ADAM DEXTER

Ah, the mix tape. Through it’s many forms: tape, CD, thumb-drive, hand scribbled note, .m3u file; it remains, to me, one of the most personal ways of audible expression short of actually composing a song or poem. A mix tape is the original “social media.” The mix (as it will herein be referred to) is a once often practiced, now sadly neglected, art and ritual amongst friends, crushes, significant others, new acquaintances, pen pals and strangers. Even I’m guilty of it’s downfall. It is a unique and engaging way for not only the mix(ee) to get to know the mix(er) through the mixer’s selection and arrangement of musical tracks. It is also, in it’s best state, a gorgeous outlet for the mixer to weave a story and craft a message to the listener(s) (mixee) with a sonic thread. However, with the increase in music’s accessibility and rise of the iPod, mp3 players, portable drives and digital downloads, these carefully pieced, 80 minute* pastiches of hand-crafted refrain, have fallen by the wayside in favor of large “music dumps.” Where users will shove bulk amounts of music across to each other. Which, although beneficial to the overall proliferation of music and one’s exposure to new artists, work, etc, it lacks the personality, character and message, defining of a classic mix.

The true nature of a mix, is not unlike that of a composed album. It’s goal is to build a connection between compiler (mixer) and listener. Whether it’s a random jumbling of favorite tracks, a themed snapshot or a beautifully orchestrated arrangement of tracks with complementary, distinct flow and style, the mix serves as a vessel for the mixer to express themselves.

A few things I think a “classic mix” must have:
1) A finite duration – although new digital formats such as iPods and flash drives have allowed this duration to approach infinity. A true mix should show scrutiny and deliberateness in the selection. This means, that a mixes format must be a specific and reasonable amount of time. I think an 80 minute CD or 60-90 minute tape is perfect.
2) Message – a mix must tell a story. Whether that’s in the method (or lack there of) in track selection, theme, lyrical nature, personal significance. The message doesn’t have to be explicit to the listener at first glance (or ever) but a real mix must have meaning.

Additionally, a real mix is something physical. It’s something you can hold. It further embodies the mixer’s purpose down to the very packaging and delivery. The handwritten playlist, the folded printer paper or colored jewel case, the Sharpie marked, doddled and decorated CD itself. They all drip with personality and purpose. Each aspect, another opportunity for the mixer to evoke and fine tune his/her statement.

As far as specific “rules” that’s really all I can think of. There are plenty of “suggested guidelines” I can think of, like not using the same artist more than twice (unless composing a “best of” mix), or attempting some type of flow and rhythm to the arrangement. But those are more pet peeves than anything else. The above 2 items (and loosely the physical aspect) are really all I can lay down for a definition.

Now, I don’t take myself as a “mix maestro” or anything along those lines by far. A mix can be likened to piece of art, it can’t really be wrong, but it can certainly fail to correctly communicate, or fall short of the original creative and artist endeavor. I have certainly had mixes fail. I have failed at mixing. I have made terrible mixes. I have made great mixes. But the experience and reward of composing a mix and it’s ideal reception is what drives me. The progression and transition of tracks. The research and discovery of the perfect music to go together. The arrangement of style and tempo. The attempt to craft the perfect mix for the intended mixee (or event) that also accurately reflects my personality and intent. It’s challenging and it’s fun. I also get to listen to a lot of really great music in the process :)

This comes to me now, at a time, where I have been developing several ideas based around the mystique of the mix tape. They are not quite finished, but I think a return to both the art and physical nature of the mix is long overdue. I imagine a place in where people are introduced, acquainted, and enchanted, not just by a static listing of tracks, but in the actual real life process of creating and exchanging mixes. More to come.

*For me, the mix tape mostly lived on CDs, with an 80 minute limit. Although you might be familiar with 46 or 60 minute interludes.

I wrote this tutorial at work the other day for Net Tuts / Pagelime / Media Lab. Pretty cool to see it up on the front page of Net Tuts+ (permalink).

Check out the tutorial and video on Envato’s Net Tuts+ Network The Supplementary Post on our blog. And as always, I’ll be adding it to the docs pretty soon.

Wow. It’s been a while. Things have just gotten crazy in the last months. All exciting, all great, just no blogging… But I’ve got a couple of posts I’m working on and will hopefully be able to keep this updated better with the coming of Summer. So keep an eye out- I’ll make sure I post ‘em to Twitter.

In the meantime, you can keep up with stuff I do update all the time, such as my Delicious, Flickr, Google Reader, and my brand new Tumblr.

I’m excited to announce that I will be a guest on Debbie Weil’s upcoming Bulldog Reporter Webinar on Corporate Blogging: How to Launch Better Company Blogs in Six Easy Steps

Debbie Weil is a DC based corporate social media consultant and speaker, she’s been involved in all kinds of cool soc-med events in DC and elsewhere and authored THE CORPORATE BLOGGING BOOK in 2006. See her site for more details, debbieweil.com.

The webinar is:

Postponed and now TBA
Thursday Oct 29, 2009
1:00 – 230 PM Eastern

Should be fun! For more details, or to register, click here.

