Great American Adventure

Just returned from Detroit, where I accompanied my granny on a trip to visit a childhood love of hers who is terminally ill. It would have all been so romantic had I not spent the majority of a trip in a very real, very un-romantic hospital. Old people are a drag (when they're not absolutely crazy, which is how I'd prefer to turn out).

In any case, the only place worth going in Detroit (aside from Bell Isle, which is not in Detroit at all but is instead in a kind of Canada/U.S. purgatory that made my cell phone blink "International!"), is Motown, pictured above (taken from Flickr). Detroit is distinctly depressing and profoundly abandoned. I've never seen so many derelict buildings. I'll only ever visit again via Motown tunes on my iPod, I've decided.

Black, Heavy, Bold, Medium, Roman

This is an amazing documentary about the conceptual development and evolution of the world's most ubiquitous type face, Helvetica. You'd be surprised how often you see it (especially in New York) and how often it surrounds you completely unnoticed. Maybe only worth the hour and a half if you're a complete design/aesthetics freak, but definitely entertaining.

I'll never forget the conversation I had with my dad at around 6 when I told him I wanted to be an artist. His response was, of course, being my dad, that I should be an architect instead because that is where "the money is." As much as I love and appreciate good architecture (as it is an extension of my general appreciation for good design of all kinds) more and more each day I find myself wanting to study graphic design and learn to design on a smaller scale. A part of me even wishes I went to art school. And then I remember the kinds of kids that go to art school and I renege. But in any case, if I do ever end up at grad school, it will not be for a degree in architecture.