Still waiting on the new blogs. My designer does some nice work, IMO, but he is not always the quickest in terms of turnaround time. Which is too bad, because I was considering him for another project, one with which time will be of the essence, if I decide to pursue it.
Re the new blogs, I mentioned in the last update
that I'd be offering prizes for commenters. I picked up the prizes for the first contest already. First prize will be a $50 gift certificate to McCormick & Schmick's. Second prize will be a pair of movie tickets. Third prize will be a McCormick & Schmick's cookbook1.
As far as the new subscription-based site, that one's coming along. A static site is up for it now, and the developers are putting the finishing touches on the functionality based on a proprietary algorithm I had commissioned for the site. The logo for this site was done by the same designer who did the Short Screen logo and who is currently working on the new blogs. His final logo for the second subscription-based site was great too, but it got off to a rough start. My initial idea was a piggy bank wearing a medieval knight's suit of armor, but after playing around with that, the logo designer said that didn't scale down. His next stab at the concept was the preliminary sketches above. Those got a chilly reception from my developers (who have done site design work for Showtime, CNN, Mercedes, and some other well-known corporate clients). One of the developers said that Figure 1, which I thought was the best of that bunch2, looked like "an S&M pig".
Incidentally -- I mentioned this a few days ago to a reader who contacted me looking for a financial adviser -- the new site will offer individual investors the ability to search for and contact financial advisers who are members of the site (financial advisers will not be able to search for individual investors though). It will also have a link to FINRA's BrokerCheck, so individual investors can check the backgrounds of FAs. Financial Advisers will be able to upload profiles including summaries of their backgrounds, professional designations, a thumbnail photo, and a link to their own site.
1There may be multiple third prizes, as I have a trunk full of those, since you used to have to buy the cookbook to get the gift certificates at Costco (as part of its current cost-cutting campaign, McCormick & Schmick's no longer includes the cookbooks in that deal).
2Though I thought the Philips head screws the pig had for eyes had an awful connotation: they reminded me of the X's used to denote a dead or passed out comic strip character.
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7 comments:
I rather liked the armor-plated pig. You could always use flathead screws to give a more eye-like appearance, but it wouldn't do much for the S&M flavor.
Since you've mentioned the education bubble, here is an interesting article on the coming decline in MBAs. Best line: "The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit at source." Perhaps overstating it a big but worth a chuckle.
A subsequent iteration of that pig had hexagonal bolts for eyes, which was an improvement.
"There has been a bear market in management bullshit since the credit crunch began". Like Homer said, "it's funny because it's true!". Speaking of management bullshit, you might find this post from last year of interest, "The Management Myth".
why not include that maggianos gift certificate you pilfered as one of the gifts ???
I'll ignore the trollery and just note that in order to win anything, Anon, you'll have to come up with a pseudonym and register for Disqus.
I would think that a pig wearing armor would have to be an animated character of some sort (whether 3d or regular 2d cartoon). These seem like some kind of medieval contraption. I do not like any of them.
Many images of piggy banks have dollar signs on it. Maybe you could put one on there to ensure people know it's a bank, and not just an angry bacon prequel.
JK,
I'll be interested to see what you think of the final logo. I'd post a pic of it here now, but it includes the site name, and for technical reasons I want to hold off on mentioning that here.
Homer,
That's a good point. The final logo didn't go with a dollar sign, but did use another visual cue to make it clear that it was a piggy bank and not just a pig.
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