I had no idea so much was involved in creating a new typeface.  Porchez said that it could take him a year plus to design a complete typeface – I find that amazing.  After hearing him speak and seeing the examples he showed – especially the ones where two typefaces were laid on top of each other so you could see the differences – I don’t think I’ll ever look at letters the same.  I don’t think he mentioned issues with type rendering on a computer screen – or maybe he did and I just didn’t catch it – but I was impressed and found it cool that he starts his new typeface designs on paper.  I would have thought otherwise, being as we live in a digital world.  Maybe doing it on paper allows him more freedom in making minor edits while designing?  Or maybe because it sounded like a lot of his clients use his typefaces on printed materials – not on computer screens – that he wants to design it how they’ll be viewing it.

According to Wikipedia, a typeface is the visual representation of a set of characters – it is their appearance.  A font designates a specific member of a type family – bold, italic, roman, etc.  In professional typography, the two terms are not used interchangeably.  The general public probably uses them interchangeably because for one, I don’t think we’re taught the difference between the two when first learning how to use computers and desktop publishers, and two, because the desktop publishing programs refer to typefaces as “fonts.”

I visited The Font Bureau, Inc., an independent typeface designer in Boston, and found two typefaces I really liked.  The first, Cafeteria, more represents my personal style, and the second, Nobel, I would use to represent me professionally.  They are similar in that they are both sans-serif, which I am drawn to, but Cafeteria has a more playful look.  Nobel is straight lined, and I especially like the Light Condensed and Extra Light versions of it.  They have some pretty cool typefaces on their site, but I found it funny that their business name has the word “font” in it, especially since I just learned that in professional typography, the terms aren’t used interchangeably.

Cheryl asked if my mom every ships pies, and in fact, she has before.  That could be a great addition to the website - an online ordering form - so I will be definitely be asking my parents if that’s something they would be willing to advertise.

Glenn mentioned taking lots of photos of the restaurant, which I plan to do this weekend when I travel to Coeur d’Alene.  His prediction was right; it’s a “small, quaint, rustic affair,” and my photos will portray that.   From his comment I got the idea to take photos not just of an empty restaurant, but when it’s full with customers, too.

I reviewed and commented on the project posts of Kort, Dana, and Tim.  The interviews Kort plans to do for his project inspired me to interview some loyal customers of The Yellow House.  I plan on having a Media page on the site, where I’ll link to articles that have been written about the restaurant, and could probably work the customer testimonials into that page.

Dana mentioned illustrations in her post, and like her comment to me on my post, have inspired me to look into finding someone to draw a caricature of my mom.  I love that idea, actually.

Tim plans on keeping his blog clean and clutter free.  I am always attracted to sites like that and plan to do that with mine, too – especially on the page where the photos of the pies will be.  They need to be the main focus.

Lots of good ideas have been exchanged… I can’t wait to see everyone’s final product!

I found the “Does Google Make Us Stupid?” article to be quite interesting, and I agree with those that said, “Nicholas Carr was wrong: Google does not make us stupid.”  We have so much information at our fingertips – information about anything you could possibly think of – how could that make us stupid?  All that information, like the article said, makes us smarter and allows us to make better choices.  Sure, very few people will remember everything they learn from Google, but just the fact that the information is there, for our easy consumption, technically makes us smarter, even if it only sticks with us for a short time.

That’s actually how I got the aforementioned nickname.  Before a trip to Maui a couple years ago, I did a lot of Googling.  I wanted to know all the must-see spots, the best restaurants, the nicest beaches – I essentially used Google to plan what we would do on our vacation, every aspect of it.  Maybe I’m weird or something, but no one else in our group did this, so when we got there and we were figuring out what we should go do, I was the one who had the answers, because I had spent hours looking it up on Google and somehow retained it all.  So when someone in our group would say, “Oh, let’s get sushi tonight; I wonder where the best spot is?” I knew.  And I’d tell them.  And then they called me Koogle.

Something else about Google that I’ve often thought about: how have so many terms (mostly verbs) been born from its name (e.g., Googled, Googling) and used as “real” words in everyday speech, but none from Yahoo or Bing?

Friend: “How did you learn all the words to that song?!”

Other Friend: “Oh, I Binged them!”

Yeah, it just doesn’t work.

Project Timeline:

-I have already created the WordPress blog and purchased the domain name.

-By the end of week 7 the blog’s layout and design will be complete and a majority of the restaurant portion will be done.

-By the end of week 8 I will have traveled to North Idaho to take photographs and enough videos to start off with.  I will have also posted the first pie-related blog entry by now.

