And, dear reader, I’m here to tell you that zombies are real.

In fact, you may own one. An unlicensed one, even.

Unfortunately, you can’t really tell by the smell that betrays traditional, flesh-and-decay zombies. More progressive zombies may dangle Glade® Air Freshners from their rotting carcasses to avert suspicion, but let’s face it - the potpourri smell is a dead giveaway. Even amongst the doctor zombies, biologist zombies, and vast phalanx of professional zombies currently active in the wild, the scent tells the tale.

In any event, I’m talking about your personal computer.

Look at it, sitting there all smug and self-righteous. Content with the knowledge of knowledgelessness.¹ Oh, certainly, dear reader, you’ve updated your virus protection to the latest version. You’re thorough that way.

But you didn’t realize your computer’s zombification occurred before you locked it down with Avast Home Edition anti-virus and Spybot anti-malware, two free software applications you installed in your near-infinite wisdom. You didn’t realize the sound of your machine beeping to life is the chorus of the digital undead. You didn’t realize your computer’s purpose is either to molest other PCs,² ripping out their vocal cords (effectively murdering their ability to speak with other machines); infecting other computers, perpetuating the zombie species (which is called, among other four letter expletives, a botnet); or finally, to further the ends of spammers around the globe. Apparently the zombies feel that spammers are an often maligned, misunderstood breed.

But fear not, like any entertaining political election, the fix is in.

1. Yes, that took three tries to write correctly and I’m still not certain it could ever be grammatically correct, even if it became trendy Internet-speak.
2. Lovely graphic, that.

Note to Hollywood producers, writers, and directors: if you’re going to create a 2 hour treatment of a 5 second flashback sequence, it’s best to have a lot of surprises. A lot.

With Alias, Abrams shuffled the structure of the show and used time-based plot lines to keep viewers interested. With Lost, you can practically see a physical question mark hovering over the collective American population, offering plot answers only when crafting two or three more questions in the process. Thriller? Check. Done.

So the script, which was written by Alex Kurtzman, auteur of Mission Impossible 3 and a number of episodes of Alias, chose to take the rich but convoluted history of Star Trek, add a time-travel scenario and, in effect, change everything without changing a thing. So we’re left with familiar characters made unfamiliar through youth and inexperience, living an alternate timeline unique to itself and completely separate from anything we’ve experienced in the past.

Time travel scenarios quickly become a mess. They have to. Look at Back to the Future. A progressive mess. The Terminator. Mess. Each effort to polish content makes the content that much more inaccessible.

Abrams and Kurtzman, however, took inaccessible, dissected it, threw away the sludgy bits and built on the crucial piece remaining - the characters. Kirk, headstrong, daring, a ladies’ man (and makes it with the infamous hot, green babe)? Check. Bones contrary, frustrated, disgusted? Check. Spock conflicted half-breed, logical, reflective? Check. Red shirt gets smoked? Check. Done.

Scuttling between the debris of the Star Trek universe is Nero, the villain - lost in self-pity, consumed in loathing, Nero, like his namesake, plays the swan’s song of the Romulan empire, plays the violin while Rome burned. He’s a miner, but as a villain, he’s a bit of a dud. He succumbs to the classic writer’s oops: I am, therefore I must.

Let me explain.

Nero uses this rather cryptic crimson goop to create singularities (re: black holes) in space to gobble up his enemies home worlds. His own home world was incinerated by an exploding sun so he wants revenge on the one man who promised to save it - Spock.

So Nero shoots off to Vulcan and begins to bore into the planet’s core. He’s a miner after all, why shouldn’t he? At this point, he injects a globule of the aforementioned cryptic crimson goop and boom - singularity inside Vulcan. Vulcan is quickly chewed up. Done.

But wait, Spock’s half-human and that means Earth must be on Nero’s agenda as well. So a quick warp over to Earth, and he starts mining towards the planet’s core. He’s a miner after all, why shouldn’t he?

Here’s the question: why should he?

Why take the extra effort to mine into the planet when he could simply ignite the cryptic crimson goop in space NEXT to the poor, doomed planet and be done with it? The singularity would still chew up the planet nicely. So why mine? It puts you behind schedule on the whole “earth as a red shirt” scenario. Both writer and director are excellent architects of the cliffhanger, but this seems…well, as villains come and go, it makes Nero seem like a bit of a prat.

