Of the speakers I saw, Gladwell did the best job of speaking to all of the conference's tribes simultaneously. He worked without a podium, hardly even glancing at his notes as he paced the stage. He had good reason to know his stuff: A Google search shows he's been giving versions of this speech for at least four years. It's a good one, with some surprising insights gleaned from his years of research on human behavior. Gladwell's talk was about how spaghetti-sauce producers influenced consumer reality in the 1970s by introducing alternatives to the traditional, "authentic" sauce (Extra Chunky et al). It's not hard to trace this development in consumer culture forward in time to our own day, in which a surfeit of choice threatens economic progress with a lasting fragmentation of the marketplace.

I thought of Gladwell's talk during a presentation given by Wende Zomnir, executive creative director of Urban Decay Cosmetics, on the last day of FUSE. Urban Decay had their Extra-Chunky moment of consumer connection when they first came on the scene in the mid-'90s with enamels and lipsticks in dark, unusual shades. "Beauty with an Edge" became the company's slogan, and Urban Decay's edgy appeal was cemented with its goth-glamorous product names, e.g. "Asphyxia," a pink-purple eye shadow. After pop culture's "alternative" moment passed, the company had to avoid going the way of Sassy and other relics of the period. Urban Decay's management adopted adaptable signatures (models in UD promo art are never pictured holding the product, only wearing it) and a "holy trinity" of elastic, overarching brand attributes--"Feminine/Dangerous/Fun"--to guide the company's growth into the mainstream marketplace. Zomnir summed it up this way: "We pretend that we don't appeal to the masses, but we do."

A recent example of successful innovation-in-the-mainstream from the Urban Decay catalog is the Hot Box Mini Makeup Kit, which conceals lip gloss, eye shadow, and mascara in a case whose size and shape echo those of a cigarette lighter. The kit's name was suggested by an Urban Decay assistant after the initial title, "The Walk of Shame Kit," was deemed too racy for underage makeup buyers (and their parents). The Hot Box won the fifth annual International Package Design of the Year award at the HBA Health and Beauty America Show in 2004.

If you're surprised by the presence of a tv-network executive on an ad-agency insider panel, as I was, you're not familiar with the latest mutations of 21st-century marketing. At the turn of the millennium, much was made of the then-new marketing term "synergy," but that once-controversial word doesn't do justice to the turbocharged product placement that is Meyer's stock-in-trade. She routinely works with sponsors to produce new-media supplements to televised content, such as the recent Project Runway online videos showing contestants cruising around NYC in Saturns. The commercials, designed to promote both the show and the automobile-maker, are housed on the Saturn website as a lingering endorsement. As Meyer explained, in the future Bravo plans to secure sponsorship for new shows before production even begins. "Product placement will become the first conversation we have," she said.

Unlike Meyer, ad execs can't rely on the goodwill of legions of reality-tv addicts. They have to chase after fickle, fragmented online audiences that have little tolerance for conventional advertising experiences. "Shame on any agency that only brings an outbound message," said Dawn Winchester. One fairly conservative way to engage web-savvy consumers is to associate a brand with an already-popular online phenomenon, as Dr. Pepper did with the YouTube sensation "Chocolate Rain." Marc Ruxin predicted, "The agency of the future will be looking outside the creative director."

The internet has enabled advertising to change in form as well as content. Guy Wieynk (whose last name, by the way, moderator McIlroy didn't even attempt to pronounce) of web site consultancy AKQA put it plainly: "Produce video, my friend." To drive home the point, he pointed out that eBay items with a video clip sell for 30% more on average than those without. Trevor Kaufman, CEO of Schematic, called for companies to adopt "radical transparency" on the internet by giving consumers behind-the-scenes glimpses of brands. Ruxin claimed that the best "ad" of the 21st century is the Google Toolbar. "It's about good content finding an audience. That was always important, but it's twice as important now," he explained.

As marketing strategies mutate, it becomes difficult to measure success, or even to define it. "How many views on YouTube is good? How does having 1,000 friends on Facebook stimulate sales?" were questions posed to the panel by Mark Ruxin. Throughout the evening, panelists mentioned the lack of metrics for online marketing, but Guy Wieynk disagreed. "You have to keep it simple," Wieynk stated. "You can track pretty much anything, but you have to know ahead of time what you want to track."

