It’s that time of year again – The Chicago Auto Show rolls into McCormick Place, filling the convention center with the latest and greatest rolling examples of style and engineering the automotive industry has to offer.

This year seems to be a particularly strong year for the auto manufacturers. It’s no secret that the industry is still recovering from a tough few years. A reeling economy and a couple bankruptcies later, there is a new lease on life on the show floor. The atmosphere was universally optimistic – domestic manufacturers are rolling out new products set to compete on a global scale while up-and-comers like Hyundai is going full steam ahead with the expansion of their increasingly popular line of cars and crossovers (I’m personally smitten with the new Elantra GT that was unveiled last Wednesday).

It’s easy to get caught up in the spectacle that is the Chicago Auto Show. After all, almost 1,000 vehicles cover 1.2 million square feet of McCormick Place during the ten day event. There are numerous new product reveals, all the technology demos you could wish for, and plenty of drool-inducing concept cars. But as the auto industry moves forward, and the playing field continues to level out, the differences between brands become ever slimmer. The details that designers and engineers alike implement into each vehicle become increasingly important.

As a lover of all things with headlights and four wheels, I always enjoy the annual auto show, but this year I tried to take a slightly different approach to the experience.

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If you were to read my bio here at Rule29 (or one of my recent blog posts), you’d find that I have a particular obsession with music videos. And if I’m honest, on occasion, I imagine my life to actually BE a music video. This was the case again this morning as I drove through to work through some light snow flurries. The song?

“Snow” by the local Chicago based group Sleeping at Last.

This experience “might” have something to do with the fact that I had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with the group last month on the video itself  (ended up handling all the post and editing for the project). Consequently (having seen the video 100+ times), the sight of snow is forever connected to the video and song. Fortunately, I not only love the song, but loved the concept behind the video…

“What images come to mind when you think of winter?” Read the rest of the entry >

When you actually find some free time in your over-strenuous schedule and can walk away from your desk, where do you find yourself? Lounging around at home catching up on your favorite episode of Glee? Playing some softball in the park? What about going to one of the many music festivals that are held every summer in Chicago? There is no doubt that music plays a big role in the lives of Chicagoland residents. As I spoke in my last blog post, music is a huge part of my life, so I attend many concerts and festivals every year.

There are a vast variety of different music festivals in the Chicago area that you can attend, no matter what genre you’re partial to. One of my favorite aspects of these festivals and concerts are the amazing posters that designers produce for them. It seems like the majority of people who aren’t designers simply look past these posters. I stumbled upon a website that compiled a good amount of recent posters. A lot of these posters are simply beautiful, and have expressive formal elements in many different ways. It seems as though designers really have the opportunity to express themselves freely when designing something for a band or event.

Not only do I find the designs inspirational, but the bands and events that are the subject matter are usually something to get excited about. It seems that most of the bands that have these nicely designed posters are not the typical radio popular music, which leaves a lot of room for experimenting expressively. So if you’re looking for something to inspire your everyday life, break out and take a listen to some of these bands.

If you think you would enjoy going to some festivals this summer, I will list out some of the most popular ones. There is usually something for everyone.

There is the ever-popular Lollapalooza in Grant Park, Pitchfork in Union Park, The Taste of Chicago down Michigan Avenue, Division Street Festival (which actually just passed), Warped Tour in Tinley Park, Wicker Park Fest on N Milwaukee Avenue, Summerfest in Milwaukee, and of course Jazz Fest and Blues Fest.

Most of these events have a pretty impressive lineup of bands, definitely good enough to force you to get away from your desk and enjoy a beautiful summer in Chicago. Whether your a designer or not, everyone can appreciate a well designed poster of your favorite band. Even if you don’t enjoy going to some of these festivals, at least check out some of the beautiful things created for the bands. I have listed only a few events in the Chicago area, are there some that you have discovered recently that I didn’t mention? Possibly something in the suburbs, or even further?

Lots of us have favorite hobbies, favorite foods, favorite just about anything. Have you ever wondered how much time or how often you take part in that favorite thing? Or, have you just wanted to collect information on, well, just about anything? That’s where Daytum comes in. Daytum is an extremely user friendly site that simply put, “helps you collect, categorize and communicate your everyday data.”

Now let’s say one of your favorite things is tacos. I mean who doesn’t love this tasty dish? With millions of different recipes out there in the world, this classic dish shouldn’t get dull. Our friends at Faust love tacos so much that they started keeping track on Daytum, and it turns out they aren’t the only firm in the Chicago area that loves tacos.

Take a common love of tacos, add a little competitive spirit and a great resource like Daytum, and you have yourself a Taco Challenge. Throughout the month of June, Rule29 will be competing in this epic event against Faust, Grip, and Floodlight. Winner is determined by dividing the total amount of tacos consumed by the amount of participants per office.

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“For every creative who has the desire to give to a cause, there’s a cause in need of creative.” This is the montra of year old EPIC, a Chicago based non-for-profit who’s desire is to connect creative professionals with non-for-profit organizations in an 8 week rally of brainstorming, collaborating, designing, writing and a whole lot of creativity. After 8 weeks of collaborating and working together side-by-side the results have been nothing short of stunning. New websites are born, campaigns strategized, and educational materials that will help these organizations expand and improve their reach to the communities they serve are printed and ready to go. And new relationships are made that otherwise would not have existed and the world changes a little bit toward the better. And this is where it all began.

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