The production design of the film is gorgeous. Instead of the the sterile, arching corridors of the Enterprise we’re accustomed to, the film communicates an Enterprise that is “a work in progress.” Crude and looking a bit like a combination between a time share in Las Vegas and a water processing plant, there’s just no telling if this one is up to snuff after looking at the interior. And the design of the Romulan mining vessel was beautiful.

All in all, plot holes aside, this is a film worth seeing on the big screen. But I still haven’t decided if I’m going to purchase it on Blu-ray yet when the time comes…

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, an independent contractor at CERN - The European Organization for Nuclear Research - proposed a project he called hypertext. Today, we call them links, words with a visual cue to facilitate the sharing of information. Click it and they will come.

1991: America Online shifted its focus to Internet services for the Windows operating system. AOL would make communicating on the Internet easy to use, simple to understand, and affordable for most households. But the Internet demands change, a massive gravity that creates perpetual motion. Bloated, cumbersome corporations are rarely capable of such action. Now, AOL is a dinosaur in a world of mammals.

The MP3 format becomes available in 1994. MPEG Layer 3 allows music to be compressed into tiny file sizes. The recording industry, plump on a 100% profit margin from CD sales is concerned, but unwavering in its business model. Recording industry administrative executives cannot agree on a plan so a “stay the course” mentality is maintained.

1999: Napster is born to the Internet, allowing data sharing from one computer to another. Almost overnight, a dozen other entities offer similar services. The MP3 digital music format goes completely viral. Music is commoditized. The Internet devours a raw, bloody chunk of its first business model - physical distribution.

By 2003 a number of studies are conducted on the Internet’s effect on socializing. In this same year, Facebook and MySpace are launched, simplifying the creation of personal web space with an added social component. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, was trying to get a girl off his mind by blogging. People begin to reach out, connect, and re-connect on the Web in a way e-mail cannot allow. User-empowerment defines the Internet.

In 2004, Flickr, the online photo repository, is launched. The Internet now has a face, generally uncorrected in Photoshop, and it’s beautiful. Millions of smiles, tears, and fishing trips are shared online.

Democratization of video comes to the Web in 2005 with YouTube, in part due to affordable personal digital video equipment. Desktop video editing software is both affordable and powerful enough to create decent quality digital movies. It’s only a matter of time before someone creates a low-budget movie that gets the attention of Hollywood.

2006: Twitter is born, an entirely usable short message service (SMS) for the rest of the Internet. Brevity is the mother of invention and 140 character messages spawn the concept of micro-blogging.

This is our digital life…

Fortunately, at home, I work with something less Rosanne Barr, more Monica Bellucci.

Recently, I was contacted by Ron Mitchell, President of MTec Systems, for a logo redesign. MTec Systems is a turn-key organization, leveraging hardware, software, network communications, and Internet development. Ron requested that I nudge their branding a bit, modernize it. The new logo should be:

• Flexible, allowing for multiple media outlets (t-shirts, print collateral, web media, etc.).
• Present a platform from which the company can springboard to build its new brand.
• As always, work well in either color or black/white (meaning we will not be exploring 3-dimensional logo options like Xerox or AT&T’s new logos, respectively).

Nothing new here, really. The above guidelines should apply to all logo design work.

After looking at some of MTec’s promotional material and Web site, I scribbled down a number of metaphors (in my trusty Moleskine) to explore with the logo mark.

• Web development
• Firewalls
• Wireless Connectivity
• Networking
• Integration

All of those seemed like worthwhile approaches, but after a number of sketches and conversations with myself, to myself, in the company of others, I chose to explore the concept of INTEGRATION. It’s the raw, bloody heart of any networked computer system, it has an exceptionally marketable, positive message, and allows for a flexible approach.

I view this part of the design process very much like finding the borders of a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. To solve the puzzle, you need a framework to operate within. Once that framework is established, decisions may come very quickly, but finding the heart of your approach is key to any successful design project.

Context is king.

