As you probably know, we are big fans of good typography. I recently discovered typographicposters.com. It’s a design directory of typography mixed with poster style artwork, focused to inspire the graphic design community. If you get a chance, check it out.

On January 28th at 7pm, the first ever Pecha Kucha night in St. Louis will be held in downtown St. Louis. A tradition started in Tokyo (and now spread globally), Pecha Kucha nights are an opportunity for local artists, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and creators to get together and present an interesting thought of their choice and stimulate discussion. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, and 20 seconds to talk per image. This should be a great opportunity to not only be exposed to some new ideas, but also learn some new faces in the local St. Louis community. It’s like the TED conferences, but from the grassroots up. And each presentation is less than 7 minutes.

For more information and a list of the presenters, visit http://www.pecha-kucha.org/night/saint-louis/1.

For the past several months, I have been watching a show on HGTV named, “Holmes on Homes.” The premise of the show is for a contractor, “Mike Holmes” to go into peoples residences to repair and correctly finish their “Home” that a previous contractor had incorrectly remodeled or walked away from before the job was done, costing them big dollars. When you watch this show, it’s hard to believe that anybody could treat their customers this poorly and show this much lack of character, but I guess it happens.

Mike Holmes is like a savior to these people and I like him. I like him because he believes in hard work. He believes in being fair and doing the best job, not just an average job. He takes great pride in what he does for a living and I wish we saw more of that in America in general. Any job worth doing is worth doing it well.

Every time I watch this show, I think of my team at Big Wheel. I see the care and pride in producing good work and doing it right. I see how much it means to everyone to make a project a success. Most of all, I see the passion and endurance that takes a project from the beginning all the way to the end – which is just about the most crucial part of the process, especially in the t.v. show referenced above. If you can’t cross the finish line, don’t even bother to start the race.

So cheers to you in 2010 and the delivery of the Big Wheel promise of doing “The Hard Work.”

The Baleout is a Vintage Fashion and Accessories store located in the City Museum in downtown St. Louis. With an extremely large product inventory (acquired in 1 ton clothing bales - thus their name) they have one of the biggest collections of vintage sweaters, ties, jeans, and dresses in the midwest.

Big Wheel lent our hand to The Baleout with a new logo representing the large clothing bales their product was acquired in, a website landing page with a bit of animated eye candy, sales promotion cards, and a business card system.

To learn more about The Baleout, please visit www.thebaleout.com and be sure to stop by the 4th Floor of the City Museum to check out their store.

It looks like web developers now will have one more browser test. Google has made the first betas of its new browser “Chrome” available for Mac and Linux users. The new browser is said to be extremely fast compared to current available browsers in page rendering, JavaScript performance, and desktop client applications. A Windows version of Chrome has been available for about a year.  To learn more, check out Webmonkey’s recent review of Chrome.

Volvo recently commissioned artist, Esref Armagan to create a painting of his experience with the new Volvo S60. That doesn’t seem very amazing until you find out that Esref has been blind since birth. Finally, a car company that encapsulates the emotion and experience of the automobile - human relationship. I surely don’t get excited about watching a car drive down a windy road, but I certainly get excited when a car brand can deliver a message like this. Watch the video of Esref’s creation here.

Not a bad list. Enjoy.

Via Alltop. http://inc19.alltop.com/

Salvador Dali

One of this century’s most influential photographers died on October 7, 2009 at the age of 92. Irving Penn’s classical work graced the pages of Vogue magazine, other publications and advertisements for over five decades and dominated fashion photography with style and substance of remarkable talent.

Salad Still Life

He was one of my inspirations, not for only for his portraiture, but for his ability to see form while documenting the subjects before his camera. Still’s of leaves, accessories, food or everyday items took on a larger than life presence in his images. His work shooting dignitaries, artists, common folks and aborigines shares a common thread of Penn’s unique vision.

New Guinea Princess

A true master of his craft, his influence will be seen in editorial and advertising imagery for eternity. Thank you Mr. Penn.

Serif. Sans Serif. Slab Serif. Wood Cut. Script. Display Type. Ornamental. Condensed. Extended. Hairline. Outline. Web Font. Pixel Font…

There are quite a few to pick from when working through a design strategy and process. Being a creative you get to learn how to identify them in major nerd fashion when they are on television, in a movie, or floating around all over the place. Does my wife think I’m cool that I can ruin every movie intro by naming the typeface used? No… But hey… I still have to try…

Check out typography.com to further geektify yourself with all the newest typefaces.