“People ask what has changed, and I say don’t trivialize the changes,” Mr. Fauntroy said. “I’m seeing the fruit of the changes that began in 1964. I was close to Bobby Kennedy. He said to me: ‘You know, America’s going to change. Forty years from now, a black man could achieve what my brother has achieved.’ ”

A moving article in the Times notes that Barack Obama is making his acceptance speech 45 years to the day since Dr. Martin Luther Kin Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream Speech.

Tonight’s 7 pm speech is incredibly exciting (check out a couple early shots of the set-up at Mile High Stadium).

We are currently working on a couple websites for local architects and developers and so the latest post by 37signals, Architects: 1998 called and wants its web sites back, is a particularly timely read. 37signals levy a number of strong complaints about the status quo in architecture websites:

I’ve been poking around a lot of architects’ web sites lately and I’m thoroughly surprised at how bad they are. It seems almost without fail that they are either blowing my browser window up full size, asking me to read light grey 9px text, overflowing with obfuscatory flashterbation, teasing me with custom designed scrollbars that don’t behave as you’d expect, or asking me to evaluate their work based on postage stamp sized photographs.

Harsh words, but these descriptions resonate with most of the architectural websites we’ve taken a look at as well. And, to be honest, this is exactly the kind of site we built our business creating. As we’ve grown as a design studio, we’ve looked for more ways to bring a Flash-like experiences to our websites without gratuitous use of Flash.

Read more…

There is a certain je ne sais quo about Graham Fisher and his project that we were instantly draw to. Perhaps it was his affinity for clean, modern websites (that gets us every time). Or, maybe it was his command of memorable quotes. Or, it may have been Graham’s desire to make the law more accessible to people through a sraighforward and comprehensive resource area. Regardless of the source, we enjoyed the opportunity to flex our design wings and present a wealth of information in a clean, straightforward manner.

Related: we recently did a bit of sprucing up work on the site for our very helpful and friendly lawyers over at Alto Law Group.

As many of you know, we have been largely out of the office for the last week due the loss of my dear grandfather. I’d like to thank each of our clients for their warm responses and understanding about moved deadlines.

We had much time over the last week to learn about my grandfather’s incredible life. One story that touched me deeply took place during his 20+ years at IBM. My grandpa believed wholeheartedly that businesses should be a place of camaraderie and joy (one fellow worker talked about how my grandfather took him under his wing and acted like a father to him at IBM, even though they were roughly the same age). So, he began the first annual IBM employee picnic, which grew in numbers throughout the years. My grandmother recalls one year where my grandpa rented out a huge tent and bought steak dinners for hundreds of co-workers, causing panic in my poor grandmother who fussed diligently about their budget. Grandpa wouldn’t hear of charging folks before the picnic - he was confident the everyone would show up and make their donation; he just wanted everyone together to celebrate the hard work they had done over the past year and expected that the rest would work out. And, he was right. The picnic was a huge success!

I had the pleasure of seeing some of the photos of these first picnics (circa 1981) for the first time this weekend.

Grandma and Grandpa picutred on the left - what a fabulous duo!

If there is anything we can take away from this last week, it is the desire to be able to say, at the end of one’s life (as my grandfather said to me): I’ve had the best life ever, kid. I’m ready for whatever is next. What I worry about is the rest of you.

Here’s to an incredibly witty and intelligent man who sparked my own passion for reading, traveling, cooking and learning.

Our good friends at Literary Arts have just opened sales for this year’s Portland Arts & Lectures series. While the entire series looks amazing, we’re most excited about (and will be attending) a talk by portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz and an evening with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemna. Hope to see you there!

We’ve recently launched a new website for Portland’s Form & Flora. Lacy Lowery is both a floral and interior designer and so we focused on the intersection of these vocations: natural materials, texture and color. As flowers change from season to season, Lacy’s home page is a captivating (and easy to change) montoge of the shapes and colors of now.

We hope you’ll stop in for a while and enjoy a glimpse through Lacy’s gorgeous creations (her designs have been gracing Needmore’s studio for months now).

We’ll be heading to San Francisco this week to attend the start conference, a one-day conference in San Francisco designed for smart, talented Web people to take hold of their ideas, follow their dreams, and start their own companies. Now, that sounds just up our alley! Not only does the conference promise much insight, but we’ll have plenty of time to talk shop on our 12 hour drive south. That’s right - we’re driving! Hello, Prius (the scooters just aren’t up for the gig).

We’ll be back in the studio Tuesday, August 12. Until then, enjoy our latest release and we’ll have more to show upon return!

All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.

(via typestorming)

UPDATE: This video has been taken down, but can be found at a new location.

Being the Official Needmore Deejay (TM), there’s a definite pattern I’ve noticed to the music I play at work. It can be evenly divided up into morning and afternoon, and then often subdivided into a few artists or compilations that I play over and over.

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Our designed newsletters have become one step easier to update! Take a look at this video to see the new drag and drop feature as well as a preview as you type feature.