Drawing for Memory

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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Illustrate Me for March

March’s Illustrate Me is by Liz Danzico, the multi-talented interaction designer, writer, editor and information architect who is partly responsible for, among other things Boxes and Arrows and AIGA Voice, serves as a senior development editor at Rosenfeld Media, and on the advisory board for The Information Architecture Institute. Whew. To say that she’s prolific is an understatement; there are about a dozen other significant things on her résumé that I don’t have room to mention here, but somehow she made time to produce a really wonderful, whimsical interpretation of three of my posts for last month. Go see it right now on the March 2007 archive page.

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SXSW Sxetches

DoodlesWhat kind of photographer am I if I don’t bring my camera around with me wherever I go? Not much of one, apparently. Lately, I’ve been frustrated with the total bulk that my Nikon D70 requires when I travel — lenses, flash, batteries, etc.

In fact, I didn’t bring it with me to this year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival, choosing to leave it at home so that I could move more quickly through the airport (bringing it along would have required me to check one bag). This is why I have no photographs from the show, but if you’re looking for visual documentation, there’s some wonderful shots from Lisa Whiteman at her Flickr account, and similarly beautiful work from Naz Hamid on his Flickr account, too.

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Illustrate Me for February

Illustrate Me for FebruaryOne of the advantages of being employed at The New York Times is that I get access to some of the best design minds out there. And by access, I mean I can walk right up to them (if they’re not busy) and talk to them, and they’ll actually talk back to me. It’s pretty awesome. If they’re a talented designer working in publishing, at some point or other, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll come work at The Times, at least for a spell.

With a little bit of cajoling, once in a while I somehow manage to get a few of these designers to contribute to Illustrate Me, my ongoing project where I invite outside contributors to create illustrations for Subtraction.com’s monthly archives pages. It’s a kind of windfall when I pull it off, sort of like getting a Major League ballplayer to join you for a game of stickball.

Last year, Op-Ed art director Brian Rea turned in a fantastic piece for the June 2006 archives. This time out, I’m lucky enough to have a brand new piece for the February 2007 archives from none other than Nicholas Blechman. See it for yourself on the archive page.

In addition to being the Art Director for The New York Times Book Review, Nicholas is one of the most prolific and talented young art directors and illustrators out there. He’s amassed an impressive body of work in design and illustration, some of which you can see at Knickerbockerdesign.com. I’ve long been a fan of his spare, exceedingly intelligent and yet satisfyingly simple approach to visual communication, and as ever, I feel very fortunate he was able to create something typically splendid for display here.

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Illustrate Me for December

Illustrate Me for December 2006I haven’t forgotten our deal: once a month, I ask a designer or illustrator to create artwork to accompany the prior month’s archives, cutting loose in any fashion he or she desires to add a little bit of life to these pages. And in turn you, dear reader, take it in wholly and enthusiastically, even if each piece’s overall awesomeness leaves you too speechless to leave a comment on this blog. For a refresher on this arrangement, you can start at the November 2006 or October 2006 archives and work your way back to see all the wonderful work produced over the past year.

It may be nearly an entire month late, but I’m finally living up to my end of that for my December 2006 archives. (The fault for this truancy is mine entirely, not the artist’s.) This month, I was able to convince my good friend Mike Essl, who is the Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, to contribute what’s turned out to be the most aggro entry yet. It’s a shake ’em up, in-your-face change of pace from what we’ve seen before, and I dig it loads. You can see it here.

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Illustrate Me for November

Illustrate Me for NovemberWell, I guess the Cold-Eeze I mentioned last week didn’t really do the trick after all. That “twenty-four hour bug” has turned out to be a week-long cold, and even pretending I wasn’t sick for four or five days didn’t do much good; it finally caught up to me, and I’m sitting in bed today, just trying to give my body a day to recuperate.

That’s not going to stop me, though, from posting a brand new Illustrate Me for November’s archives. This month’s illustration is the handiwork of the extremely talented Rob Giampietro, one-half of the design studio Giampietro + Smith, located in downtown New York City.

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Oodles of Doodles

The last thing you want to do, if you’re a designer in a business environment who wants to be taken seriously, is spend your time in meetings doodling like an idle schoolboy. Rather, you should be an active and attentive participant in the conversation, someone whose mind is present and alert, and not lost in the meanderings of the scribbles in the margins of your notebook paper.

And yet, we’re designers, and we can’t help ourselves, right? Or, at least, I can’t. It’s like my drawing hand has a brain of its own, and it feels compelled to entertain itself when left to its own devices with a notebook, a pen and any idle moment. It’s a bad habit that I try to be discreet about, but I can’t deny that it’s a distraction I quite enjoy, too.

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Illustrate Me for Halloween!

It’s no trick. I have a Halloween treat for all you Illustrate Me fans out there: for once, I’m publishing a new entry in this ongoing series early. That’s right, no weeks-long delay this time. Before the last day of October even closes out, the month’s archives have been beautifully illustrated by Ray Frenden, an illustrator from rural Illinois. You can see it right now in all its gruesome glory on the October archive page.

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Illustrate Me for August

Illustrate Me for August 2006It takes a little time to get back into the swing of things after summer. At least that’s the reason I’m giving for why this announcement for the August Illustrate Me is so late. But it may be some consolation that this latest entry in my ongoing series featuring custom illustrations for my blog archives is a contender for the title ‘best yet.’

The creator is Louise Ma, an extremely talented young designer who’s in her last undergraduate year at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art here in New York. I can’t take any credit for being so well tuned into emerging talent that I zeroed in on Louise before she’s even made a splash in the professional world. Rather, she was recommended to me by Mike Essl, who runs Cooper’s design program, at the beginning of the summer for an internship with us at the NYTimes.com design group.

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