Sad news. Rotring, the company that started in 1928 in Germany has been taken over by American manufacturer and member of the Rubbermaid empire, Sanford. And as every thoughtful takeover of a better brand than your own, you do the right thing and kill it. Which is exactly what's happening at the moment.

Can't have the sub-brand out-shine and be overall better than the main brand. Ergo, must kill the quality product and flood the market with the crappy one.

Go Sanford, make us all proud now!

Are stamps relevant anymore in this age of email? Sure they are. Mostly because you do have to pay that bill to that company that does not yet have electronic bill pay service. And when you do give your money to a company like that, what more cheerful way to tell them: UPDATE YOUR SYSTEM, than with a cheerful well placed Miss Piggy stamp?

It's derived off the sword maker marks of the 15/16 century. It's proving to be quite a bit of work. Which takes quite a bit of time. Time that I do not have a bit to spare. Hence the short declarative sentences. Here's a sample.

I'm taking name suggestions.

I had both the fortune and the misfortune to be part of a dotcom a few years back. And today, when a friend was talking to me about staff cuts at her workplace, I had a chance to look back at the time spent in the dot com world. It struck me that I have learned a few things here and there.

For example, when you have a meeting in which the "CFO" draws a graph and explains the earnings to expense ratio vs. the market trend, drawing the conclusion that "we're doing well" while all around companies are laying off people, it is time to start looking around and wonder who'll make the lay-off list. That and, of course, start backing up the work and contacts because it's only logical to assume you're on the list yourself. Word of advice, have your work backed up at all times, do not use company email for job search and company trash talking and, of course, have a plan. You'll be better off if you do.

It sure was interesting... Being lied to and somehow wanting to believe the rosey tale, while knnowing better and trying to ignore your gut which is yelling at you to come to your senses. Those times are long (3 yrs) gone and the on-line design industry has reached a new maturity.

The people that got in the design game because they had an iMac in the basement and somehow belived the pie-in-the sky stories about the money to be made in this field, have since came to the realization that this business is damn hard, and dropped off the map. Which is great, because the prices will even out while the quality of work will go up (hopefully).