In the final, overarching disagreement of the panel discussion, Dawn Winchester voiced an objection to the very title of the event. "'The New Creative Agency' is not what we need to be building," she said. "Creativity and media need to be brought together. Media and infrastructure are as important as creative."

On the album, Goldfrapp steps away from up-tempo pop hooks, opting for orchestral folk-psychedelia that rewards repeated listening. The sound is a complete break with 2006's Supernature, the group's last album, which went so far into pop that it sometimes pandered. Alison's sensibility, however, remains poised somewhere between the emotional frankness of folk and the oblique expression of psychedelia. Without an immediately catchy chorus, her uncanny metaphors are all the more intriguingly bizarre.

The sun-bleached Serge Leblon photos show her cavorting through pastoral greenery in the company of a man in an owl costume (probably co-composer/producer Will Gregory, the other half of Goldfrapp). Interestingly, the first page of the accompanying notebook bears a drawing of a nude woman with an owl's head, one of many animal/human hybrid beings in the Goldfrapp visual oeuvre. Maybe Alison views her collaboration with Gregory on Seventh Tree as a way of recapturing a vanished oneness with Nature, analogous to the Dionysian revels she sings about on older, disco-y tracks such as "Ride a White Horse" and "Twist."

However you interpret it, the deluxe-edition Seventh Tree should make you grateful that music still exists in physical form. It should also make you aware that design, at its best, can alter--can enrich--content.

Postscript: Definitely check out The Look's post on Alison's (too-obvious?) style references in the Seventh Tree artwork.

Reagan-era political battles and cultural rifts still perplex many in academia. That's why I was so fascinated by Ewen's speech, which described a real threat to academic freedom that is advancing while many professors focus on the problems of the past. In the spring of 2007, Ewen says, Hunter College's Department of Film & Media Studies offered as part of its major a course in "stealth marketing" with a curriculum designed by IACC (International Anti-Counterfeit Corporation), "a non-profit organization devoted solely to protecting intellectual property and deterring counterfeiting." In essence, IACC's raison d'etre is to lobby for legislation against knockoff goods on behalf of its member companies. One of these, the Coach Corporation, manufacturer of shoes, handbags, and accessories, put up ten thousand dollars to fund the course.

A corporation-funded university class with a curriculum created by corporate lobbyists is questionable enough, but further violations of standard academic protocol were apparently involved here. According to Ewen, it appears that the class was the result of a direct request made by the president of the university to the department head. No tenured teachers were told about the department's new curricular direction; an untenured (therefore more pliable) faculty member with no marketing background was selected to teach the class. The anointed instructor voiced objections to the assignment, but ended up teaching the course anyway, with continuous supervision from a Coach lawyer. At no time, the Coach overseer stipulated, was the company's involvement to be mentioned in any of the completed class projects.

The product of this semester-long crash course in surreptitious advertising, termed a "college outreach campaign" by the IACC, was an elaborate fiction better suited to a creative-writing seminar than the classes in media criticism normally held within the department. Using authentic-seeming fliers, social networking websites, and a blog, the students wove a narrative concerning a nonexistent Hunter undergrad named "Heidi Cee" and her lost Coach bag, a precious gift from her boyfriend that she was desperate to recover. Heidi ponied up big reward money for the no-questions-asked return of the bag, only to find that she had been taken in by a knockoff. Incensed, she took to the internet in an attempt to crush counterfeiting. The campaign concluded in May with an anti-counterfeiting event at Hunter where IACC literature was distributed, along with free food from Olive Garden. Heidi explained her absence at the crucial event by claiming that her "uncle in Jersey" had suffered a minor stroke.

My jaundiced view of higher education usually prevents me from waxing sentimental about academic freedom, but I confess to sharing Professor Ewen's outrage in this case. When Ewen questioned the Ohio-based p.r. firm that created this course about the "Heidi Cee" project's deceptions, he was told by one of the firm's spin artists, "That's what kids do these days: create fake people on the internet." The spin doctor wasn't wrong; the web is hospitable to (young and old) perpetrators of unverifiable lies and half-truths. Some corporations appear to be eager to subsidize and magnify these transgressions, to the point of using universities as laboratories in which to grow profitable lies. Ohio State University, Howard University, and University of Miami are among the schools that have hosted IACC campaigns similar to Hunter's.

