In addition to t-shirts there also have been a number of amazing prints bubbling up these last several weeks. Without further ado, lets take a quick tour of propaganda prints from around the web.

• 

  Brian Moore‘s Remix of a classic WWII poster during 2009′s Iranian Election Protests

  100 Years of Propaganda: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Let’s start with Smashing Magazine’s excellent recap of propaganda’s use during the 20th century. Propaganda, at its core, is about inciting an emotion or persuading a desired course of action. Sometimes truths are displayed in a seductive manner. Other times the intent to shock. In either case its a communication means ill suited for subtlety. Brian’s WWII work, pictured here, can be purchased for $25.

• 

  BBC’s Doctor Who WWII Poster Homage

  In this latest season of Doctor Who the BBC had everyone’s favorite time traveler visit WWII era Great Britain. During the course of the show this excellent poster was used as a prop in the background. It both reinforced the era and tied it into the series storyline. Thankfully, the BBC posted the artwork online for anyone to download and print out at their local Kinkos. Brilliant!

• 

  David Klein’s Classic “Times Square” Poster

  Of course, war isn’t the only subject that lends itself to overt imagery. Throughout the 1950′s American illustrator David Klein worked with Howard Hughes and his TWA on a series of travel posters. Each are iconic representation’s of the period’s mod style. However, David’s “Time Square” was chosen in 1957 to become part of MOMA’s permanent collection. Reprints of this and other’s by David Klein go for around $19.99 at places like AllPosters.com.

• 

  Josh Rogan’s “Gambit” Mod Poster

  When creating a piece of propaganda, especially one culling cultural ephemera, it is essential to nail styles that were in vogue at the time. Josh Rogan and his Mod Hero series takes the same mod art approach as David Klein but juxtaposes it with modern superheroes. The effect is a poster that is at once classic as it is playful. Unfortunately, Josh’s Etsy store was so successful that he’s temporarily stopped taking orders. However, you can browse the contents on his site.

• 

  Vegas Vic Letterpress Poster from Doc Martin Studios

  Another Etsy store of note is Doc Martin Studios. While most of the work is self-described “mediagraffiti” there are classic elements of pop-culture and propaganda zeitgeist here. A 13×19 letterpress print will usually cost $50 as in the case of Vegas Vic.

• 

  Arches – See America Travel Poster

  The Works Progress Administration, the depression era program also known as the WPA, commissioned a number of posters in order to employ artists and illustrators. Unfortunately, credit for many of these pieces has been lost. It’s unfortunate as most were obviously created by talented individuals. These posters are available for $40 from Ranger Doug’s shop.

• 

  Shepard’s Glass Houses

  Of course, not all propaganda prints produced set out to lionize the past. Some artists, like Shepard Fairey, have taken the classic tropes of propaganda design and combined it with street art sensibilities. In the process they’ve created something new and profound. Shepard’s prints are very affordable if you are quick. Sadly (for me), his limited runs (a few hundred prints at a time) seem to sell out faster than I can type my credit card in. For now I must be content with his discussion on his latest work, “Glass Houses”.

And now, onto the links!

• Gaming (Production) Goes Global – Software is an industry that is uniquely suiting toward distributed development. When faced with time and budget constraints large game studios are increasingly taking advantage of a globalized labor pool, despite potentially bad domestic pr.
  

  It really only takes a producer’s click of approval to instantly send full builds anywhere in the world (nobody trusts cloudsourcing quite yet), and that makes outsourcing production ridiculously easy. The first BioShock ping-ponged between Irrational Games’ Boston and Australian offices almost non-stop, allowing a true 24-hour work cycle.”

  The challenge as programmers in the United States is not rallying whatever political finger wagging we can muster; the cat leapt out of the bag when the train left the station. The opportunity is properly harnessing the newfound advantages to maximize the business value to clients, regardless of where the talent is sourced.

• IBM Replacing 75% of its Workforce with Contractors – IBM, which currently employs nearly 400,000 people worldwide, is hoping to reduce that number to less than 100,000 by 2017. It’s not that there isn’t work to be done. It’s just more cost effective to hire back those same people as contractors. In a world of publicly traded companies and fiduciary duty, this is a trend we’ll see more of (and not just for large, multi-national behemoths). If you haven’t taken steps to separate principal needs like retirement savings and medical insurance from your current employer, at least recognize them for what they are: dependencies subject to macro-economic forces. It’s bad enough loosing a job. Its worse also having crucial underpinnings for one’s well-being suddenly disappear.
• 

  sinkit logo by smashLAB

  Excellent Collection of Logos Employing Negative Space – Ok, that was a pretty negative start. Time to turn the negative into a positive; wonderful use of negative space in these logos.

