I really like this visual that I decided to use for part of my PowerPoint presentation. For those of who haven’t yet looked closely enough, it’s a visual displaying the image of rock legend Jimi Hendrix via the use of printed letters. I found it when I Google searched the word 'typography' for images. Typography is one of the terms I chose to use in my PowerPoint presentation.
I really believe this image sums up, in one quick glance, the intended message from its designer. Typography is an art. This image, and others like it, is available at “11 Handpicked Awesome Typography Art” .
I’ve found, in some unlikely situations, hands-on value in some of the abstract concepts and critical thinking skills I learned from my earlier scholarly pursuits in college.
About 20 years ago, I earned a Bachelor's degree in journalism with a minor in political science from the University of Missouri. Courses in literature, English and the social sciences made up the core of my curriculum. I sidestepped taking any math and science classes.
Yes, my lack of technical expertise did put some constraints on what kind of jobs I could get after graduation. However, I was able to apply language and critical thinking skills to understanding the meanings of words and concepts, and thereby understand new concepts and instructions in the workplace more easily and quickly.
Perhaps, it's not surprising that I used this advantage in landing many of the jobs I landed immediately after graduating, which were in radio broadcasting. However, as the years passed, my career path took many twists and turns. I’ve used this proficiency to my advantage in some of my more recent jobs in the most unlikely of settings, such as driving a fork truck on a shipping and receiving dock. Because of my indirect and veiled educational benefit, I can remember numerous times defending my schooling as a worthwhile undertaking to my factory co-workers.
I’m hoping, however, to remove some of the constraints I've faced in many of my workplaces by making up some of the technical deficiencies I have with my technical management education I'm presently getting from DeVry University. This is especially true for me in information technology.
When I was four years old, I was convinced that Santa Claus existed. Moreover, it seems the imaginary hero paid a special visit that year (1961?) to our home in suburban St. Louis for Christmas. However, it was none other than my, then, 10-year-old brother, Tom, who wore that homemade red outfit along with those dime store costume whiskers.
Of course, I knew it was Tom. (The real Santa was down at the local shopping center!) Nevertheless, it did not matter. My next older brother, Tim and I enjoyed playing along because Tom hammed up the part so well. He wanted so bad to be Santa Claus to us, and he really made the role come alive.
Now, I don't recall any of the toys or material items I was given, but I will never forget that Christmas from my early childhood because of Tom’s kindhearted and selfless gift. Tom knew I was all about Santa Claus that year, and he went out of his way to make me feel special by making the fantasy come alive for me as best as he could.
Throughout his life, Tom has had this brilliant, creative flair for storytelling and acting. I remember spending many hours with him in his room listening to records . My father liked Classical music, and Tom took one of his LP's, Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird Suite’, and added a wonderful tale of his own making to go along with the soundtrack. The story was spellbinding, and Tom told it so well. I remember asking him to recite it repeatedly.
With the exception of a possible e-mail once or twice a year, I have, unfortunately, lost almost all contact with Tom through the passage of years. Several years ago, I learned recently that he had been battling clinical depression. Now, as he approaches 60, things for Tom have suddenly taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Doctors have recently diagnosed him as having brain atrophy. Apparently, there is no cure for it, and Tom won’t be to live independently for the rest of his life.
What a hideous turn of events! I’m not certain how much I believe in the power of prayer. Nevertheless, I plan to seek guidance from my higher power for hope and wisdom. I don’t believe all is lost. Perhaps, scientists will discover a remedy or technology that will slow, stall and possibly reverse this insidious disease that taking away my brother’s beautiful mind.
This false equivalency opinion, which basically says both the left and right are guilty of recent violent rhetoric, really burns my ass. So many pundits and politicians, particularly Republicans, have adopted this line. I, personally, don't see it that way. Sure, some fringe leftist blogger somewhere may have said or written something violent.
But, I defy anyone to name a Democratic politician who has said something like:
"Don't retreat, reload" -Sarah Palin (as reported on CBS News).
or "People are really looking for Second Amendment remedies...we need to take [U.S. Senator] Harry Reid out." - failed Senate candidate Sharron Angle (as reported on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show.
This link provides a rather lengthy rundown of some of the inflammatory rhetoric coming from right wing commentators, activists and politicians during the last two-and-a-half years.
One might think that there is no such thing as a “famous” technical writer since most the field’s works are written anonymously and without much fanfare. However, the prominence of one technical writer has challenged this conventional wisdom. He’s Robert Pirsig, the author of ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’.
Pirsig was a technical writer during much of his early adulthood, and in ‘Zen, one of the book’s major characters, who probably reflects Pirsig in his earlier life, worked as one.
The title is misleading because the book isn’t directly about motorcycle maintenance. It’s more of a subplot. Yet, ‘Zen’ does include some amazingly clear prose describing the details of fixing motorcycles .
Visual design most definitely has a persuasive component. In fact, I believe many governments, including ours, have been successfully using persuasive visual design in documents for many years. Perhaps, the most famous example of persuasiveness came in the old army recruitment poster with “Uncle Sam,” representing the U.S. government, saying, “I want YOU.”
Uncle Sam personified the United States. The figure made the government’s need for military recruitment, a somewhat abstract concept, much easier to understand for the typical American. In addition, the way Uncle Sam pointed directly at the reader increased the poster’s persuasiveness.
I just installed Excel on my new laptop...and I decided to explore its graph making capability. Since I just successfully advanced through all of 2010 smoke free, I thought it would be interesting (to me, anyway) to plot the yearly cost of smoking throughout my life:
(click image to enlarge)
A little bit of attribution is in order. My annual costs were derived on average cigarette pack prices since 1969 according to answers: google.com. Having any data before 1969 is irrelevant because I was a non-smoker up until that time.
As you can probably deduce from my graph, I didn't start smoking until the 1970s while I was in high school. I quit in the early 1980s thinking it would hamper my new career in radio broadcasting. Marital and other personal problems led me to stupidly restart the habit around 1994. And up until late 2009 (December 13th, to be precise), I smoked as if it were going out of style.
To pour more salt on my wounds, I decided design a graph plotting the accumulative costs of my smoking: (click image to enlarge)
If my figures are anywhere close to be being correct, I've spent about $18,500 dollars buying smokes throughout my life. And just for giggles, I decided to Google search "$18500" and "truck". One of images that emerged was a 2007 Ford F-150.
I think I'll stop now because this post is getting far too graphic!!!!