In this context, it's hard to cheer Coach CEO and Hunter College alum Lew Frankfort's recent donation of a million dollars to his alma mater.

The vitality of that counterculture--as it appears to this 29-year-old--came from the combination of youthful energy, political awareness, subversive humor, and pure, antic ingenuity. With all these elements in place, all that was needed was to find the lexicon to express their confluence, a task not too demanding for such great artists as The Rolling Stones, Jean-Luc Godard, and Thomas Pynchon. The arrival of this new lexicon could be seen in a 16-page brochure called "The South," which was part of Chwast's slideshow this morning. Each page bore an idyllic image of the Old South (a Currier Ives print, a hand-tinted movie still, etc.) disrupted by the photograph of a slain black person or civil-rights activist, the violence signified by a circular perforation in the photo. It's a striking piece of agitprop that becomes culturally revealing when one recognizes that the perforation makes each page resemble a vinyl record. At its height, the counterculture aimed to sweep away the old codes and replace them with the language they were developing and rediscovering through pop music and street-level politicking.

Carin Goldberg, who designed album art for CBS Records in the '70s, gave a much less lively historical account in her talk this morning. She seemed to believe that her audience had never seen a movie, let alone read a detailed history book. Her disquisition on Truth included thumbnail descriptions of the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s (covered in the movie Quiz Show), the oft-mocked "duck and cover" campaign, and Senator Joseph McCarthy. Even if she felt compelled to drag these punching bags out for yet another thrashing, she could have done so with a single image instead of playing the pedant. She appeared to think that we desperately needed the historical context only she could provide.

The younger design activists who took the stage after lunch used equally problematic approaches. I enjoyed listening to Scott Stowell, one of the minds behind the lauded design of Good magazine, talk about the publication's mission of reaching "people who give a damn" and watching his display of highlights from Good's inaugural year. The magazine's flaws, though, can be gleaned from its directionless title. Its mannered, jokey design, laden as it is with tics and digressions, often seems intentionally deployed to sweeten the tough topics risked in the articles. As the magazine develops, we may well see Good find a deeper, more resonant voice.

Listening to today's talks, it seemed to me that the old-school counterculture, instead of evolving, had split. Boomers kept the political awareness and oppositional craft they honed while fighting Nixon and others, but lost both the desire and the will to bring about fundamental change. Generations X and Y have desire in abundance but little awareness and discipline to guide it. Each group is left with only half a lexicon. The only subject on which everyone can be brought to agreement is George W. Bush. When he goes, assuming the Democrats prevail in the '08 election, will we all just resume our pre-millennial nap?

Sitkin's work with John Bielenberg's Project M took her and seven other designers to Hale County, Alabama for the month of June with the vague mission of creating something that would make a difference in the poorer communities there. As the group discovered, more than a quarter of the residents of Hale County live below the poverty line, and almost as many have no connection to the municipal water system. Inspired by one of Hale's local papers, the Greensboro Watchman, the team created a 24-page newspaper-style spread about the county's water-access problem in just a few days. At buyameter.org, you can view the piece and donate to a fund established to assist the needy in Hale County. It takes $425 to bring clean water to a household; so far, about $30,000 has been raised.

Andrew Sloat's shorts constitute a fun, patriotic mix of typography and cinema. He premiered a new three-minute movie (made with $3,000 of his own money) which spells out the first sentence of the preamble to the Constitution letter by letter using t-shirts worn by a multicultural group of people, who pivot and slide into various configurations in order to assemble all the words. The movie's recognizable setting--a school gymnasium--lends a plaintive note to this humorous work. It's as though the democratic principles outlined in the preamble were, like childhood memories, both almost close enough to touch and irrevocably distant.

