Somewhere, somehow, I stumbled across the blog schmutzie.com And her phoneography is exactly what I’ve been wanting/thinking/trying to do. Only, in my head, it sounded dumb. And a little juvenile. And VERY VERY NOT ART. Things aren’t Art (with a capital A) unless they are VERY HARD, and VERY TECHNICAL. They cannot under any circumstances be fun. Or easy. or probably, done by me. But what ever. her blog gave me permission to do this, so I’m gonna copy her  be inspired by her.

Only, she does her phoneography with an iPhone. Mine will be android based. I’ll post things I think are beautiful, and I’ll try and tell you what apps, filters, etc I used.

This, was this morning. It’s “dress like a rock star” day. M’s “rock star” is apparently some sort of goth/punk/grunge. Her lips are colored with black sharpie, as are her nails. She has a million baby hair clips in her hair, and her ponytail (which you can’t see) is jelled into spikes.

Taken with the HTC Amaze 4G, post processed with pixlr-o-matic

Salt Lake Public Library
Day-Riverside Branch

1575 West 1000 North, Salt Lake City UT 84116

Geography Lesson II by qi peng

Saturday, April 7 to Saturday, May 26, 2012

Artist Reception: Saturday, April 14, 3-5 pm

qi peng is an art team made up of my self, and Albert Wang.

Because that is what art is. It’s not seen, it’s an experience. It’s the right amount of light and shadow. It’s the temperature, the wind, the sounds, the smells, even my mood when I happen upon it. All those things combine, and are Art.

And I, capture it, suffocate it in a glass jar, and pin it to a board. But it is at best a simulacra. It’s not a butterfly.

Reading Ad Week’s “40 Strangest Agency Names” story reminded me that I wanted to share how I came up with MY name, Giant Peach.

Wexley School for Girls co-founder Ian Cohen had this to say to Ad Week :

“Come up with something you truly love living with. I love this name. That’s the thing about creating something that doesn’t have a real meaning behind it. We keep exploring it and building our brand.”

And I agree. Giant Peach works for me. For 8 years now, I’ve never gotten tired of it. I love it for a couple reasons. The first is, it’s a happy name. Just say it, and try and stay cross. You can’t, can you? It’s playful, soft, slightly feminine and a little quirky. Everything that I wanted to convey about my brand. Best of all, anytime I give someone my e-mail address, I get the same question: “What do you do?” For a slightly introverted freelancer, that’s the perfect opening. From there, sharing my work is easy! It’s a built in marketing tool.

But honestly, those things happened by accident.

In 2003 I left the studio I started with my business partner Sean Thomas. Sean and I go way back, and Synergy Studio was doing great. But discovered that I didn’t want to work for ANYONE, even my self. Freelancing was what was most comfortable for me. Like any designer, my first thought was “I need a URL” and that started my search for a name. With a name like Katrina (the hurricane) Miller (the beer) I knew I wanted something that wouldn’t be to hard to build search terms for. I’ve always loved the Seattle shop “Modern Dog” and I knew I wanted a name “like that”. This meant I wanted two words, an adjective and a noun. It may not show (or maybe it does!) but I’m NOT a writer. All the names I came up with were awful.

I gave up and registered “katrinamillerdesign.com” **barf***

On my way home one day, I heard a story on NPR about Kelowna BC and “The Peach”. The Peach is a concession stand shaped and painted to resemble a “Giant Peach“. While this is not that interesting in it’s self, what caught my ear was that the Peach that is there now is not the original. The original Peach was thrown into the lake during the peach festival riot in 1990. Are you scratching your head about that? Yah. Me too. And then I thought “Giant Peach”. And hey! It’s an adjective and a noun! It’s also a COLOR! BONUS!

As soon as I walked in the door I went to the computer to register my domain…which was taken. I loved the name so much however, I couldn’t give it up, and registered the NEXT BEST thing…ReallyBigPeach.com.

A lot of people ask if the name “Giant Peach” is in any way a reference to the Roald Dahl book “James and the Giant Peach“. It isn’t. Though that is a VERY GOOD book. And you should totally read it anyway.

