Definitely felt like Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo" when I looked over the banister.

I received a letter from Google Books the other day-- I just assumed it was an invoice for a book I purchased--but when I opened the envelope these fell out:

Not sure I really understand the idea behind this campaign, but I like it! Trying to figure out how to make this campaign really more applicale to someone who reads solely on a kindle or ipad.

Gorgeous oil painting by Greg Couch of Blue Sky Studios. If I had know about his art auction for Gana sooner this painting would be hanging in my apt.

This is pretty spot on for what it's like to work at an Ad Agency.

Interesting article in today's NYTimes ( A Changed Starbucks. A Changed C.E.O.) about Starbucks continual struggle to survive after the most recent financial meltdown.

As much of a coffee and tea snob as I am, I really don't mind Starbuck's coffee. It's the first coffee I remember actually having and it suits my caffeine need when I am still bleary eyed and walking from 8th ave to 11th ave.

I will acknowledge that they have a lot of room to improve and they should. For instance I think they should adopt Chick-fil-a's community strategy. Every Chick-fil-a store is such an integral part of the community that it's in, why can't a coffee shop be the same thing? It's a way to make the store feel like a part of the community and not an unstoppable force of growth for growth's sake. With 11,131 stores domestically it's hard not to compare it to McDonald's, which has 13, 918 stores in the US.

Why not make Starbuck's shops even more of a Third Place? This would be difficult in a large city, but it would help to take away the corporate feel of every shop, much like Chick-fil-a feels like an independent chain.

Carla had the great idea that the store should also roast bean's in the store. I would whole heartily suppor this and been in line every day for this. It's like Think Coffee around NYU. You can get your quick to go cup, or sit and enjoy a higher quality single origin coffee made by the cup.

Now to just get rid of all those laptops like Cafe Grumpy....

If you read my previous post about 100-day repetitive project you can relax because I made a decision. I decided to go with taking one picture everyday of some sort of street art. This could be graffiti, stickers, stencils, poster, pretty much anything. I started monday and am posting on a tumblr blog:

http://topherjaynes.tumblr.com/

I'll try and do a wrap up mosaic here once a week so you don't have to jump back and forth.

“The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”

- Banksy                  

(Theory & Hero) 

Candy Chang is an Urban Planner, artists, and designer who gets community involvment through neat uses of public spaces. She is one of the 2011 Ted Fellows. Her talk at TED was on Iwishthiswas, a sticker campaign that isn't too hard to figure out from the name. As awesome as this project is I really like here "Before I die" installation in New Orleans:

(via) http://candychang.com/

She found an abandon building and painted a large chalk board with the stenciled phase "Before I die I want to ________________". There is chalk available so community members can fill in their wishes. I can just imagine seeing 3 or 4 other people with the same dream as you. Or seeing a dream that you could help someone achieve. A nice subtle way to inject humanity on a typical eyesore.

Both of these projects are amazing in their simplicity and ability to allow people to interact as a community, turning neglected spaces into inspiration.

 Since I don't want to order a lot of chalkboard paint I order the stickers for now.