Thoughts on Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal by Peter Miller, owner of a design bookshop in Seattle, WA.

We work in a very old building in a very old town (by American standards). So, we have an old infrastructure in some regards. Today we had a power outage for around two hours, which is not all that unusual. They are more common in the summer, when thunderstorms roll through, or in deep winter, when ice coats tree branches until they bring wires down.  

Think back to your high school years.

If you tuned in to POTUS giving his State of the Union address

you know that President Obama will continue to hold his ground on the Affordable Care Act. Even those who have been playing close attention to these issues can find it all very confusing, so this week we are offering a few resources to help keep you current.

Last week, we offered a reading list with an eye toward global citizenship.

Today’s titles include classics with a more temporal perspective (both real and imaginary) and a mix of Zen koans and big-data thinking.

As designers, we inhabit the everyday world.

Though our visions might occupy a different realm, we live in the same orbit as those for whom we design. Innovation requires us to understand what came before us, what lies around us, and the part we play in making the world a better place.

Welcome to the Invo Department of Training and Development.

Most medium-to-large companies have staff who are responsible for employee learning. Some live in Human Resources and offer training on things like business writing and leadership skills. Others sit in a training organization that develops product and process training. Such groups usually follow a highly structured process of content drafting, reviews, and even testing, all using branded templates and sanctioned development tools before releasing a final deliverable.

“Posters are dissent made visible—they communicate, advocate, instruct, celebrate, and warn, while jarring us to action with their bold messages and striking iconography. ... Without a doubt, the poster remains the most resonant, intrinsic and enduring item in the arsenal of a contemporary graphic designer.”
Elizabeth Resnick

“Despite the fact that we’re the ‘lower’ 99 percent, we’re still the 99 percent, and acting together we can make change.” Sarah Kaiser

Nearly two years ago, we blogged about “Wake Up!” the poster created by Invo designer Sarah Kaiser and Chief Creative Director Juhan Sonin, and its inclusion in Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age 2001-2012” which features over 122 posters from artists in 32 countries.

Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age 2001–2012 comprises a significant collection of empathetic and visually compelling messages for our time. The third in a series of socio-political poster exhibitions, Graphic Advocacy has been shown in Korea, Mexico, Bolivia, and numerous galleries across the United States, and will continue to tour in 2015.

Graphic Advocacy will be on exhibition at Towson University until December 20, 2014. (Towson is a short distance from Baltimore, Maryland.) See the Schedule for upcoming showings.

Graphic Advocacy creator Elizabeth Resnick is Professor and Chair of the Graphic Design Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, Massachusetts. She is a passionate design curator who has developed and organized design exhibitions since in 1991. In a 2013 TEDx talk, Resnick describes how her own early experiences in art school during the Vietnam War era contributed to the work she does today.

Because I’ve been a little slow learning to use Slack, I realized today that I missed some awesome links being shared around the studio and across the country. Here they are.

MakerBot Ghostly Vinyl Challenge

If you know what an LP is...or a turntable?

Design a printable, win a 3D printer! All for the love of vinyl. (Thanks, Ben Listwon!)

The Halloween leftovers are already dwindling to the candy nobody likes. We’ve had our first snowfall. And I'm ready to knit another pair of wristwarmers for our beautiful but drafty old studio.

It is hard to believe that only two weeks ago our entire Invo team was in Camden, Maine at the 18th annual Pop!Tech conference. We braved a nor’easter, sampled chowder and local beers, downed countless oysters, and met more fascinating, brilliant, quirky, and funny people than any of us can remember. I canvassed the group last week to see what rose to the surface.

Eric Benoit: would have liked more show than tell