The Process
What if there were no signs, and an ad agency needed to design a sign?
Feel chocolately, punk?
Occasionally, an IMDb perk of that-which-is-unbelievable arrives at my desk — in this case, for some work I performed for the Ultimate Dirty Harry Collection — from a salesperson who tells me about the challenges they had at the airport getting this back to Seattle, to which I wonder, “Does this fire M&M’s? I think not.”
Behold, the .44 automag, rendered in chocolate!
IMDb-yotch!
Today I began a new era of employment with IMDb.com, billed as “Earth’s Biggest Movie Database”.
My job is to redesign it — it’s millions of pages, with no real style guide, and I’m excited to be working there. It’s a small, 120-person company wrapped up in a large, 10,000 person company (Amazon). Friends and strangers alike who are passionate about the site say the same thing, “We love it and use it all the time — don’t fuck it up too much.” So there.
The first day began at 8am with a conference call to the office here in Seattle, with a bridge set up to connect offices in Bristol, UK and Berlin, Germany. My introductory email was all about top ten lists (films, TV), and that seems to change monthly. The top three films don’t, though: 1) Being There, 2) Love and Death, and 3) Dr. Strangelove.
Hibernation
People are so in hibernation mode this week. There will be no karaoke on Thursday, for sure. I’m frighteningly busy with homework and freelance – I keep getting jobs, albeit small ones. My friend Julie and I had dinner last night – she’s really excited about a pending hotel gig in Thailand beginning in early July. I’m happy for her, as I know she’s had cabin fever here for a couple of years, and couldn’t wait to play overseas again.