• Text-to-Speech with Javascript – First off, it should be pointed out that this isn’t a pure Javascript/HTML5 solution yet – a Flash widget is still required for accessing the microphone. Still, this is an exciting step forward toward freeing data from its form, thus realizing its full function. I could see blogs, like this one, having meta tags at the top allowing for smart phone applications to slurp up the audio generated version, rather than returning the text. It would allow commuters, people out for a jog, and others for whom audio is ideal a way of digesting their favorite blogs as easily as feed readers aggregate rss syndicated information now.
• Bugatti Veyron Effortless Outpaces Two Modified Godzillas – For five years the Bugatti Veyron has remained the pinnacle of automotive achievement – even when challenged by two tweaked, 750 horsepower Nissan GT-Rs:

  Yes, I do love watching supercars. I realize that $1.7 million for any car, even one as without equal like the Veyron, is ridiculous. But even the most gasoline hating, car-loathing activist has to appreciate the breathtaking ease in which a machine of this caliber is untouchable by even its supposed peers. To build such performance must bring an incredible sense of satisfaction. Everyday we each face thousands of tiny opportunities where we choose to either just get through or to be excellent. I don’t just want to be able to use software like that; I want to make that.

• The Betterness Manifesto – To those ends we’ll end with Umair Haque’s Betterness Manifesto. How do we get better? How do we develop post-industrial business? Umair lays out 8 steps:
  1. Invest – That is, not into mysterious financial blackholes that if you had invested $10 in 1999 would net you a return of $10 today. Instead, take control of your investments through sites like Prosper.com and Kickstarter. Fund real people creating real innovation.
  2. Allocate – The banks that were too big to fail before are now even bigger now. So why do we reward them by leaving our money there? Local banks and credit unions are possibilities. I’m also keeping my eye on BankSimple; why can’t the disruptive economies of scale present with the Internet also be applied to banking?
  3. Cut – Consumption is not the way to a fitter, happier life…
  4. Work – …but producing things of beauty and meaning is. Stop lending your talents to companies creating toxic junk. From fast food to fast wealth we’re deafened by people rationalizing their negative effect on the wider world; “I just work here” doesn’t cut it.
  5. Live – If you hate were you live, change it. Either move or build the life you want. Richard Florida foresaw a creative age in which we all take part in thriving, tightly connected communities. Build your tribe.
  6. Civilize – the suburbs are filled with thin houses. As Umair says, “The basis of civilization is not naked self-interest, it’s shared interest”. In other words if you want a better society put down the Ayn Rand book and volunteer at a non-profit.
  7. Support – “Every choice you make with your money, time, and effort reflects your true support for betterment.”
  8. Reflect – The same technology that we so often celebrate is the same that can over-stimulate our every waking moment. Take a moment, unplug, and consider the influence that you carry. You don’t have to be a reactionary vessel; a mere leaf upon the winds of change. You can be thoughtful, decisive, and forward-thinking. But that only comes with taking the time to explore and refine the answers to questions bigger than a soundbyte and longer than a commercial break.

It is at this point where I hear creaking from the soap box that I better quit. How about you? What links have been kicking around in your browser? What has been inspiring you?

• GoDaddy Misdiagnoses Platform-wide Exploits – Under Vox Pop Design I manage a number of “experiments”. These are websites that require a degree of time investment but are invaluable from a learning perspective. Because of their limited scope I usually just host these with GoDaddy for the low price. No more. About a month ago I noticed that a Pligg-based site had been compromised and was serving malware to unsuspecting visitors. Some frantic password changing, site scrubbing, and contact with GoDaddy later things were restored but with a stern accusation that I had not kept my software up to date. That was a bullcrap excuse but I kept quiet; I was just glad to have things back up. Another two weeks and the site was compromised again. After some research I learned it wasn’t just me – apparently a good portion of all GoDaddy’s hosted sites using PHP (including WordPress, Joomla, Pligg, etc) were repeatedly being infected despite otherwise diligent maintenance and security. The base64 style infections, including hacks named holasionweb, Cechirecom, and Ninoplas, continue and suggest a misconfiguration on GoDaddy’s servers. GoDaddy’s response? GoDaddy maintains users simply need to “update their WordPress software”. Meanwhile, Bob Parsons (GoDaddy’s founder) is scheming up his next multi-million dollar softcore Superbowl commercial.
• WebsiteCDS or Git for Hack Monitoring – In trying to prevent infected sites from going unnoticed in the future both WebsiteCDS or Git seem like possibilities. The idea is that you generate a hash of your site and periodically scan your site structure. When the hashes no longer match, you’re informed that the site contents have changed. Not sure how this works with WordPress’s upload directory but a concept worth investigating.
• Sample Web App for Exploit and Defense Practice – If there were a licensing program for web developers a large component of it would have to include basic exploit awareness and defense. There isn’t a license, of course. But working through this outstanding resource hosted by Google Code University is mandatory (if you care about your clients, your product, and your profession).
• New, Tightly Coupled New Economies = Infection – So with all that was happening with the GoDaddy mess along comes Kevin Kelly’s syndicated 10th Anniversary post on ‘New Rules for the New Economy’ (emphasis mine):
  

  “The tightly linked nature of the emerging economy makes it behave like a biological community. Wars and battles were the allegories of the industrial economy. Coevolution and infections are more apt in the new economy.”

