This is a little late but the Chapman University team, of which I was a member, won the American Advertising Federation National Student Advertising Competition!

We competed against 15 other teams, and some really amazing campaigns. In the end, we were selected as the first place winner. Chapman University posted a press release and even features our team on the home page.

Needless to say, this is a exciting moment and a perfect ending to my college career. All the ridiculous moments that took place during the last two semesters have been justified.

What moments you ask? Well, how else can you justify:

Building and and upholstering a couch in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria

Making @joearthur_dog (yes, my dog has a twitter) wear a security shirt [and the credit card debt for get covered]

I could go on, but you get the point. Be sure to check out our plans book.

Chevron with Techron. As if we haven’t been beat over the head enough through television, print and theme park placements, our friends at Chevron like to go the Extra Mile. No, I’m not talking about their chain of 7-11-esque quick-marts…I’m talking about the reminder that you are purchasing Chevron with Techron gasoline on the pump itself.

No, I’m not even talking about the stickers on the pump. I’m talking about this:

Yes! Even the electronic display which is used to facilitate your transaction are used to reinforce “Chevron with Techron.” Only, since I can remember, the display is wrong. Read in sequence: Chevron, Chevron with, Chevron with Techron. Gee, I didn’t know I wanted Chevron with with Techron.

I can’t be the only person that has noticed this. Chevron, it doesn’t matter what state I’m in, when I feed my car Techron, you remind me that your programer is a moron. Or just too lazy to fix every pump nation side, or maybe it’s controlled by a server in Idaho? Either way, please fix it.

On a side note, I absolutely love the new LED wraps on the canopies over the pumps. It’s very futuristic and welcoming at night, don’t you think?

This photo is from October 2004. I had just moved to California at the age of 17 to start school at Chapman University. In September I turned 18 and in October I applied to work at Disneyland. The first time, as pictured, I didn’t make it because I said I wouldn’t work on thanksgiving.

A couple weeks later, I was hired. I spent the next year and a couple months working Fantasyland Attractions. In that same short time I discovered that a film production wasn’t the major for me. I lived in three dorms, Henley, Braden and New Hall. In this short year, I met some of the best and worst people I’ve yet known.

My first serious blog “Adventures Through Southern California” also existed during this time period. The name is based off the classic Disneyland attraction “Adventures Through Inner Space.” I learned what to do and what not to do with this medium and how easy it is to offend people. So really, I learned more of what not to do.

Working almost full time and going to school full time was interesting. I figured out how to time manage. I learned that something you thought you anted to do might not be what you really want to do.

I learned how difficult it can be to deal with situations that you haven’t encountered before. How in these situations you learn how friends can be really supportive, or just destructive. More importantly, I discovered that the only person who can control my happiness is me.

Among complex circumstances and a desire for change I left Disneyland for bigger and better things. A few months later, I decided I just wasn’t yet done with Disney and went for an adventure [that I had wanted to have since being a child] that landed me in Orlando.

I spent six months working at the Great Movie Ride, and no, not on the lego version seen here. There is something to say for attractions that are so grand that you feel like you’ve left reality and are truly in a new world. True, the max 4 mile-per-hour ride system and relatively passive audience turns most people off. You really have to walk through this attraction and explore the passageways and catwalks to truly understand its magic.

From here I spent another six months in Orlando working as a technical photographer. I don’t even know what to call the division I worked for, but at the time it was Worldwide Safety and Accessibility. It was the perfect job for me at the time… I was paid to take photos of and explore the mechanical and show systems in the attractions at Walt Disney World. I’ve literally taken pictures of every attraction at every park there. I know “it’s a small world” better than anyone ever should. You can even see a couple photos I took in the Report on Safety [PDF attack!]. My leader in this position was pretty great too, and she helped me understand the professional environment…as well as the Little Mermaid.