As Alissa Walker was quick to point out, the three panelists seemed to be motivated by different forms of frustration. Fed up with the banality of the advertising world in which he made his living, Ji Lee invited the people to talk back by pasting empty voice bubbles on billboards and posters on the streets and in the subway. The "Bubble Project" phenomenon spawned a book, Talk Back: The Bubble Project, and has spread around the world via the internet, but perhaps just as rewarding was the "adrenaline rush" Lee says he got from his guerrilla activities. Andrew Sloat said his movies come out of a desire to subvert his own political stridency with a more "open-ended, sentimental" message. Ellen Sitkin felt that her day jobs in design didn't fulfill her need to explore "the human side" of the discipline. Each designer found a project suited to his or her personality, one that spoke to both overarching desires of young political artists: to do good and to be understood.

What were the reasons for the switch? What issues do you feel you were attempting to illuminate/demonstrate?
For me, the switch was really a statement that design is about the work. It was a sophisticated play on the understanding of design as that of merely a star culture – an opportunity to celebrate idea over the individual (‘the’ project as opposed to ‘my’ project). A few people in the audience knew me, but many looked at the picture of Tobi in the catalogue, that didn't know his face and assumed they had the wrong guy. I gave away MANY hints, but as I can speak with such authority, many were unable to pick them up. Hopefully they realize later...

How much preparation was necessary for you to “become” Tobi Wong?
There was really almost no preparation. Tobi and I had a long lunch. We discussed design, life, fears, hopes, relationships, etc. at length. I was really interested in what drives him, and how I could represent his ideas and stay true to his spirit. We shared much, and I learned what we share, and what we don't. I'm pretty good at modeling different perspectives. We've admired each other's work in the past, so we also shared that affinity.

What were your impressions of the experience of becoming another designer?
Empathy and role-playing is probably the most basic and important thing a designer does. As a writer, I'd imagine you're an expert at this as well. When Tobi asked me, I actually felt nervous, something I rarely feel. I can stand-up in a board room, lecture to a University, but to pretend to be another person and be able to answer questions as they would, that was a serious responsibility. I had to do it. I really enjoyed the exercise - be someone else for a day.

How do you feel it came off? Were you happy with the results?
I was nervous during the beginning of my presentation, as I was learning the slides and proper project names and dates. Tobi had just loaded them before I presented. I generally knew the work, but not the exact pictures. The results were phenomenal! I was informally interviewed by a number of magazines including Fast Company. People were convinced and enjoyed the dialogue. A number of people complimented me on my 'incredible' acting ability and asked how I could speak so well about design. I jokingly said Tobi had implanted a mic which of course was not true.

Why was there ultimately no “reveal”? Was it a spontaneous decision not to call attention to the joke?
Yes, it was a spontaneous decision not to call attention with a reveal. I looked out at Tobi sitting next to my girlfriend, and he shook his head no. I respected this. One man can only know so much, I suppose if you want to know the answer to this, you have to ask the maestro himself...

Do you think it would be fair to call the project a “prank” or a “stunt,” and why/why not?
No, it certainly wasn't a prank or a stunt. The questions were real as were my responses. I'm a serious designer, thinker and risk-taker. Maybe that's why Tobi signaled to not reveal. Suspending disbelief certainly allowed many in the audience to experience Tobi Wong. I now know a lot more about him as well as myself. It was great fun!

Also, an email I received last night answered another one of my lingering questions. Wong's fellow panelists were, in fact, not informed of the switch ahead of time.

I don't want to let the no-show steal the show, so I'll move on now to discuss those panelists who actually appeared. First up was Dobson, whose technological creations, showcased in a series of short videos, evinced a wildly offbeat wit that was at odds with her timid persona. Though she spoke in a rapid mumble that could barely be understood, her videos showed her climbing onto a table while loudly growling in harmony with a blender rewired to imitate her vocal pitch and timbre, among other exhibitionistic acts. Of all her inventions, the "ScreamBody," one of her many "wearable body organs," may be most revealing of her personality. Intended for use during those moments when you want to scream in a public place without anyone knowing, the "ScreamBody" has a soundproof polyurethane shell that attaches to the torso with shoulder straps. Wearers scream into the shell, and a built-in recorder preserves the screams for playback in privacy. Funny, yes, but also an apt metaphor for the crafty ways in which artists and other socially unsure people manage their emotional pressures.