-Muhammad Ali

-Lena Horne

40.72465, -111.88981

I am constantly struck by the beauty of places I pass in my travels. The places that inspire me are humble. Not the soaring remote mountain peaks, or lush tropical jungles, but everyday places. A parking lot, a sidewalk broken up by weeds, a cozy green space tucked under the freeway, fading murals and old typography on forgotten signs.

I want to show people these places, and have them see the beauty in them, and so I’ve begun documenting them. The images are composites of low-res cellphone camera shots to reinforce the “everyday” of these urban landscapes. This in series, called “Places” I hope to encourage people to seek out these locations them selves, and every piece is named with the location’s latitude and longitude.

Most locations are in my current home, Salt Lake City, Utah, but as I travel, I will continue to capture everyday beauty in other urban landscapes.

The Hyperarts.com blog post “The Definitive Guide to Blog Content Scraping, and How To Stop It” offers a very in-depth discussion of this practice.

That post also contains some advice on techniques you can use to stop content scraping. Since I don’t have too much of a problem with that on my blog, I decided to go with the most basic solution. You can do this too. Here is what I did:

1. Ping Google & Other Search Engines and RSS Feed Sites when you Publish: the previously mentioned article has great instructions on how to do this)
2. Include links to other posts on your blog: The IDENTIGENE blog, which I used to manage experienced a TON of scraping. However, since each post had multiple links to the corporate site, as well as other blog posts, it ment that readers usually got back to our site eventually. This was particularly entertaining when our scraped content ended up on competitors blogs. They then had blog posts, linking to IDENTIGENE.com
3. Added the rel=”author” Attribute: Google uses the “rel=author” tag to determine who the author of the web page content is. This is useful when the search engine is dealing with duplicate content (this will mean something to you if you are familiar with SEO, if not, move on).

The Hyperarts.com posts provides details on many ways to do this. I went with the most simple choice, one which you can easily replicate on YOUR blog. It requires no coding, if you can write a blog post, you can do this.

1. At the bottom of each post, add a link to your google+ profile, like this: <a href=”https://plus.google.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/posts?rel=author”>My Google Profile+</a> (yes, you will need a google+ profile to do this, go get one now. I’ll wait.)
2. See those x’s? replace those with the numbers from your google profile URL. This is mine: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110244599272006543178/about
3.  For my site, I added the little Google+ icon, instead of the text “My Google Profile+”. Just cause I’m fancy like that.
4. Complete the loop, by going to your Google+ Profile and clicking “edit”. In the right hand column, you will see something that says “Contributor to” Click that and add the Title and URL for your blog.

That’s right, I guess it’s time I officially call myself an artist. What “qualifies” one for that title is a debate for the ages. But since I have had a piece, published in an art magazine, I guess I can no longer avoid it.

My piece, “716282, -111.891246” was published in the 15th volume of Studio Visit Magazine.

I produce art as part of a cooperative, with Albert Wang, under the name “Qi Peng“. My part in this is fairly new, but it’s one that I’m very very excited about.

So many stories exist about this; the stories of the Apple trash can icon that European users confused for a mailbox, and the mailbox with a red flag that confounded international users.

What in the heck is it?

That last example made me think…how many users in the US have actually USED that style of mailbox? Disregarding of course that the analogy they used was incorrect. A UP flag means that there is OUTGOING mail, not incoming. As the population ages, I think about all the symbols, like the “mailbox” that no longer actually represent a physical object, but rather an communal idea. A picture of a mailbox is not a mailbox. It’s e-mail. or even more divorced than that, it’s a message (of some kind) that is SO far from what a “mailbox” actually is, the jump is almost un-thinkable.

The envelope icon is a little better. People still use and receive mail in envelopes with triangular flaps. But I wonder how long it is until users no longer know what that little symbol is a reference too?

"Shuffle" You try explaining that to someone who has never heard the term before.

The non-representational icons are even more fascinating, if you think about it. “Play” “Pause” “Stop” all very vague concepts, rather than physical objects, clearly communicated by one small shape. Even the now ubiquitous ”Shuffle” icon. Talk about a vague concept. Try explaining it out loud. See? Clearly communicated with that little shape. Everyone knows what it means. When did that happen? And how?