After I completed this internship I returned to Chapman with a new mission: Graduate. Only because I wanted to switch to a Public Relations and Advertising Major I was set back. Then Chapman decided that Freshmen should be permitted to register before upperclassmen. So I was stuck for a few semesters, unable to select the prerequisite courses required to take upper division credits.

In a strange turn of events I ended up interning at Walt Disney Imagineering actually working with some of the same people I used to work with in Florida. A year later I came back as a contractor…and that brings us to today.

At school I’ve completed all of my required coursework, including Spanish. I joined the NSAC team [sure wish I did that before] and we won our district competition with Feel Free. And we are going to Orlando for nationals. Talk about weird connections! I am a semifinalist for a Cecil Award for my Entertainment Marketing project. Even better, I complete my assignment at Imagineering on the 31st and start an awesome internship with Brandtailers, an advertising agency in Irvine.

Next Saturday I’ll be graduating from Chapman with a BA in Public Relations & Advertising. I started at Chapman when the film school was in a tiny building, the library didn’t exist and the football field was actual grass. It’s been a long journey, but in the end I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had for anything.

This is all just so shocking to me. It has been a long journey from freshman to senior.

What I do know is it is only in hindsight that you see how all these seemingly random and ‘useless’ experiences combine to make you, you.

I saw this Flickr photostream on the Consumerist today. Amazing stuff.

TrustoCorp produces a magical assortment of products that subvert your expectations. Kind of like this project I did for a digital photo class at chapman.

What this stuff reminds me of is what my friend Max and I did all through middle school: Invent fun and evil products for our favorite corporate conglomerates.

They/he/she/it define themselves: “TrustoCorp is a New York based artist (or artists) dedicated to highlighting the hypocrisy and hilarity of human behavior through sarcasm and satire. TrustoCorp targets areas in the public domain typically reserved for messages of trust and authority and subverts them with messages of mayhem and absurdity hijacked from the visual style of our authorities.”

Just like Max and I did (and still do) TrustoCorp brings good things to life so that we can all save money and live better. If you know what I mean.

Randomly generated wordle of most frequent iChat words of 2009. Larger words were more common.

Making a wordle from your iChat logs isn’t an easy thing to do. Over the last year I’ve accumulated a frighteningly large amount of iChat logs. Now, before they are all put out to pasture [well, at least in theory] I wanted to see what the major themes of the year were.

iChat saves logs of conversations in some type of weird text format so I used an application called Logorrhea to export the logs into one text file. The result: a 30.4 MB text file that contained usernames, date stamps and message content. I then imported this data into Excel making a separate column for each of the three data units. Next I deleted the username and date stamp information and exported the message content as another plain text file (5.3 MB). With another application, Word Counter, I counted the frequency of individual words and this application exported a text file with the word, frequency and length. Then, this document was imported into excel where the length column was deleted and it was exported as a CSV (comma separated value) document. I imported the CSV into Word and replaced ‘,’ with ‘:’ then copy pasted the data into the advanced wordle generator.

The wordle generator makes the word with a higher number larger in the completed wordle. I had to mess around with the list for a while and remove common english words, but what you see above is a result of this convoluted method of quantifying an entire year.

While I was working at Walt Disney World I had a mission: take a picture of every different type of themed exit sign at EPCOT. This seemingly simple task turned into an epic struggle against the salida gods [that is exit in spanish...not the god part]. Below, you’ll see a collection of the ones I captured. I’m sure I missed a bunch, any ideas which?

One of the many reasons I love EPCOT is the little design touches that contribute to the authenticity of your experience…such as exit signs that match the theme of the space they inhabit. You see, there isn’t any reduction in the safety of the environment by theming an exit sign. It is likely 95% of the visitors don’t ever notice the signs. That is the point. If the parents of Kelsey and Hunter need to exit the building quickly, the exits are clearly marked…but when they are experencing the pavilion or attraction, the signs do not intrude or interrupt the themed experience.

