i-tees

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, since I’m not the type to race with others to the stores, my family and I headed to the American Museum of Natural History. It’s a great place to spend an afternoon. It was quite crowded as we walked in, which is how we expected it to be, but as the exhibits vary, so did the crowds and we moved from one floor to another.

I had been to the Museum recently, with my partner on the blog, Frogs Are Green, because they have an exhibit, Frogs: A Chorus of Colors, which would only be there until January, 2010, and I wanted my family to see it. This time, I brought my camera, and you’ll see in the gallery I’ve posted, I got some great shots!

While at the museum we each picked out from the multi-level floor plan, areas we wanted to see, and mapped our way around. Some of the halls visited were, Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, which is one of my favorite halls. There is a huge, dramatic whale suspended from the ceiling, and different dioramas depicting sea life in action, like a wonderful one where we see dolphins in a curve, some below and some above the water line. We also visited, North American Mammals, Hall of Biodiversity, Ross Hall of Meterorites (where you’re able to touch the largest section of a meteorite, which broke apart as it hit the Earth), Guggenheim Hall of Minerals (where you can see some really huge, I mean huge gems), Stout Hall of Asian Peoples and of course one of the biggest attractions, up on the 4th floor, the Ornithischian and Saurischian Dinosaurs. I’m not sure why, but whenever I enter this room, I always get chills. I’m not sure if it’s a reaction to how fascinating they are, or if the temperature is colder up there.

We walked around and around, and after about 4 hours, we were beat. We had only seen a small portion of what this museum has, and because the exhibits change frequently, there’s always a reason to go back. Next time, The Silk Road which is at the Museum through August 2010!

I’ve gained a bit of weight this year, maybe 10 lbs or so and I’m not happy about it. I realize that this year’s economy has made my workload a bit lighter than usual, and maybe to compensate for the extra time, I’m eating, drinking, and not exercising like I should. You’d think with this extra time, I’d hit the gym, but I haven’t been, because that extra time is focused on finding new work. As you can see, I spend way too much time at these computers, but it’s necessary.

Tomorrow, Thanksgiving will be here, one of my favorite holidays. My parents always invited the family over, we cooked and feasted on all our favorite foods and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. These are wonderful memories I have and each T-day my sister, niece and I get together. Much of the family is spread out and my parents passed many years ago, so the gatherings are more intimate, but we still prepare all the same foods, keeping that tradition going. Today I will be making the cole slaw, and my Mother’s famous chopped liver recipe. Tomorrow, of course, I’ll get that turkey in the oven, and prepare some other favorites. My sister always makes her special cranberries, and this year, she suggested baked apples, yum! I’ll be picking up the desserts including a pumpkin pie, today, from Goehrig’s Bakery, down the street. So, along with the traditional recipes, we sometimes add a bit of own spin to the menu.

Listening to friends and family talk about where they’re going to stuff their faces, started me thinking about how we pollute ourselves and not just at Thanksgiving. I don’t like the way I feel, but with this holiday coming, the parties in the next month, Christmas and NYE on the horizon, what can I do? How can I talk about the pollution out there, and not see what I’m doing within?

Quite a dilemma. One cannot realistically go on a diet now, and stop enjoying the wonderful dishes we make only at this time of year. And when they uncork the wine, should we not enjoy it and each other’s company?

I suppose the right answer is to have some self control, sample everything, but in moderation and get back on track the rest of the year. We must know our limitations and not over do it. So diet today, but enjoy Thanksgiving, but not too much! And afterward I’m promising myself to lose the weight, and get to the gym!

Recently, I had a new client call me about a book project. Whenever someone calls me, I always ask, how did you find me? It’s always important to hear about their search, whether word-of-mouth, print or online. In this case, she told me that she searched online for “book designer”, “layout designer”, and “book cover designer” in New Jersey. She said she searched quite a while and didn’t find any NJ book designers until she saw my website. It bothered me right away that it had taken her so long to find me, and I immediately realized my “book” design page needed updating.

I changed the title tag as well as the keywords in hopes that it will now turn up on Yahoo and Google faster. Each page of a website or blog has a page name, searchable keywords, a description, a title tag and may have other tags as well. Blogs also have many tags, and searchable words and links, which is what makes them so search engine friendly. Blogs also get updated almost daily which is what keeps their content fresh.

The problem we face as designers, rather than bloggers, is that our sites are mostly images because we’re displaying our work. The best thing we can do to make these gallery pages search engine friendly, is to name the pages something very specific, such as: green-book-publishing-designs(dot)html. We also need to update the pages of our website often, so the published date is current, and make sure the tags are specific and in order of importance. You can also put in some captions or put tags on the images. You might also create a few pages that are text content rich, and these pages may help send traffic also.

