The 300

"It's a great freakin' movie."

I don't know how else to begin this post. There's no way for me to really ease into it. Everyone has heard about it, most everyone has seen the trailers. What else is there to cover except that it's a great freakin' movie?

Well, there is the historical significance. When I talk to people who have also seen it, they say words like "great visuals" and "full of testosterone" and "wonderful colors" but then there's nearly always "not much of a plot". And no, there won't seem to be much of a plot unless you understand what the movie really means.

The last stand of the 300 Spartans is actually much bigger than 300 soldiers fighting against a million other soldiers in waves of 10,000 to 20,000 (and incredibly defeating each wave). This Persian invasion takes place just before Alexander the Great conquers all of Asia and then the birth of Roman Empire. This is incredibly important to keep in mind.

300 Spartans held a million Persians for 3 days. Their sacrifice inspired and bought time for the rest of Greece to build and prepare the rest of their armies to face Xerxes (and then stop his invasion). If Greece didn't have that, then it's highly likely that they would not have been ready to face Xerxes and therefore would have been defeated. Which means... Alexander would never be known as Great. The Roman Empire might not have ever been born (or be as empirical as it was). America as we know Her, and Western civilization and philosophies, most likely would not be what they are today.

So as you can see, there is actually a very very large plot in the movie, it's just not covered in the dialogue or narration. That last stand of 300 Spartans is momentous. I'm going to see it again, this time at the IMAX. I already have the graphic novel, but I'm going to buy the DVD when it's released. And then... I don't know, but I'm sure that I'll still be quoting lines from the movie.

Top 10 Things

This is a great top 10 list posted by Michael McDonough over at the adzilla blog:

The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
by Michael McDonough

1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
Talent is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success.
Hard work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline
and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether it
is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very
talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you think I
am wrong, just look around.

2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
Only 5 percent is actually, in some simplistic way, fun. In school that is
what you focus on; it is 100 percent fun. Tick-tock. In real life, most of
the time there is paper work, drafting boring stuff, fact-checking,
negotiating, selling, collecting money, paying taxes, and so forth. If you
don’t learn to love the boring, aggravating, and stupid parts of your
profession and perform them with diligence and care, you will never succeed.

3. If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
You hear a lot about details, from “Don’t sweat the details” to “God is in
the details.” Both are true, but with a very important explanation:
hierarchy. You must decide what is important, and then attend to it first
and foremost. Everything is important, yes. But not everything is equally
important. A very successful real estate person taught me this. He told me,
“Watch King Rat. You’ll get it.”

4. Don’t over-think a problem.
One time when I was in graduate school, the late, great Steven Izenour said
to me, after only a week or so into a ten-week problem, “OK, you solved it.
Now draw it up.” Every other critic I ever had always tried to complicate
and prolong a problem when, in fact, it had already been solved. Designers
are obsessive by nature. This was a revelation. Sometimes you just hit it.
The thing is done. Move on.

5. Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
In design this means “draw what you know.” Start by putting down what you
already know and already understand. If you are designing a chair, for
example, you know that humans are of predictable height. The seat height,
the angle of repose, and the loading requirements can at least be
approximated. So draw them. Most students panic when faced with something
they do not know and cannot control. Forget about it. Begin at the
beginning. Then work on each unknown, solving and removing them one at a
time. It is the most important rule of design. In Zen it is expressed as “Be
where you are.” It works.

6. Don’t forget your goal.
Definition of a fanatic: Someone who redoubles his effort after forgetting
his goal. Students and young designers often approach a problem with insight
and brilliance, and subsequently let it slip away in confusion, fear and
wasted effort. They forget their goals, and make up new ones as they go
along. Original thought is a kind of gift from the gods. Artists know this.
“Hold the moment,” they say. “Honor it.” Get your idea down on a slip of
paper and tape it up in front of you.

7. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
Overconfidence is as bad as no confidence. Be humble in approaching
problems. Realize and accept your ignorance, then work diligently to educate
yourself out of it. Ask questions. Power – the power to create things and
impose them on the world – is a privilege. Do not abuse it, do not
underestimate its difficulty, or it will come around and bite you on the
ass. The great Karmic wheel, however slowly, turns.

8. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes
unpunished.
The world is not set up to facilitate the best any more than it is set up to
facilitate the worst. It doesn’t depend on brilliance or innovation because
if it did, the system would be unpredictable. It requires averages and
predictables. So, good deeds and brilliant ideas go against the grain of the
social contract almost by definition. They will be challenged and will
require enormous effort to succeed. Most fail. Expect to work hard, expect
to fail a few times, and expect to be rejected. Our work is like martial
arts or military strategy: Never underestimate your opponent. If you believe
in excellence, your opponent will pretty much be everything.

9. It all comes down to output.
No matter how cool your computer rendering is, no matter how brilliant your
essay is, no matter how fabulous your whatever is, if you can’t output it,
distribute it, and make it known, it basically doesn’t exist. Orient
yourself to output. Schedule output. Output, output, output. Show Me The
Output.

10. The rest of the world counts.
If you hope to accomplish anything, you will inevitably need all of the
people you hated in high school. I once attended a very prestigious design
school where the idea was “If you are here, you are so important, the rest
of the world doesn’t count.” Not a single person from that school that I
know of has ever been really successful outside of school. In fact, most are
the kind of mid-level management drones and hacks they so despised as
students. A suit does not make you a genius. No matter how good your design
is, somebody has to construct or manufacture it. Somebody has to insure it.
Somebody has to buy it. Respect those people. You need them. Big time.

Pulp Typography

A very large—and very menacing—catalog is in production that is taking up a monstrous portion of my time currently. Once that book is out, I'll be making better efforts to update this "blahg" more frequently.

In the meantime, check out this video of the infamous scene of "What does Marsellus Wallace Look Like?" from Pulp Fiction. I don't know if it's my affinity for the scene, the wonderful use of a slab-serif typeface, the harmony of the colors, the rhythm of the living text, or if it's just that everything was put together very well, but I love this.

Credit goes to Jarratt Moody for the Pulp Fiction Typography, but it's spread all over YouTube by at least a dozen folks.