Last night the new logo went live, so I can finally write about my redesign for the Pagelime logo. Pagelime

is a CMS that allows you to update the content, images, and documents on your web site without installing any software. All you have to do is add the ‘cms-editable’ CSS class to any part of your site, and we host the application that edits your site.

(http://pagelime.com).

Here is the before and after:

(Click for a large .png)

Points of Improvement

When thinking about the redesign, one of the main things I considered was effective use of visual space. Since it will be used mainly on the web, I wanted it to make the best of where it was placed, be visible, draw attention and be recognizable/brandable. The previous logo used some random Japanese san-serif that came in only a view weights, it wasn’t very good reversed on black because it was so thin and could get lost on a page if the logo (we’ll call them wi-fi swooshes, swooshes for short) swooshes weren’t present with it. Spatially, the logo as it was, wasn’t really effective except in a banner or reconfigured with the swooshes underneath the type for a horizontal orientation.

The Brief…sort of.

Since I didn’t really have much of a design brief to go off of (I was given fairly free range) when I set out to do the redesign, I formed a mini, sort of checklist/brief to organize what I wanted to accomplish. It was something like:
1. Use a typeface that has a large family with good variable weights, this is so Pagelime could further be able to brand its documentation and print materials by giving them a face that could be used in multiple situations
2. visual scalability, since this was mostly to be used on the web it definitely needed to work at small sizes (aka resized on iphone screens), this actually presented the biggest challenge as scaling the kerning became an issue, at small sizes a normal, kern looked correct but at larger sizes, it appeared to be a little off between the l and i due to the small descender/terminal on the lowercase L creating extra negative space in the counter between the two characters. In the end, I went with a slightly negative kerning that was just enough to create space between the two characters at small sizes. Ideally, there might be two versions, one for use at sizes greater than X pixels and one for use less than X pixels, but to simplify its use and creation, I just kerned to basically “the line of best fit.”
3. have a brandable graphic element aka mark, although a strong typeface is key and can stand alone as a brand, having a graphic element was going to help add color and bring in another usable element, besides it needed a lime somehow.
4. strong visual presence, basically, that means I decided early on I was going to use a heavier weight for the type, I wanted to not only give the logo more weight and presence, but distance myself from the previous logo.
5. make a logo that is easily reversible, meaning, a logo that could be put on black, Pagelime has a few screens that use a black background and most of their dashboard used black in the modal boxes.

That’s kind of it, and this is what came of it.

Typography

image source: Wikipedia

For the type, I was definitely feeling a sans-serif, although I tried some serifs and even a few display fonts (I had some fun with FFCutout, but in the end it was too fun). To start, I’m a big fan of realist/neo-grotesque geometric/gotham-ish fonts, Gotham HTF and Interstate being two of my favorites, however I felt they weren’t playful enough to be used in this application, Gotham was a little too geometric and Interstate didn’t really work either. However, I remembered another font that I’ve started using a lot recently, FF DIN, the remake/expansion by Dutch designer Albert-Jan Pool of DIN 1451 which was largely used (early on) as a metal type on signs and trains in German/Europe and also mandated to be used in places of technology, business and traffic, sort of like a German version of Interstate. Although it shares a lot of the same realist qualities of Interstate and some lines of Gotham, it has more curves to it that make it a bit more playful and accessible. The curves also help it work with the organic shape of the lime. One place you might recognize the face from is the JetBlue wordmark.

Comparison

Here is an overlay of the two logos to show use of space and weight changes. Although the vertical height is a bit larger, the horizontal density is much greater, with the heavy type weight it give a really solid look to the logo.

Meet the Family

I then adapted the logo as a full set, including single color and greyscale versions for print use. Here is the full set/mood board.

Make sure to click through, for some reason the way this image is being resized makes all the colors look off.

And that’s really it, I’d love to know what you think of the redesign or if you have any questions or other comments.

Let me know in the comments or reply to me on twitter here.

Guy from The Red Chord, shits on everyone

So I usually don’t read fowarded or chain emails, but this was actually amusing. I hope I have a kid as clever and badass as this some day.

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an
Envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to ‘Dad.’

With the worst premonition he opened the envelope
with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad:

It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice.

But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it’ s not only the passion…Dad she’s pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy.

She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone.
We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy.

In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so
Stacy can get better. She deserves it.

Don’t worry Dad. I’m 15 and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday I’m sure that we will be back to visit so that you can

get to know your grandchildren.

Love, Your Son John

PS. Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house.

I Just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a Report card That’s in my center desk drawer.

I love you.

Call me when it’s safe to come home.

Alright, so today has been a good day (and I didn’t even seen 3 red cars in a row).

It’s a gorgeous day weatherwise, I busted out some sweet designs, made a pretty decent lunch. The place I work is going to pick up some really sick clients, so that means I’ll be working on some really awesome projects AND I just found out two of my images were chosen to show in Pingyao, China for the 2009 International Photography Festival. Which is apparently the “oldest and largest photography exhibition in China,” according to this tourism site. (Here are some cool pictures from last years show on a blog I found via google.)

So, if you happen to be around Pingyao between September 19th—26th, take some pictures for me, I’d love to see the show and my work there!

Oh, and here are the two images that were chosen (out of 450, of 100 others):