Coming Out as an Innie

Alan Chochinov, from Core77 told me today that he recently came across, for the first time, the term “innies” as a nickname for designers working in-house at companies whose sole business is not design. He thought it made for a memorable and appropriate bit of slang, and while I’m not sure I with him on how catchy it is, I do agree that it gives a useful appellation to a neglected subset of the working design population.

Anecdotally speaking, the majority of what’s written by design writers and discussed between designers pays short shrift to innies. Instead, the focus tends toward the world of studios, consultancies and agencies — businesses whose main sources of revenue result from selling design services of some form or other for outside clients.

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Picturing Primaries

Readers voting in New Hampshire’s primaries today, make sure to bring along your cameras: The New York Times has just re-launched the Polling Place Photo Project, “a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that encourages voters to capture, post and share photographs of this year’s primaries, caucuses and general election.”

Sharp design observers may recall that this was an idea originated and executed by Bill Drenttel and AIGA during 2006’s mid-term elections. Bill approached us late last year with a proposal to overhaul it as a Times project, in collaboration again with AIGA. The editors really took to the idea to heart, and working with staff here, Bill and AIGA’s technology partner Thirdwave moved mountains to make it happen for this early stage of the campaign.

We quietly and preliminarily put up this site last week during the contest in Iowa, which is actually a caucus and therefore not an ideal subject for the kind of single-frame documentary photography we’re looking for. But New Hampshire is a proper primary with polling machines, and therefore was an ideal kick-off. As the marketing blurbs state, the project will run throughout the primary season and then into the general election — we hope to capture some fascinating visual documentation of democracy in action. When it’s election day in your state, remember to snap a photo to share with us.

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Word on The Wire

The WireThanks to the miracle of 21st Century television distribution — doorstep DVD delivery via Netflix and the more limited but also more instantaneous phenomenon of on-demand cable television — I’ve now fully caught up on the first four amazing seasons of “The Wire.” Narratively, this level-sets me just in time for the fifth and final season, which began airing yesterday evening on HBO. But having watched the prior fifty episodes in their post-broadcast state — allowing me to devour them two, three, sometimes four at a time — I’m not sure I’ll be able to content myself with a measly single episode a week. Wah!

It’s going to be a long season, to be sure, but it’s probably for the better that I’ll have to enjoy the remaining episodes over the course of several months. That will give me time to really savor these final installments before the show shuts down forever. I’ll say it again: “The Wire” is the best television show ever. Ever.

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