Second round of 30 Reasons. Second time loving it. [You guys know where I stand politically] This one, by Elizabeth Amorose, is rad. Check the site daily or subscribe to the emails. And then—go vote.

HFF!

You may have noticed, (well, maybe you haven’t) I’ve been absent for a while. That’s because I’ve recently entered the strange and adrenalin filled world of politics. More specifically, I’ve been tracking, following and reporting on the upcoming republican primary. I also happen to live in NH. Not sure if you heard, but we’re a pretty big deal when it comes to primaries.

Before the audible shock wave crosses the entire internet, let me explain one thing: I’m not interested in voting for a Republican candidate. I am interested in getting them to declare clearly what their stance is on certain issues. These guys can be a little vague at times. I’m also very, very interested in how the candidates communicate with potential voters. Their website is a good starting point for discussion. After the jump, I’ve spared you the pain of actually going to these sites and gave you a screen snap of (almost) everyone who is vying for a spot against Barack Obama in 2012. His website, as you can see above, is kinda awesome in terms of design. And when I say “awesome,” I think I mean targeted towards me – a fairly young voter with an eye for good looking things. Just look at those vintage-toned photos of gorgeous love birds M & B!

Read and see more after the jump.

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I’m not going to get into politics on this blog, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that public discourse these days has gotten a bit absurd.  And I think it’s also safe to say that Safwat Saleem would probably agree.

A Pakistani designer living in Arizona, Saleem has seen the brunt of this insanity up close and personal, and decided to do something about it.  Something that he fully admits probably won’t change a thing, but something nonetheless.  We’ve seen that sometimes the best route to debunking bullshit is through satire and humor (see Stewart, John and Colbert, Stephen).  Saleem takes the same route with his politically charged and over the top exhibition.  Glad to see his exhibition was fully funded on Kickstarter, and I hope he gets some extra prints, because I’d definitely buy a few.  More below the kick.

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Where is Palestine? This is our shower curtain. We are nerds, yes, but it’s now a morning tradition to point at places on the colorful map and plan what kind of shoes are appropriate to bring when we travel there. It didn’t take us long to realize that there was what seemed to be a major design mistake. No Palestine. Israel clearly labeled. No Palestine. Now, I’ve worked in the textile industry. I’ve even made several cheesy versions of shower curtains. Usually the design for something like this would be an archive piece, an image we would just plop into NedGraphics and scale out to spec. But sometimes we would create things like this individually. So, who’s to blame? Who’s agenda was so important that they felt Palestine should be eradicated from the world map, albeit on a clear plastic, often wet one? With the news as it is, I’m tempted to leap at that clearly labeled region. However, I know textile designers have chronic back pain, hate their bosses and figure the mill in China will figure it out. They always do.

Somehow I stumbled on Australian artist Kerry Smith’s flickr account last night, and I think this installation is the coolest.  It’s about security and insecurity in a time of fear, and all objects in the room are covered in blankets.