We closed our offices for a day in June and headed to the Maryland shore for our first official summer retreat. Through creative projects conceived by each team member, we were able to explore our creative side through unexpected ways. We walked through marsh fields, stared eye-to-eye with damsel flies, drank in the sounds of purple finches, watched periwinkles do absolutely nothing… In two words, got inspired.
But don’t get me wrong, we also ate. And swam. and lounged.
We talked a lot about you, actually. Well, not so much about you but about us serving you. About what we can do better, about how we can push our creativity, about what we can do to improve our service. About where we wanted to take this in the future, our strengths, weaknesses, where communication is headed, what role design has in society and how we can push messages beyond the norm.
It was a re-treat in every sense. And we’re back to pass it on!
Create Your Own Creative Challenge
With a small budget, or no budget at all, you can take a few minutes and do a creative brain-starter for you or your team. We also found inspiration for a few activities in books like Sam Harrison's Idea Spotting and Caffeine for the Creative Mind, by Stepfan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield.
One of the activities for the day was a team challenge. An array of craft items were presented and each PDC team member had 15 minutes to create something. After the 15 minutes were up, then next person took over and had to build upon what the previous person had begun, without speaking to each other. It was a test in how we work together each day in the studio on various projects.
Museum Pick of the Month
We took some time to see Design for the Other 90% at National Geographic. It’s FREE to the public and runs through September 6th. It’s amazing how some of these simple design solutions to a problem can change a person’s life. From lengthening the back of a bike to using the sun’s power to run lights and computers. Here are some of our favorites:
Q Drum: shortens women and girl’s time caring water so they can attend school and accomplish other tasks
Big Boda Bike: designed to have a larger carrying capacity for goods and up to three people.
Yahoo has created an invaluable guide to web writing! Each month, we will feature a few tips to help you in your writing. But why wait? The parts of the guide can be found online, or you can buy a printed version.
clickthrough (n., adj.), click through (v.) — One word when used as a noun or an adjective. Two words when used as a verb. Examples: The company’s online ads consistently earn a high clickthrough rate. Click through to the last page to see your score.
email (n., adj., v.) — One word, no hyphen. Plural: email messages and emails are both acceptable.
FTP — Abbreviation for File Transfer Protocol. Abbreviation is always OK. Verb usage is also OK: Please FTP that file if it’s larger than 3MB.
hyperlink (n., adj., v.) — One word, but the term is dated. Use link instead.
Wi-Fi — Short for wireless fidelity. Note capitalization and hyphen. Shortened form always OK.
Answer the questions to our short survey here, and at the end you'll find 3 of our personal favorite summer recipes. May you find inspiration in your summer hours...
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