Steven Heller followed Dobson with a short visual catalogue called "20 Things That Make Me Chuckle." Included in the eclectic roundelay were Homer Simpson, Mother Teresa Breath Spray, Mickey Mouse, and "anything with f--k in it."

"Tobias Wong" came next, then Paul Budnitz closed the presentation portion of the afternoon. Budnitz laid out some of the techniques he employs to keep the wit at Kidrobot fresh and flowing. He talked about the need to "kill the ego" in order to recapture the innate creativity of childhood. I discerned a little of Tobias Wong's impish spirit in Budnitz's slogan "Nostalgia Is Death." Rather than the backward-looking inertia of "remembered emotion," Budnitz explained that Kidrobot practices cultural appropriation, transforming pop iconography by "adding our own creativity to it."

After the individual presentations, the panel (including the Wong impostor) fielded questions from Ze Frank and members of the audience. Frank struggled a bit to bring cohesion to the conversation, which was understandable given the broad topic(s) chosen by Core77 and the motley participants, not to mention the ringer on the panel. Nevertheless, more useful nuggets emerged than can be transcribed here.

The definitive quote of the afternoon came from the estimable Heller, who, after Frank pointed out that several of the presentations prominently featured "buttholes," remarked, "Buttholes are universal. Everyone has one." Later, Heller talked about how humor can enhance a design concept, saying, "Humor sells; people like to laugh. Even totalitarian regimes always go for humor. Humor undercuts abnormality."

The pure craft of design is in the main only meaningful to its practitioners, but just about everyone can benefit from practicing a little "design thinking." According to the panel, corporate clients of all sizes are trying to become more like design firms, revamping their internal culture, problem-solving techniques, and brainstorming methods with the help of creatives. Workshops such as these offer new opportunities and a little irony to their instructors, who will have to plunge into the very white-collar culture that they likely sought to escape by becoming designers.

Even when working with clients in a more conventional way, however, design professionals sometimes have to educate their corporate collaborators. Etienne Fang, strategic director of Cheskin's Cultural Insights Studio, explained how she attempts to involve clients directly in the process of design through prototyping and storytelling, which are meant to communicate "that thrill that designers get to have" as they work their way through a project.

After the panel discussion proper, participants answered written questions from the audience. Asked to name the skills most desired in a new employee, Rie Norregaard of Frog Design stressed the importance of finding connections between design and technology. "There's a scarcity of certain types of skill sets," she said, citing the growing field of information design as an example. The panel also had some suggestions in response to a request for questions to ask in a job interview: "What is the culture like?" "What are the company's main challenges?" "Can you describe a recent project?"

The shift from talk of "paradigm shifting" and "boundary pushing" to addressing the here-and-now needs of job-hunting designers was telling. At this time of transition, designers have to face both brand-new and entrenched challenges, preparing for an uncertain future while maintaining relevance in the present. Right now, the design industry appears to be a palimpsest whose past history protrudes through the gaps in its new, incomplete narrative. As the panel pointed out, "This is still a craft. Craft and design thinking live side by side. The trick is creating an environment that allows for both."

This year, Armond White flouted hype by providing a totally new analytic structure. Aiming to "prove the significance of music video by examining its history," he chose 14 clips from throughout the MTV era. The eclectic list included household names such as U2 and Madonna as well as fringe figures (Prince protege Jill Jones, dwarf rapper Bushwick Bill). The two-part program began with a non-chronological assortment of ten impressive works representing different genres. White then proposed a "pantheon" consisting of four genre-busting, epochal clips arranged chronologically. The impressionistic format of the evening was an ideal way to confront an art that, at its best, makes social history and personal fantasy inextricable. Hence the title of the presentation, "Official History of Music Video: An Introspective."

It's sad that most people outside NYC didn't have the opportunity to attend this event. For those unfortunates, I'm offering what I hope is the next best thing, though in comparison to the real thing it's pretty thin gruel. Below you'll find links to the 14 videos in the order in which they appeared on Saturday, along with Armond White's genre headings and snippets of his commentary.

Manifesto: Back to My Roots, RuPaul
(dir: Randy Barbato)
Armond White: "The manifesto here preserves the moment when gay dance culture merged with hip-hop...RuPaul insists that there's more than one way to be black, which is to say more than one way to be human."

