As promised the “Shutdown Weblo?” site has been launched. Check it out here: http://conanrobbins.com/shutdownweblo/

As of right now the design works in all browsers except Internet Explorer.

I am launching an experimental web project in the coming days…

A site (mini-site really) around the question of If we can and if we should try and shutdown the Weblo website.

A brief synopsis of Weblo… Weblo is a virtual world game. Their shtick is selling real world assets for you (the gamer) to make money. You can buy countries, states, cities, basically if it exists in the real world (and already in the virtual world) you can buy it and set up a, for a lack of a better phrase, mini-site revolving around each asset. Once you set up this area you can jam it with advertising and make some real world money. This sounds benign enough, right? Well hold on… there is a slight legal question to ask here. (By the way I am not a lawyer and I don’t play one on tv either.) How can you buy and sell something that doesn’t belong to you? Let me elaborate. I first became aware of Weblo after running a search on myself. I was surprised to find that my logo for my freelance design endeavors was associated with them. Right smack dab in the middle of their web page was my logo helping them advertise a list of domain names that were available to buy and make money with on their site. Wow I don’t remember signing anything that gave them rights to my logo. So I signed up for an account to check out this Weblo thingy.

The long and short of it is, after poking around in their site and researching a little on the web, that they and their team of lawyers don’t believe they are doing anything wrong. They state that you can buy anything other than brand names. That was one of the the only legal restrictions they had. While poking around on their site I found that someone could buy my domain name, conanrobbins.com, and do their advertising voodoo to make money off my name. And, if they were smart enough they could pull traffic away from my real site and direct it to theirs. I know that I am no Google or Johnson and Johnson. I don’t have that strong of brand, but as a freelancer my name is my brand. The same for every other company or person. Your web address, if named after your company, is part of your brand. You probably don’t want people to use it to pull traffic from your site and or to make money from it.

There is much more to discuss, hence the construction of the mini-site. As stated before I am not a lawyer. If there are any out there that can give their interpretations of the law; I welcome their input. Heck I welcome anyone’s input. Whether you support my views or the other.

Weblo is used in reference to Weblo.com a privately held company with Rocky Mirza operating as CEO. The use of Weblo in this post is not meant for monetary gain. The term”Shutdown Weblo” is not intended to slander or defame Weblo. It is intended to open a dialog about the legality of said company.

Invitations, directions and church programs… oh my. If you have stopped by lately and have been disappointed that there is nothing new posted maybe I can shed a little light on as is to why. I got married… again. The ole’ wife and I had a civil ceremony back in the states and the church extravaganza here in France.

Being as I have never been married before I never realized exactly how much work was actually involved. Hence the reason I have been shirking my blog responsibilities. The good thing is I have a little something to show for it. I’m not going to regale you with the photos of my cutting grass and meeting with my priest, but I will show you some of the design that was created for the wedding.

First off the invitation.

The invitation was a bit of a battle. I am American and my in-laws are French. There was a large difference in the way we perceive wedding invitations and the way they should look. The parents wanted something more conservative and direct. Me, I was thinking, like many Americans, something super designy with tissue and textured paper and envelopes… lots of envelopes. My initial ideas were met with much resistance, and in hind site, rightfully so. I had forgotten for whom I was designing for. Who was my target audience? The answer was French folks. If we would have sent out my initial ideas people wouldn’t know whether they were going to a wedding or a circus.

some of the initial concepts

It turns out that the in-laws expected something a little more “scripty”. Something entirely in “Embassy” or “Bickham Script”. Not my favorite fonts, especially when it comes to legibility. Again I had to pull myself away from my own preconceptions of what I thought the invitation should look like, and remember that the people receiving these things were in fact from the same culture and had the same anticipations as my in-laws. So a compromise was reached. The MC in “Bickham Scropt” and the smaller copy in “Mrs. Eaves”, with a simple clean straight forward lay-out. Different enough to please me, and a hint of the norm to allow the people who received it to identify it as a wedding invitation.

The one thing I wasn’t going to budge on was the map.