When the exit signs are not themed they clash between the fantasy of the designed environment and the reality of egress safety. Designers should take note of little details like exit signs that separate a novice from a professional. In recent park enhancements there has been a switch to generic exit signs [The Land, California Adventure, etc]. Usually they are black and don’t draw too much attention to themselves, but they certantly don’t match the overall theme. Sure it is a little more expensive to paint the sign or choose a unique typeface, but the subliminal enhancement of authenticity is worth it!

Without further delay, here are some great themed exit signs at EPCOT. See if you can guess what pavilion they are from and click show below the image to find out of you are right!

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And here are a few at other Disney parks…

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[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Does anyone have photos of these exit signs?

• Mission Space
• Test Track
• Old Journey Into Imagination
• Spaceship Earth

Maybe I should ask, has anyone else noticed these exit signs?

All in all this week is off to a good start.

I went from a 50 to a 90 in Spanish. It’s amazing how much not having to spell things from memory improved my test score. Unfortunately, the midterm will likely be back to the old style.

Tonight we had the second NSAC meeting and it too went well. I’m really excited to be taking part in at least one team before I leave Chapman. The added bonus is the people all seem really cool. Maybe I’ve found a good place to be.

Troy left for Zion this morning and now is out of cell reception/his phone is off. I really would like to be with him. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been somewhere where I was completely unplugged.

Interesting too, this is the first time we’ve really been seperated in a way where we can’t communicate at all. I feel really middle school bringing it up but it’s new to me! Backpacking I really want to do again. I’ve spent too much time here in Orange lately.

At least the rain tonight is soothing.

On a related note this semester, I need to cheer up. I’m lost in a sea of projects and being miserable doesn’t make it any easier. So please, force me out of the house. I want to enjoy senior year as much as I want to do well with these projects.

What do you do to keep your spirits up?

Have you ever had one of those nights where you want to sleep but your mind has other ideas? It’s been a long day, you get in bed, close your eyes and bam! your mind jumps into overdrive spewing every last random thought it can generate. Is 2 A.M. really the time you need to be thinking about Spanish class, your significant other, the expiration date of the food in the fridge, how many watts the celling fan uses and how you need to apply Frontline brand anti-flea/tick product to the dog? Apparently my mind thinks so.

It is interesting to me how my memories work. There are many things I can’t actively recall, but magically when I’m trying to sleep long forgotten memories reappear! These memories are sometimes fun but often times leave me wishing that I went a different direction. If only I knew what I know now! Hindsight is annoying like that, I wish I had a better ability to enjoy the moment.

My favorite music for overly contemplative moments like this is the trusty Postal Service album, Give Up[iTunes]. Released back in 2003, and introduced to me during my friend Julie’s senior showcase I knew it was the first album I actually loved. [Well beyond the Disney World music tape, but thats a story for another time. ] If you haven’t heard The Postal Service, you are missing out. If you take a look at my iTunes play counts, I’ve enjoyed more than 1941 cumulative plays of songs from the album. It’s good, I promise.

By far my favorite experience is enjoying this album while flying 35,000 feet in the air, The Postal Service is both relaxing and helps me believe tomorrow can be a better day.

If you are going to use displays [what you might commonly call TVs] for menus or to display other forms of dynamic information in a retail, theme park, public transportation center, theater or other publicly accessible area you need to choose the right type of display. If you don’t, it looks sloppy. Plus you’ll make me grouchy…and that’s never magical.

Here are my rules for using off the shelf displays for information signage:

1. Choose LCD, not Plasma.

This is likely the biggest mistake you can make. While it is true that plasma displays have great contrast ratios, deep blacks and provide a more ‘cinematic’ viewing experience, they are not suited to display static information. Why? The evil screen burn, which is when static or repetitive graphics literally become ‘stuck’ on the display [as seen below]. Thankfully, well manufactured LCD displays are unlikely to experience this issue.  Also, LCD displays have the added benefits of using less energy and being lighter than comparable plasma models.

by Ivana Bosnic

2. Choose a display with a uniformly sized bezel. [Preferably without a large brand logo]

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, especially with displays mounted in ‘themed’ areas. Choosing a display with a bezel that is thicker on one side is distracting and detracts from the goal of making the actual device ‘invisible’ to the reader. One shouldn’t be reviewing the brand of the display but instead the content.