Fantasy: Mia Boca, Jill Jones
(dir. Jean-Baptiste Mondino)
Armond White: "A wonderful example of Mondino's always-stylish eye and his wonderful media savvy...This was the period when postmodernism was a thrill--and popular."

Autobiography: Ever So Clear, Bushwick Bill
(dir: P.S. O'Neill)
Armond White: "It's a superb tragic drama."

Memoir: Dead Homiez, Ice Cube
(dir. Eric Meza)
Armond White: "It's more effective than Boyz N the Hood and the lousy Menace II Society."

Elegy: Blue Savannah, Erasure
(dir. Kevin Godley)
Armond White: "The director uses ingenious, daring symbolism to comment on an aspect of late '80s/early '90s experience: people confronting the devastation of AIDS and seeking ways to live with it...The final image suggests a painter's thumbs-up gesture to get balance on the image, or an emblem of God's blessing if you like."

Allegory: Feel So Good, Mase
(dir: Hype Williams)
Armond White: "Modern life is imagined as a Vegas extravaganza. Williams highlights a sort of allegorical sheen. One of the most dazzling pieces of visual art you can ever see."

Erotica: 6 Minutes of Pleasure, L.L. Cool J
(dir: Marcus Nispel)
Armond White: "Perfectly captures the experience and complexity within hip-hop, an adolescent art form that at its best has difficult things to say. Cleverly pushes examples of erotic innocence into areas of sexual trouble."

Exotica: Mysterious Ways, U2
(dir: Stephane Sednaoui)
Armond White: "I love this video simply for the way it looks. It's excitingly avant garde, it seems to bend the screen. It makes your eyes widen and buckle."

Graphic Puzzle: Imitation of Life, REM
(dir: Garth Jennings)
Armond White: "It's designed to force viewer attention and concentration. A more genuine technological innovation than the recent Dogme movement."

Semi-Doc: A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays', De La Soul
(dir: Benjamin Stokes)
Armond White: "Stokes understands the formally radical nature of hip-hop. The video expands both the documentary genre and fantasy."

The Pantheon

Night of the Living Baseheads, Public Enemy
(dir: Lionel C. Martin)
White: "The first great hip-hop video...A combination of political reporting, political fantasy, and media satire that is still definitive. I don't know if hip-hop will ever be that thrilling again."

Like a Prayer, Madonna
(dir: Mary Lambert)
White: "Combines social commentary with Madonna's white-negro fantasy, but the two mesh for better reasons than her own ego. Its historical and social and religious messages are as provocative as the updated Brecht/Pirandello staging."

Black or White, Michael Jackson
(dir: John Landis)
White: "The video ranges from a cosmic point of view to earthly pop consciousness. Its ideas justify its ambition, and the morphing sequence is still amazing. Michael Jackson's rage is the second half of his brotherhood message, because we have both inside us."

99 Problems, Jay-Z
(dir: Mark Romanek)
White: "As profound a vision of moral turmoil as I've seen...The editing is as brilliant as that of Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch."

In addition to his weekly reviews in New York Press, I'd like to direct designers to White's essay on the legendary Fell in Love with a Girl video by Michel Gondry and his extended piece on 99 Problems. White has more on Night of the Living Baseheads in this week's New York Press cover story. And for moment-by-moment exegeses of Like a Prayer and Black or White, check out The Resistance, an essential volume.

I offer these cavils not to dismiss Poynor but to demonstrate that even formal training and an attentive editor can't always prevent infelicities of language from slipping into publication. The writer is a wrestler with a greased opponent. Print journalists and bloggers share the struggle to pin words to meaning.

That said, I agree with Poynor that there's something disturbing about the way some Speak Up contributors flaunt their inability to write well as a sign of authenticity. Many bloggers claim to prize "emotional connection" above cogent expression, citing the approval of their online community (what Poynor calls "their self-created blog club") as proof that the rules and regs of writing are just an elitist stricture. Approval, however, isn't always preceded by comprehension. I can't be the only one who has experienced business meetings where the participants all knew that no one in the room even remotely knew what he or she was talking about, but nodded and smiled as though something deeply professional were transpiring. And, indeed, something was: business-as-usual.