  Much of the coverage just prior to the dot-com bubble obsessed on biological metaphors for business, as this piece does. Never-the-less, still worthwhile reading.

• Slobbovia, an Ecosystem that Collapsed Under Own Complexity – With the economic crises, first in the US and now with the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) there is a train of thought that perhaps the underlying systems have grown to such interdependent complexity (or, in software speak – highly coupled with low cohesion) that we’re no longer able to manage them. Slobbovia was a fictional land; a product of collaborative storytelling. It is notable because of the richness of story that eventually transpired. However, it was this same complexity that eventually ended the narrative:
  

  “Over time, quite a lot of lore built up about the world of Slobbovia — its great families, nations, cultures, traditions, cuisine, language, and so on; one reason for its eventual demise, I suspect, is that this world-building eventually produced so rococo an artifact that joining and participating became daunting to prospective players. Getting up to speed on the world took some effort, and while there was a novice packet, and two works of history, well, you had to really want to play.“

  Why do all systems, given enough time, seem to drift toward the kind of complexity that eventually ends them? I would have assumed that the universe would skew toward entropy (inert uniformity, or – as you and I know it – pop culture).

• Spotty Support for CS3 in Email Clients – Just when I was about ready to start broad use of CSS3 I see a wonderfully researched piece from Campaign Monitor about the less than ubiquitous usage among mail clients. As developers we can get so wrapped up in one platform – browsers, for example – that we completely miss whole other dependency ecosystems.
• Meanwhile, HTML5 has Obtained Buzzword Status – If CSS3 is Hall, then HTML5 is Oates. You would think that, together, they’d be a no-brainer (who doesn’t love Maneater?). But then you dig into details and discover the pair doesn’t work all the time (like during Method of Modern Love if for no other reason than the video). Like “Web 2.0″ and “AJAX” terms earlier this decade, the actual meaning is being superseded by a marketing promise. As in Hulu’s case, that promise is not yet reality.
• 

  2010 Logo Trends – Cubism! Ghosts! Tendrils! Inspiring stuff but, as the comments are quick to point out, the reliance of so many of these trends on color or photoshopped effects means piss-poor reuse on something like a 2-color tee run. Still, the “Shift” trend, which denotes “connectivity between different entities as they come together for common good”, lead to the Vox Pop Pow Wow moniker.

• A Delightful (Fun?!) Supply Chain – another Utah blogger, Pete Abilla, outlines how the minutia of fulfillment can be turned into customer engagement. A large part of the BMW example given has to do with traceability and visibility. Go ahead, read the whole thing. I’ll wait.

  Back? Good. Now if BMW can do this with physical inventory, overseas suppliers, and independently owned car lots why can’t industries already built on digitized assets, like software, meet (or even exceed) this? Why can’t we fling open Willy Wonka’s doors and include the client in the joy inherent in the creative process? Or do we fear what we do is more akin to a sausage factory? It’s a series of thought that deserves to be fleshed out in its own thread.

• Killer Example of What Mobile Apps SHOULD Be – If you’re developing a mobile application who’s sole benefit is that it runs on a smaller screen you’re missing the point. As this older post from Factory Joe demonstrates a powerful mobile app:
  1. Leverages the Unique Properties of the Platform (the camera, mobility)
  2. Performs a Useful Function (identify products by picture and provide links to Amazon)
  3. Accounts for Ambiguity (a real person, through Mechanical Turk, provides a higher quality experience than algorithm alone)
  4. Returns Results Faster than Current Means (if I pulled up a mobile browser and surfed to Amazon)

  That’s utility you can take to the bank. Everything else is just spamming your friends in your quest to be Foursquare mayor of your local burger joint.

• When Freemium Business Models Make Sense – First labeled by Fred Wilson, “Freemium” is a business model where companies provide a basic level of service for free while providing ‘premium’ level attributes for a fee. Widely adopted by the current crop of social applications there are some large (and very) important things to consider before making freemium an aspect of your application. In short:
  1. Free users have zero marginal cost to the company
  2. Network effects (the network is more valuable the more people are on it – think dating sites) are present
  3. Attention from free users can be monetized some other way (perhaps ads)
• Let’s end with a video from the year I was born. iPad? Pfffft. I want the IBM5100. It’s a portable computer weighing a scant 50 pounds. Battery life? Please, you can plug it in anywhere. Price? We’re assured it’s reasonable (the $9,000 entry level price in 1977 approximates to around $30,000 today).