You can see in this example from the queue of Test Track at Epcot that the bottom portion of the bezel is thicker than the other three sides. Also, the model and brand of the display are clearly visible at both the upper left corner and bottom center of the display, these should be covered or removed. Visible logos detract from the themed space. In fact, you could buy this television at your local Best Buy and likely format the content better than has been done by these ‘professionals’. [the original source was a 4:3 image and it is incorrectly formatted for this 16:9 display as you can see the text is chopped off at the upper left]

I hate to admit it, but Universal Studios Hollywood picked great displays for the queue of The Simpsons Ride.

As you can see, both of these displays have uniformly sized bezels and minmal branding. [The second NEC display does display the model but the color is not as distracting as the Toshiba at Test Track]

Keep these guidelines in mind and you will be on your way to good show…and making me happy!

Addicted? Most likely.

You see, it started with Flickr back in 2004.

www.flickr.com Go to tom.arthur’s photostream

It continued [in no particular order] with places like Vimmeo, Blogger, Twitter, Yelp, Google Reader, YouTube, Pandora, Last FM, Facebook, BrightKite, Myspace, Fuelly, Mint, Vox, Delicious, WordPress, Tumblr, LinkedIN, Loopt (Microsoft Maps, ick), Boxee, ChaCha,Wufoo, Gyminee, Daytum, GrandCentral and LifeTick.  There are a plethora of others I’m sure.

Generally I sign up and loose interest about 15 minutes later. For example, I signed up for twitter back in 2007 to display my current location during a road trip back to California. The setup was kind of nifty, I had a hacked Motorola Boost mobile phone that was uploading GPS coordinates to a SQL database that was feeding both twitter and a website with live location and speed information. It was cool!

Sometimes the websites end up becoming part of my routine and I try to recruit users [like with flickr] and sometimes I forget about them. Ways to keep my attention [if you are developing your own web 2.0 app] include:

• pretty colors [yes, magenta and cyan count as pretty colors]
• shiny things that move
• ways to share information no one really wants to know
• interconnection with other web 2.0 applications, creating a big web of over-sharing magic

Did you know you can check the up-time [wikipedia: a measure of the time a computer system has been "up" and running] of your Mac? There are a billion different ways to check but an easy one is to open terminal and type ‘uptime’. My computer, for example, has been up 17 days. 17 days!

Why in the world would I leave my computer on for 17 days? Brain crack. You see, since the new year I’ve been working on this blog. I determined that I needed design help and began trying to build a concept of what I wanted the new design to be like. That was over 30 days go. Since then I’ve been putting off writing any of these ideas down, instead enjoying the magical confabulation of completed website in my head! I haven’t restarted my computer because I have a proliferation of windows open in Safari with links and websites related to how I want to redesign this blog. Those windows have just been sitting there, for the last 14 days.

I’ve had this addiction to brain crack for some time now so I thought I would try to list all the [rated G thru PG] things I’ve been thinking about doing while I have this temporary urge to purge. In fact, I’ve been keeping track of some of these things in a ‘blue sky’ tab of my tasks in Remember the Milk. That apparently wasn’t such a great idea because I’m accumulating things at a rate faster than my google reader stared items [an issue for another time].

Here are some of the more interesting things:

• light trail photography with the dogs
• find a designer and complete this website 
• go snow tubing/bring dogs to snow
• go camping/backpacking
• figure out how best to use that gift certificate to the Maker Shed 
• bring the broken part of the couch to IKEA
• actually do something

Why is it so hard to get stuff done?

I can’t get images to behave.
It is ignoring pagebreaks and every other which way of centering the image and turning text wrap off. Ugh.

But only when an image is involved.

As in this is what I don’t want but can’t get rid of. Ugh! Text doesn’t go here!

Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here.