The New York Times assembled an unlikely foursome to attend and comment on the recent International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Composed of a 13-year-old girl, a socialite in her sixties, a hip-hop entrepeneur, and a communications prof at NYU, the team offers a humorous array of responses to the contemporary furnishings exhibited at New York City's Javits Center. A slideshow featuring a selection of pieces from the Fair lets you make up your own mind.

Some lighting designers in California are unhappy about a bill that would replace standard incandescent light bulbs in the 25- to 150-watt range with CFLs (compact fluorescent bulbs), which require far less energy and last longer. One designer tells L.A. Weekly, "I’ve experimented, but fluorescents give off a gray, pinkish tint. You can’t create theatrics, drama with fluorescents." Assemblyman Lloyd E. Levine, the author of the legislation, counters these claims on his website: "CFLs marked 'Soft White' provide the same luminosity, in the same hue, as incandescents."

Finally, there's more on the slow demise of album art at The Christian Science Monitor.

Listening to the talk and perusing the accompanying handouts, I was struck by the enormity of sustainability as a business goal. Mohawk has incorporated eco-friendly measures at every stage of production. By July 1, all of its papers will be made with wind-generated electricity, and the company is ahead of current EPA standards governing percentages of postconsumer (recycled) fibers. Mohawk even purchases Al Gore-style "carbon offsets" to counteract its greenhouse gas emissions.

These measures are laid out in detail in several booklets and brochures (themselves, of course, produced in line with eco-conscious principles). Designers can break down the benefits of these practices with the "environmental calculator" helpfully provided on Mohawk's website. You plug in the size of the job, and the calculator tells you how many trees, BTUs and pounds of waste you would save by using paper made with renewable energy and recycled fibers. The calculus that turns Mohawk's measures into real-world improvements comes from the EPA.

The second seminar was led by designers from Freestyle Collective, a 15-member studio that makes multimedia ad campaigns and interstitial content for clients such as Comedy Central, Samsung, and Dirt Devil. The designers took us through several recent projects, beginning with a series of spots the Collective produced to promote the upcoming third season of A&E's Criss Angel Mindfreak. I liked the grungy urban surroundings that were digitally created for the commercials as well as the moment when "rock star illusionist" Angel, after performing a card trick, tosses his deck into the camera as though contemptuous of both the cards and us. (I like it when the magician is too cool for the room.)

Most notable, though, was the Collective's just-completed campaign for Turner Classic Movies' cult-film show, TCM Underground with Rob Zombie. As a guide, the designers were handed a few doodles of midnight-movie monsters, from which they extrapolated an environment (in branding parlance, a "world") inspired by underground comic books and vintage DIY punk flyers. Hand-drawn animation, digitally altered video footage, and Xeroxed images were thrown into the moving pop collage. I was surprised to learn that these anarchic commercials were carefully scripted in-house, a first for the studio and, as the designers explained, a possible indicator of how the Collective will evolve. The esthete in me vastly prefers the ads to Zombie's own films and the schlocky drive-in fare he presents on TCM Underground.

In addition to presenting their own projects, the designers showed us clips from work that influenced them, including Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and Chris Cunningham's video for Bjork's "All Is Full of Love." Pretty common reference points, but the enthusiasm with which the Collective members introduced and explicated the clips proved that to the designer's eye, good design is ever new.

Pink is, after all, still the color of conventional girlhood. When a color with specific cultural associations is put where it doesn't seem to belong, what is the overall effect? When a girl takes the field with a pink baseball glove, do people see a glove first and foremost, or do they see something pink (i.e. non-threatening)? Or is it possible, as Mills half-jokingly suggests, to change the popular perception of two elements at once by joining them?

I can't claim to know how to change popular perceptions, but it's a fact that they do change. A comment on Mills's blog entry asserts that girls are drawn to pink out of "nature not nurture." The truth, however, appears to be a great deal more complicated. The COLOURlovers blog recently published an interesting list of "color legends" examining the origins of some seemingly arbitrary associations placed on colors. The authors use excerpts from early-20th-century newspaper articles to make a convincing case that pink was actually a boy's color before the 1950s.