I think my Great-Great-Great-Uncle John M. Browning was a lot like me in some ways.

Business Engrish

I have a client that speaks English none too well. He has me design catalogs and packaging for his toys, and also asks me to help him name his products. I enjoy his emails. Here's a sampling.


"Thank you for your explanation, I thought you are perfessional, and I have also memtioned that your design fit my other chemical glue or D.I.Y. Product."


"As to the toy package, please follow the markets, we plan to sell this bubble toys in U.S. Market and EU Markets. So please refer to the colorful design like the package I sent to you. I will be happy to have colorful and distinctive design."


"4. The kid on the left side, if you could let the kid's left eye winking reflex, that will be better. let him be seen as a little startle reflex."


"This pop bubble is for kid to blow a bubble, then kids use two hands to clap, then the bubble will sound "POP", like a rubber balloon sudden burst, but not so strongly."


"2. Could you please change the two kids to use some full of characteristic figures, it is too normal, and hope that to be loved by American kids?"


"The main topic and figure will be fine, I still looking forward to have better background, I need your some more initiative and creative idea."


"And also I can not feel the face or motion of the kid has fantastic feeling, I think this is catoon, so that we could let the figure much more exaggerate. How do you think about it?"


He sent some samples of what I was supposed to do the packaging like, and I said

"Are these going to be sold in the U.S.? Because, I have to tell you, as a designer, I look at the samples you sent me and cringe. If I was teaching a class on graphic design, I would use them as examples of how NOT to design a package. They are full of imagery and text, and it's hard to read anything. There are 3-4 different styles of illustration in each one, making it look like a mashup of frightening clip-art and misspelled words.


The examples have paw prints, musical notes, alarm clocks, and bugs. I have taught graphic design for many years, and I always teach that the package must be readable, with eye-catching and clear text, and to promote the product with imagery relating to the product. I understand that these are your competitors. Maybe you want to stand out from them, so that people take notice and view you as a quality brand. WIth this in mind, I've included an extra design that shows the direction I would recommend"

His response: "Great Job! It seems very good that I can not pick some points I can change.

Just replace the base color of NEW with red instead of blue.

Thank you very much for your effort.

It is great to cooperate with you."

There was no blue in the design.

Racing Decals and Physical Therapy

I found the website you designed, Joel. 

My RIngtone: Why It's The Best

Before I let you hear it (don't try to cheat and go there first without reading about it), you need to know why it's so awesome.

1) It's jazzy and sounds like old-man music, which just happens to be my favorite kind.

2) If I get it quick, like at the store, it just sounds like there's a dude singing "Ringringringringring" which would be awesome enough for a ringtone.

3) If I don't get it quick, and I have to look through things to answer it, like at church or a business meeting, it mentions the words "Banana phone". This immediately brings to mind the image of a person or monkey answering a banana. Silly monkey, you can't communicate with that.

4) It sticks into your head with the tenacity of a mighty mountain goat, and will not leave. You may think you've gotten it out of your head, but it's just hibernating, and then the phone rings and it's awake and raring to go. I like to listen to and make music that is like mental oatmeal that sticks to your brain's ribs.

OK, now you can go hear it. I was right, huh?

El Desnudez por causa del Meth

I had jury duty last week. I wasn't looking forward to it, since I'm a businessman that has business to care of, but the morning that I was supposed to show up, I was kind of excited. I was hoping for a sweet and juicy murder trial or, at the very least, a dude that gets naked when he's on meth. Fate smiled upon me that day.

This guy that looks like my neighbor was on trial for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender. To help you visualize, I made this picture out of twitter birds so you can see his body shape. And I used reddit dudes for his moustache.

I hope this helps.

He was a registered sex offender because he has a tendency to get naked when he's on meth, and he forgot a few basic things about life:
1) we've been asked to not ingest meth
2) You're not supposed to make love with ladies that aren't your wife.
3) You're not supposed to make love in the back yard of a house in a trailer park.
4) If you do that, you're supposed to make sure no kids are watching.

So one month he forgot to register, and got sentenced to 90 days of jail. He decided to fight it and we found that yep, he did forget. It sounds open and shut, but the hard part was the word "knowingly". It's kind of hard to track when you're supposed to do it, but he should have stayed on top of it. So eventually we found him guilty. I was the foreman. That means I had to keep everybody happy and on topic and try to make people talk that didn't want to talk. Only one guy was like that, and I eventually gave up on him. Screw people like that, seriously.

I liked the food. I liked how the whole room stood up for us when we came in the room. Once I came back late because I was urinating, and everybody stood up for me. I said, "please, be seated". I enjoyed that. I took a lot of notes, because all the details were important. I thought it was going to be a mistrial because we were split pretty evenly. That was hard to overcome, but we did it, because the juror instructional video of Christina Flores told us it was important to try our hardest.

The best part was chatting with the lawyers (or "lawys" as I call them) afterwards. We got to see that they were good buds and had their strategy and we asked them a lot of questions. It would be interesting to be a lawyer except it wouldn't be fun to be a lying crook all the time. The End.