Friday, June 25, 2010

The Two Ts, and a Red Tie

Tracy Collins and Tom Blodgett were a real one-two punch yesterday.

Mr. Collins was very clear about his expectations for good visual design, and possibly the only font evangelist I've ever met.  Full disclosure: anyone who includes Monty Python clips in his presentation is automatically all right with me.  His critiques of our work made complete sense after he'd laid out all the rules and guidelines...and he's right about the "melted text" font (insert sad face here); just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean you should.

I especially liked the extreme makeover bit, though my appreciation probably stems largely from the fact that my pages weren't selected for that treatment!  I just thought it was good to see how the same content could be reworked.

It was good to hear that some things are "red tie" issues, and don't necessarily require instant incineration.  (Gotta get a hold of that animation to use in my class!)

Oh, and FYI, to all you non-believers: here's a pic of Mr. Billie Joe Armstrong, in his RED TIE which he wore more or less constantly for the entire "American Idiot" tour.  How DARE you doubt me?  Sam pegged me as "Alt Boy" the first day, and you know it's true.  I own every Green Day CD that has ever been released (even the couple of mediocre ones).

Anyway, I do want to make a public apology to Tom Blodgett for calling him out on the "battle" cliche.  Given the penchant of the various presenters for asking trick questions and messing with us, I really did at the time think he might be testing us.  It was at least irreverent of me, and possibly rude; where I'm from, cheap laughs are sometimes all we get.

There are so many cliches in sports it must be a real minefield to navigate through them all...

Blodgett did have some great ideas for how to keep sports reporting fresh when you don't do daily papers, and I think they will be the first test for some of my new staffers this fall.

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