I'm just struck by the realization that most/all of the iconic themes are based on obsolete technologies, yet that's what comes to mind and that's what seems recognizable as an icon by its usage everywhere else. The telephone, for example. Do you ever see a telephone icon that isn't either a squat little 9-button with a horizontal handset, or its rotary grandpa? If you saw a simple line drawing of a modern office phone, or even a typical home wireless rig, would you think "Ah, a telephone"?
For the concept of public policy, my current most-played-with sketch involves a piece of scrolly parchment-ish paper, even though laws haven't been drawn up that way in.. a while. (I'm also throwing around a ballot-box and some somber-looking books, but those say to me something more like "Popular Vote" and "Archive".) For the concepts involving people, I am trying to get away from the mental rut of bathroom icons, but damn, it's not easy to think of enlightened stick figures any other way.
(This may be because I am more artisan than artist. Yurr.)
Am very much amused that my first thought for "corporate policy" was a three-ring binder.
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I was the only MFSO1 member on last night's conference call who wasn't on the MFSO board in one way or another. Not good. The war news from Iraq is driving me distracted, enough that I am taking on slightly more MFSO chapter business than I strictly have time for. My news consumption is feverish; I read breaking stories on bbc.co.uk at eleven o'clock at night, see the same thing on the PI newsstand the next morning, and wonder desperately what happened in the intervening twelve hours. How is the world going to tilt today? If the shit well and truly hits the fan, whatever that entails, will anyone be able to do anything but wait for it to come down2?
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Going apartment-viewing at 5 o'clock. May it not suck. People keep asking me what I'm going to be doing in three or six months, but at present I cannot predict as far as next week.
1: Military Families Speak Out
2: And define shit, while you're at it. Somewhere, a butterfly flaps its wings.
For the concept of public policy, my current most-played-with sketch involves a piece of scrolly parchment-ish paper, even though laws haven't been drawn up that way in.. a while. (I'm also throwing around a ballot-box and some somber-looking books, but those say to me something more like "Popular Vote" and "Archive".) For the concepts involving people, I am trying to get away from the mental rut of bathroom icons, but damn, it's not easy to think of enlightened stick figures any other way.
(This may be because I am more artisan than artist. Yurr.)
Am very much amused that my first thought for "corporate policy" was a three-ring binder.
----
I was the only MFSO1 member on last night's conference call who wasn't on the MFSO board in one way or another. Not good. The war news from Iraq is driving me distracted, enough that I am taking on slightly more MFSO chapter business than I strictly have time for. My news consumption is feverish; I read breaking stories on bbc.co.uk at eleven o'clock at night, see the same thing on the PI newsstand the next morning, and wonder desperately what happened in the intervening twelve hours. How is the world going to tilt today? If the shit well and truly hits the fan, whatever that entails, will anyone be able to do anything but wait for it to come down2?
----
Going apartment-viewing at 5 o'clock. May it not suck. People keep asking me what I'm going to be doing in three or six months, but at present I cannot predict as far as next week.
1: Military Families Speak Out
2: And define shit, while you're at it. Somewhere, a butterfly flaps its wings.