Fortunately I didn’t meet much resistance. It was simple and turned out to be rather effective. The map also doubled as the “Dinner Ticket”

Yes dinner is written by hand. We didn’t forget to have it printed. It was easier than having the printer print 200 cocktails and 200 cocktail and dinners. (and cheaper)

After the invitations were sent and the replies started coming in, (along with a couple of compliments), I was allowed to do whatever I wanted for the “church program”. Again simple easy to read and follow was the idea. To tie it together with the invites I carried over the “Bickham Script” MC and the illustration of the church.

Then there was the question of production. Fortunately I have a fairly decent laser printr. An Epson Aculaser CX11N. Not the top of the line, but not a cheap piece of crap either. We decided that could be done in-house. Why spend a few hundred Euros printing something at a print house that we could do ourselves? So after a couple of days and probably 50 paper-jams later… the programs were printed. While designing them I was thinking about the easiest way to fasten or bind them. Staples didn’t sound right, and it seemed like it would be too time consuming. A hole punch with ribbon was time consuming and didn’t lend itself to the design. Then finally I figured it out… stitching. My wife already brushed up on her sewing after making the ring pillow and the ties for the men. Why not have her run a seam down the middle of the program? It turned out to be quick, strong and fit nicely with the design.

When I look back I find that I ended up learning a great deal about the French culture, and more importantly I learned how to compromise. Not bow down to someone else’s ideas of design, and not let my preconceived ideas ruin a project.

This is not a post that is meant to voice my political views for or against China. For a couple of reasons. One important reason is that as an American it would be hypocritical for me to voice an outrage for China’s actions when we (Americans) borrow money from China to support a war started without provocation by Iraq, violate the “Geneva Convention”, practice torture at GITMO and Abu Ghraib and trample the foundations of our constitution by allowing the American government to violate our own Civil Liberties.
In the Comments section you are invited to post comments on your ideas for “Spinning the 2008 Olympic Mess”.
If you really feel the need to voice your political views I ask that you
do not use any hate speech or racist remarks…. it will be deleted.

The recent protests against China and its treatment of Tibet during the torch relays have led me to think, “How do advertisers who are committed to advertising during the 2008 Olympic Games by sponsorship of national teams or media advertising contracts during the broadcast of the games manage to come out of this smelling like a rose?” And how do corporations who are not already bound by the above utilize this opportunity to get the most out of their advertising dollars during the course of the games?

One major problem would be that the act of buying airtime during the Olympic games could be seen by consumers as supporting the Chinese Olympics. So, advertisers should be looking at advertising on television stations that are not televising the games. This could be the corporations who are already sponsoring in some form the Olympics, but I think it would be a better option for those who decided not to sponsor the games or the teams. For those who are not sponsoring the games or teams this offers an opportunity to voice their support for human rights. Let’s say you are Company X, and you are not a sponsor of the games or a national team, this would be an opportunity to air a commercial something like this:

• 60 sec.
• Fade in, Asian music in BG: Camera pans across terraced mountains. Asian monks walking with heads down past military.
• Cut to new location, children crying tribal drums in BG: Camera pans arid desert to impoverished family with burned hut and truck of local war-lords driving off.
• Cut to new location, another example of inhumane treatment…
• Change to western location with multi cultures laughing playing looking healthy and genuinely happy.
• Voice Over, Female Voice: “Not everyone shares the same rights and freedoms we do. That is why {Company X} is donating {y} percent of this years profits to Amnesty International (or some other “rights of man” charity)
• Fade to black: quote from Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi or other rights of man supporter reversed out. Small {company X} logo bottom right of screen with tag line: “Supporting the rights a man”

A commercial like this plays to the sympathies of the public, and yet does not name any exact offender of rights abuse, but does allow the viewer to form their own assumptions and possibly identify with their beliefs.

It seems that it would be easier for a non sponsor to take advantage of this opportunity to spin their message. Let’s look at a couple of options for those who are already committed to advertising on the channels airing the games. The first idea I would like to propose is “don’t make the athletes suffer”.

