Along with many other couples, my girlfriend and I will be marrying at the end of June. We’ve been entrenched in the whirlwind of wedding planning. We’re looking at bridal magazines I thought I’d never read, making a registry, buying rings, etc. It’s been an exciting journey and poignant because we finally have the legal right to enter into this world of wedding planning madness.

Like many of California’s newest unions, our marriage will be viewed with mixed feelings. While we are used to and expect the religious right and conservatives to have a particular point of view about our pending nuptials, our wedding planning has revealed surprising, subtle discrimination from people who would consider themselves open-minded and supportive of gay marriage. (more…)

You’re looking at the new coinage of our cousins across the Atlantic, the British. The design, which cleverly has the reverse of each coin represent a part of the Royal Arms, with the £1 coin showing the full shield, is the work of a 26-year old graphic designer named Matthew Dent. His design was chosen from over 4,000 submissions through an open competition despite the fact that he had no previous experience creating money, and as a prize, he gets to see his work used every day by millions of Britons. (more…)

No, not the caloric guilt. The ‘how much damage am I doing by eating this?’ kind. Let’s face it - what’s for dinner is truly the eternal question. And layering in the added consideration of ocean conservation and sustainability to the equation - it’s sure to be a blue box mac n’cheese kind of night.

While it’s not going to help solve all of your agricultural woes, this incredibly handy “Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood” from Blue Ocean Institute will surely help guide you through your oceanic menu planning. They even have Fish Phone - a text-back feature for those frenzied restaurant moments when you’re just craving those Olympia Oysters and need to know if they’re cool. Yea, they’re cool.

a couple highlights on the internal conversations (conflicts?) i see a lot of designers, artists and communicators facing these days.

1.
a talk given by the well known designer Philippe Stark at TED in 2007 on the evolution, mutation and purpose(?) of design in the world today, and opening up possibilities for the future.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/197

2.
“Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”

this article, just published in the Atlantic Weekly, discusses the way our interaction with the internet is altering not only what we think about, but HOW we think. buy it or not, matters not. social network internet hopping junkie or long-hand writing library stack lover, matters less. this has incredible implications for all of us, and esp. for those of us involved in communications. (and mcluhan smiles.)

http://www.theatlantic.com:80/doc/200807/google