Tehran, Iran
This is the latest poster by Mehdi Saeedi… keep the faith, my friend.
Edmonton, Alberta
It’s been reported that up to 80% of Canadians watched the gold medal Olympic hockey game on 28 February (a nail-biter battle into overtime against the USA). That may actually be more Canadians doing one and the same thing at the same time than ever before in history (as this tends to be a land of individualists, largely wary of anything related to unison or group-think).
A more graphic depiction of the grip hockey has on this country comes from EPCOR, the water utility of the city of Edmonton, Alberta (yes, Wayne Gretzky’s former home town)—they have published a remarkable graph of water consumption on that day that is very telling indeed. It seems that the majority of that city (and by extension, “the true North strong and free”) was peeing and flushing in unison—during the breaks between game periods of course. Quite fascinating what graphical depiction can reveal…
Thanks to photographer friend Ian McCausland for the story; original source here.
New York et al (as seen from Berlin)
Christoph Niemann hits home with cartographic brilliance once again… in today’s New York Times.
(some things I just know to be true)
Winnipeg, Canada
People sometimes ask me two things: 1) Why the first thing you come to when you visit the Circle website is a quote by Karl Marx? and, 2) Whether this doesn’t turn away business in droves?
I answer the first question with something like… Well, I think Marx was a brilliant man, and I find his correlation of “cause and effect” to express this crucial point more eloquently than most, and certainly more succinctly than I could. I answer the second question with… Well, if the fact that we quote Marx on our website is a potential deal-breaker, we choose to view this as an acid test (and a suitable barrier to entry, per se), and we’re likely better off never even hearing from such folks.
I happen to believe we can learn from almost anyone and anything—as long as we keep our minds open and exercise discernment—which is why we also quote sources ranging from Walt Disney, to Winston Churchill, to the Bible.
Wisdom is where you find it, no?
(snapshots in time)
In the course of searching for one particular image, I was happy to chance across quite an eclectic collection of famous photographs on the blog Iconic Photos. Shown above: first use of 3-D glasses in a cinema, demise of the Hindenburg, Jane Goodall with a wee chimp, celebrating the 40-year anniversary of communism in Moscow, and Dali with a rhinoceros (the latter is for you, Jennifer).
Winnipeg, Canada
I’ve had this poster likeness of Picasso (alongside the ones of Einstein and Gandhi) with the grammatically challenged call to action facing me from across the design studio for well over a decade now. I wonder if that has affected my thinking at all… though that’s not really a very different kind of thought, is it?
