If you live in Manhattan and you work in media, new or old, then chances are decent that at some point you’ll move across the East River and take up a nicer, more spacious residence in Brooklyn. The environs are cleaner, the life less hectic, the population friendlier and the real estate generally more affordable. I’ve watched lots of my friends do that over the years. More power to them, I thought. But at the same time I quietly told myself that I liked it so much in Manhattan’s East Village that I’d never be one of those folks. Not me.

Except, sooner or later if you live in the East Village, chances are decent that you’ll get tired of the East Village, too. After eight-plus years, I’ve grown intensely weary of that neighborhood’s overripe scenester vibe, its unkempt landscape, and mostly its Friday and Saturday night massacres: crowded sidewalks full of drunken fraternity boys, desperate sorority girls and tragic hipsters, raucously enjoying their youth — as is their right, I admit — late into the night. Pesky kids!

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Folks, just a reminder: Fresh Dialogue 23 is tonight at the Haft Auditorium at F.I.T.. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this year’s theme is “Designing Audiences,” which will examine how designers and design consumers are both getting all up in each other’s faces and what not.

We’re going to be showcasing some great talent that you’ll be hearing lots about in the coming years0 designer and illustrator Stefan Bucher, Eric Rodenback of Stamen Design and game designer Katie Salen. And, of course, the event will be moderated by the amazing Ze Frank who, if you haven’t seen him in person before, is worth the price of admission alone. There are a few seats left available (Haft Auditorium is relatively huge) so you can show up at the door tonight at 6:30p. Don’t miss it, just don’t!

One of my most annoying shortcomings is that I have a terrible head for names. The moment someone is introduced to me, I’ll say something to the effect of “Very happy to meet you,” and then focus almost immediately on some detail of his or her physical appearance — a hairdo, or a singular quality of the face, or some interesting wardrobe minutiae. Almost always, this leads me to distraction, such that the person’s name never fully registers; in fact, it usually disappears from my memory immediately, like a swipe of rubbing alcohol evaporating tracelessly on the skin.

This is bad. It’s a horrible practice, especially for someone, like me, who works in a large company, where I’m meeting new co-workers all the time, as many as three or four a week. The problem is compounded by the fact that I might meet a colleague for the first time today and not see that person again for weeks or even months… Usually not until some inopportune moment, when it becomes achingly inconvenient to be so forgetful. Like waiting for an elevator together, or finding myself face-to-face with that person in a small meeting; times when not addressing a person by first name is conspicuous and awkward. As often as not, the victim of my interpersonal amnesia demonstrates that, unlike me, he or she has courtesy, grace and mental stamina enough to remember my name. Makes me feel like an ass.

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Though I posted it to this site’s Elsewhere section, I want to take a moment to point out Rick Poynor’s recent article for Print Magazine, “Easy Writer.” Since its publication, this piece has stirred up a little bit of controversy because it can be fairly easily read as an indictment of design blogs and their allegedly low standards for serious writing and criticism about the practice and art of design. Right or wrong, it’s an important essay that bears a closer look. At the same time, it’s worthwhile to take at least a passing glance at the response to Poynor’s article by D. Mark Kingsley at the design blog Speak Up, too.

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Generally I’m not too keen on showing off photographs of myself. But back in March, while we were both at South by Southwest, Naz Hamid took a picture of me that I really like. It combines a few of my favorite memes: super-heroes, Helvetica and, well, me. And it has just enough kitsch value to present some modest appeal to readers here, I think, so I’m posting it.

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Living in New York, I can easily get by with rarely ever driving a car. Which, when I think about it, really accounts for the fact that I’m not dead.

That’s because I’m afflicted with a particular kind malady that a friend and colleague of mine calls “transportation narcolepsy.” That’s a condition in which, whenever I board a plane, train or automobile, I’ll fall asleep, almost instantly — or at least struggle to stay awake.

It’s the steady, vibrating motion of most mechanized transportation — the hum of a car on the road, the regular propulsion of a train on tracks, the muted rumbling of jet engines on a plane — that knocks me out. I’m surprisingly baby-like; rock me back and forth a little and I’ll pass right out. (It’s compounded by the fact that I rarely get enough sleep to begin with.)

This past weekend, though, I rented a car during my visit to California and discovered that having a G.P.S. unit on my dashboard is a surprisingly effective way to keep me awake. I also discovered a little something about what it takes to hold my attention.

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We hit a little bit of bad luck over at AIGA New York during the weekend, when tomorrow’s Small Talks speaker, the one and only Jason Fried came down sick and had to cancel. So for those of you who have tickets to this sold out event, please don’t show up tomorrow (an official email went out to all chapter members and ticket holders this afternoon) as Jason’s appearance has been postponed. We don’t yet have a make-up date, but we’re hoping to schedule it for sometime in the next few weeks — hopefully pretty soon, actually.

Meanwhile, here are some more AIGA New York goodies to tide you over.

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As promised in my previous post, here is the text of the commencement address I delivered to the 2007 graduating class at my alma mater, Otis School of Art and Design.

It is, as I explained, intended to be an inspirational address rather than the sort of tactical overview I’ve been giving at my presentations thus far in my career. So at times it can be a tad maudlin, but at the very least it’s an honest communication of one of the more valuable lessons I’ve learned in my career: don’t be afraid of failure, because every success is just the result of a series of failures. You might want to have a box of tissues at the ready.

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This weekend I flew to Southern California for a very quick Mother’s Day visit to my mom in the O.C.. While I was here, I took up a somewhat astonishing offer from my alma mater, Otis School of Art and Design in Los Angeles, to give the commencement address at this year’s graduation ceremony.

I was so flattered that I had been asked to do this at all that chances were good that I would have said yes in spite of what they told me next: that they would be giving an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts to Cheech Marin at the same ceremony. Meaning I’d be sharing a stage with Cheech Marin. THE Cheech Marin. As soon as I heard this, my response was, “Done. I’ll be there.”

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The names we give things can be so important because they can cause so much havoc. The fact that we call the basic organizing unit of a Web site a “page,” as in “Web pages,” has made the lives of Web designers immeasurably more challenging, and it’s a disservice to those coming to the Web from the world of print, too.

I’m not going to propose an alternative to the term page here — I may as well tape a “kick me” sign on my back if I’m going to venture in that kind of folly. I just thought it would be useful for me to articulate the confusion that I’ve seen that’s arisen from this particular terminology.

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Here’s one of my favorite design innovations ever: there is a subtle, dotted grid pattern printed on the backside of Hallmark gift wrap that serves as a guide as customers cut away the necessary amount to wrap presents. This allows you to shear away an amount of paper that’s much closer to what you actually need to wrap a gift, and to easily do so at more or less right (i.e., ninety degree) angles — in both cases, you save paper, which is good for you, the environment and Al Gore. Everyone wins.

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