Another tip is, never leave a word space when naming a page. I see this all the time. For ex: green book publishing designs(dot) html. You must use either green-books or green_books (dash or underscore). The web does not understand an empty space, and will fill it with a (20%) and then your page title will look like this, green20%books.

Always remember that the internet is like a gigantic filing system, and the most current and the closest match to your search is what comes up, so update your sites and blogs often, and be as specific as possible.

Yesterday, I was in Hoboken at Trinity Restaurant, having a lovely brunch with a friend. Afterward, I decided to walk back home, getting some fresh air and exercise, since it was a sunny, beautiful Autumn day. As I strolled down Hudson Street and then around, making my way up the main drag, Washington Street, I was about to walk by Carlo’s Bakery (now famous due to the hit tv show, Cake Boss) and I stopped for a minute to watch. There was a line out of the store and down the block toward me.

Before I moved up the “the Heights” of Jersey City, I lived in Hoboken for about 15 years. I had visited Carlo’s on occasion, but there were so many bakeries in town, and some closer to where I lived. I always thought their baked goods were just fine, but I would say I’d stand on line to get in, and that would be true of any store, I just hate lines. These days, up by me, I frequent an awesome bakery, Goehrig’s on Central Avenue and Congress Street, and his store is busy everyday, they’re not out the door, but the clients are steady, and many are repeat customers. My favorites include, italian pastries, carrot muffins, soft, yet crunchy almond cookies,  chocolate cookies and brownies, and the scones, yum!… be warned though, he doesn’t make all of his wonderful items everyday, but each day has a great assortment of fabulous things.

Meanwhile, it got me thinking about the power of tv, advertising and publicity, and just plain having a good idea and the difference between the amount of traffic and the quality of the product.

The success of the tv show has drawn attention to the store, more and more first-time customers, and what’s interesting is that for those first timers, it wouldn’t matter whether the cakes were great or just average. Now, of course in order to maintain the expanding business and keep them coming back, the cakes have to be good. The important thing though, is to get them to the store in the first place. It just shows how the concept of the tv show, plus great advertising, and publicity, increases the popularity. And, if you have a great product, you’ll keep them coming back. In Hoboken, in a few locations, they have posters up, and it’s a wonderful photograph of Buddy Valastro covered in cake flour, with the branding logo of Cake Boss, along with information about the tv series.

I feel so strongly about branding and publicity. It’s so important for any business, large or small. When anything regarding advertising the product is created, whether in print or a tv commercial, it’s so important to be consistent, using similar imagery, the same logo, always, perhaps even the same color palette, so that when the people come across it, they recognize the company, or tv show, immediately.

Whether a bakery or a graphic design business. The clients must find you first, (more about that to come) and then stay because of the quality and consistency.

When I have time, I go back and read, in depth, the articles in the stack of National Geographic Magazines that pile up. This past week, I read an article from the June 2009 issue, titled, “The Global Food Crisis, The End of Plenty,” by Joel K. Bourne, Jr. about the over population of our planet, the desire that humans have to eat red meat, combined with global warming, and how more food is being consumed than is being produced.

Highlighting meat production as one of the main causes for this crisis, Mr. Bourne wrote, “It takes up to five times more grain to get the equivalent amount of calories from eating pork as from eating grain itself—ten times if we’re taking about grain-fattened U.S. beef.” Annual worldwide grain consumption has increased from 815 million metric tons to 2.16 billion in the last half century. So, most of the grain is not being fed to people, it’s being grown and fed to the cows and pigs, to fatten them up for human consumption and other industries like biofuels.

Another awful fact is that some of the deforestation, is so that they can make room to plant more crops. In addition, because pesticides have been used in these crops, which gets absorbed into the earth and water, humans as well as other species, are being born with deformities.

Imagine the terrible path we’re on. Over population leading to eating more, which we cannot plant fast enough, combined with global warming, which is going to dry up crops and at the same time poisoning the earth and ourselves. We must do something now, to turn the tide around.

Yet, I see people everyday head into the nearest fast food chain and eat greasy, unhealthy burgers, because they don’t have the time to prepare or sit and eat something healthier. It would wise to think very hard before you eat that next burger, steak or pork loin. Remember, it all starts with ourselves, and one person can make a difference.

The last time I ate red meat was over 30 years ago. I do not miss it at all.