• 90 sec. to 2 min.
• Small child maybe 3 or 4 years old running through corn field (in style of old 8mm home movie) with radio announcer offering play by play of 1980 Moscow Olympics.
• Cut to child as a teenager. audio: starting pistol crowds cheering, child wins race. (in style of BETA Tape)
• Cut to teenager practicing just before daybreak, audio: coach yelling encouragement (in style of crisp video recording)
  
• Cut to older version of the same character losing qualifying for 2004 Olympics
• Cut to another before sunrise practice
• Cut to same character 30ish years old winning the qualifying for 2008 Olympics
• Cut to award ceremony at Beijing Olympics with an empty first place podium. audio: US Anthem, Voice Over: John Doe worked so hard to get here. How could we make him miss what could be his last chance at Gold.
• Cut to same scene with “John Doe” on podium receiving gold medal
• Voice over: Company D Giving our athletes a chance at Gold. logo on screen with tag line: “Proud patrons of sport and our athletes”

For the last proposal I would like to offer the idea of “Conquering evil”. This one might not make it past the I.O.C. advertising police.

• 60 sec.
• Opens with black and white film of the 1936 German Olympics.
• Continues with Hitler shouting his Racist rhetoric.
• Cut to Jessie Owens winning 100 meter run
• Cut to Jessie Owens receiving Gold medal.
  
• Cut to modern day. Protest clashes in Tibet.
  
• Cut to Asian American winning an Olympic event
• Cut to Asian American winning gold.
• Fade to black. Reversed headline: “Athletes can change the world”
• Fade in logo of company with tag line: “Supporting change.”
  
• Throughout commercial classical music plays no voice over.
  

I invite you to leave your comments. Offer your ideas for spinning the 2008 Olympic Games through advertising. Critic these ideas. Open a dialog.

Seeing as how I love French cheese… I was wondering what my packaging would look like if I made my own handmade cheese. I put together a few labels of some of my favorite cheeses to date. This is an on-going project. I’ll keep working on it and we’ll see where it takes me. One thing I have already noticed is that I need to explore a round lay-out for the cheeses like Camembert. I think it would be a good idea to get my hands on a couple of cheeses. I just need to keep from eating it long enough to test out my lay-outs.

I love to design and I love to paint. It is more of a “have” to rather than a “love” to when talking about design and painting. When I’m painting and drawing my design work improves. In painting I get to explore without negative consequences. The fact that I am solving problems in a different manner recharges me and allows me to be more productive in my design solutions. The ability to “take a chance” creatively in my paintings migrates over into my design. I am able to explore different more creative ideas that wouldn’t come to me if I were sitting in front of a computer all the time.

Here is one of my more recent paintings titled “Cotton”.

Click image to enlarge and view in another window.

After our civil wedding in America, my wife and I wanted to send out thank you cards to the people who took the time to grace us with their presence and the people who offered us presents. We were kind of tight on money, and we really didn’t like the prepackaged store bought options anyway. So I decided to design my own.

Simple, to the point and the best part…. half the cost of store bought thank you cards.

The only downfall was cutting 150 of these things. After about the 50th one I started to wonder, “What was I thinking with the tab closing system”? (the part that says “to open pull here”)

I think in the future I might leave the die-cutting to the print houses.

I’m launching my new site this week. I’ve decided that I’m ready to target ad agencies in Paris for a full-time art direction position. I’m mainly targeting agencies in Paris who handle or who have a need for international marketing. The main niche I’m using is the U.S. Presidential Election. After speaking with a director of a French agency we decided that the best message to send to my target group was that I’m a native english speaker and that I understand the American (anglo) culture.

At first glance I’m sure the site looks a little nationalistic, and the verbiage comes off as “America is the only way to go”. While I don’t believe it is the only way to go… sometimes it might be the best way to go to reach a wide international market. The American MTV culture has taken over the cultures of many countries. The youth around the world recognizes words like “hip-hop” and “Diet Coke”. On one hand I’m disappointed that America is hijacking the cultures of nations. On the other that means job security for me.