-By the end of week 9 I will have additional blog entries and will start advertising the new site on Facebook.  Mention of the blog/website will be added to the restaurant’s menus, along with a sign posted on the front counter.

-By the end of week 10 the blog will be fully up and running; continuing to post blog entries, hopefully responding to comments, and updating the weekly “soup of the day” schedule.

The success of this blog will be measured in two ways: whether or not there is an increase in sales at The Yellow House, and the amount of reader activity (in the form of comments and maybe a guest book) I see on the blog posts, recipes, and videos.

Not So Humble Pie – What I learned from this one is that I don’t like Blogspot.  Ads?  Um, no thanks.  The author of this blog is in Seattle, too, but even though she’s located where I am, I wouldn’t consider her blog to be competition, because my blog will be focused around my parents’ restaurant, which is east of the Cascades.  She does provide recipes for yummy looking pies, though, but the commentary that precedes each recipe is WAY too much.  And even though her blog’s name has the word “pie” in it, leading you to think it’s a blog focused on pie, there actually are recipes/stories for all kinds of food.  She has nice pictures of the foods and pies – I wonder if she takes those herself?  I didn’t see her giving any credit to someone else, so I’ll assume she does.

 Aunt Ruthie’s Sugar Pie Farmhouse - Make sure your computer’s volume is down when you visit this site – unless you really like bluegrass.  The design of this site is pretty fancy.  Either Aunt Ruthie moonlights as a web-designer, or she had someone create this site for her.  What I thought of the actual site content though: annoying.  So much of her writing is about the farmhouse lifestyle and creating a loving farm home.  I only found three recipes for pie, and they weren’t that easy to locate, either.  I understand she wanted to have a specific Southern, farm girl voice in her writing, but all the “howdy’s”, “darlin’s”, and “sugar’s” got old real quick.  My blog will of course have a specific voice, but it will not be styled towards that specific of an audience.  I don’t want to annoy my visitors.

The World Needs More Pie - I like this one.  A majority of the site is promoting the author and her pie-making business ventures: pie-making parties, a book, a roadside pie stand, and a TV show.  There is only one actual recipe on the site, for apple pie.  I like this one because the things she is doing business-wise – especially the group pie-making parties – are things my mom has mentioned she wants to do, so I got some really good ideas from visiting this site.  The site is well-organized and it’s easy to locate the different sections and pages.  All the photographs are nice, too.  I must take more photos.

Two of the readings this week pointed out how Twitter does not have a requirement or expectation of reciprocity, meaning that you can follow someone with out them following you back.  Again, for those of you who use Twitter, when someone new starts following you, how do you decide if you will follow them or not?  Do you even contemplate it?  Or because there is no technical requirement to, do you just let them follow you without even thinking of following them?

On Facebook, I know who I’m “talking” to: my friends and family and their friends and family.  Because my profile is private, I know that the people on my friends list are my audience, so when I post a Status Update, I construct my message using the language and style I want that audience to “hear.”  And when I am commenting on someone else’s Status Update, I know the audience is them and their friends and family – a different audience – so I might use a slightly different voice when constructing that message.  On Twitter though, it seems that because of retweeting, there is no way to really know exactly who your audience is.  Anyone who follows you can retweet something you said to their followers, and I believe then that that person’s followers could retweet it again.  Your audience has the capability of growing exponentially, and who have no idea who it includes.

I can see how for people who use Twitter for personal use, not knowing exactly who your audience is might not be that big of a deal.  But, for the people who use Twitter for business – especially for marketing or PR – I imagine that being able to know who exactly your audience is would be beneficial.

The article also mentions online dating sites, and how people with profiles on dating sites are highly aware of audience.  I can definitely agree with that.  I have a Match.com profile (I’m not ashamed), and writing “My Story” was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever written.  Like the article says, my profile was “constructed with a hyper-aware self-consciousness.”  No misspellings, proper grammar, language that showed my true style/personality.  And even though there are thousands of people who could potentially read my profile, in my mind, I was writing to a specific audience of very few – the guys I would actually want to go out on a date with; guys who are my type.  I don’t think all people with dating profiles do this though, because I’ve come across several profiles where three sentences into them, I’m wondering, “Um… did you proof-read this?  Who wants to go out with someone that can’t even form a proper sentence!?”  But maybe their chosen audience was women who also have bad grammar and can’t spell – they weren’t writing to me.

My addition: “Document control is a regulatory requirement within … Medical device manufacturing (FDA), manufacture of blood, human cells, and tissue products (FDA),…”

Source: FDA Code of Federal Regulations Title 21, Part 1271, revised April 1, 2011.  http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=1271&showFR=1

Wikipedia article pre-edit (top) and post-edit (bottom):