Exploring typographic options tend to take the most of my time once the context of the logo mark is discovered. I whittle away the hours of the evening at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, looking for that typeface that properly communicates the context for which I’m searching.

In this instance, the choices came fairly quickly, but the decision took a bit of work. I wanted a generally approachable sans-serif typeface – friendly and light weight yet corporate. Caslon was in the running, as was Futura. Ultimately, I chose to work with Gill Sans. I felt the cut of the stem of the lowercase ‘t’ was particularly interesting and worked well with my theme of integration. Unfortunately, the ‘m’ didn’t want to play well in context.

Hence, artistic license. I cut the stem of the ‘m’ to complement the ‘t’ and create a manner of consistency between the two letterforms.

The next step in my design process is creating form from the previous foundation work. Having established my context from company research, chosen the iconography of my typefaces (and whatever variations to that typeface required to complement the context), I pursue the word mark, the icon, that will further complement the logo design. All letterforms, shapes, and spaces are game in this step of my process.

Exploring the context of INTEGRATION, I‘ve uploaded the important steps of this process to my Flickr account to better embellish on the flexibility, the malleability of this step. While the sketches do not clearly indicate my type choice (a conscious decision on my part to avoid restraint beyond the context I am working within), they should clearly denote my progression from one topic to another as I try to hone in on the mark.

Integration, yet simplicity. Networking. A number of computer components working in tandem, fluidly, to provide an information rich environment. One point connecting to another connecting to another.

A perfect circle colliding with the letterforms. No, not colliding. Integrating with the letterforms, yet not so much as to obscure the readability of the letterforms.

Color is the next step in my design process. There’s not much I can add here that hasn’t been stated or re-stated in one form or another on countless other design web logs. I keep color solutions simple to ensure cross media needs (clothing, print, web, etc.).

After offering a number of options to the client, exploring several approaches, we landed on squarely on blue. Cool blue with a hint of red. PMS 288.

And that’s my process. Structured, but flexible, allowing for special considerations with those picky clients. In this case, however, Ron was very satisfied with the final logo design.

To better supplement this post, I’ve included a few links below of various other logo design techniques and approaches you may want to explore when you have a moment. While I don’t necessarily agree with their respective approaches, it’s worth exploring to be informed. Finding your own rhythm is the beauty of communication design.

• How to Design a Logo from Just Creative
• How to Design a Logo from Concept to Completion from Spoon Graphics
• Find Your Identity from Peachpit

That’s a wrap. My Dell’s reluctantly silent now. I’m going to defragment her this weekend to see if this adjusts her attitude. Who knows? Maybe she’s just churning for retirement.

Written by Alan Moore in twelve chapters, the book is an examination of intricate structures, pirhouetting between Thomas Pynchon-esque frameworks and pre-established conventions from Moore’s previous Swamp Thing run (published by DC comics). The writing is beautiful and brutal, deft, ruthless.

One of the most fascinating characters in the story is Dr. Manhattan, a god-like being capable of bending matter to his will. He experiences time in a lateral fashion, as opposed to our linear one. All times - past, future, and present - are linked in his existance. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that ‘time’ is not something he experiences at all but a state of being, of existing beyond it. For Manhattan, time becomes conceptual.

For the Watchmen movie, time is a very real villian.

The film tries desperately to cling to Moore’s original content, mirroring the formulas he used to maintain the story, both thematically and technically. Unfortunately, in doing so, it has no soul, no drama.

No time.

To defend Zach Snyder, the film’s very competent director, there simply isn’t enough time in three hours. There isn’t enough time to explore Silk Spectre’s near pathological denial of her father, or the culmination of conflicting emotions when faced unavoidably with his identity. There isn’t enough time to explore Rorschach’s gracefully ugly world view and the gradual  effect it has on the therapist that interviews him, the professional life he’s crafted around himself. There is no time to explore the nuanced relationship between Night Owl and Rorschach, the homosexual undertones in their relationship. No time.

Film is not the vehicle for this story. A film continues to roll forward for three passive hours of viewing. There is no time to drink in it’s dignified architecture, no panel border to pause and reflect on the tale being told, the characters it envelopes.

The Watchmen movie is an excellent effort - handsome and artistic. But as often before it, the book that spawned it resonates, the film does not.