February 23rd, 2010 by Brendan
Welcome to the blog of Magis Creative
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This posting is not so much a blog entry as an introduction. When we decided we wanted to include a blog in our portfolio, we knew that it was going to be broad, sometimes wacky and sometimes rambling. The reason we wanted to go beyond the portfolio and the about us page was not to let you know what we were doing on the weekends or to let you know what’s happening in the world of web design. There’s already too much of that on the web. We know that the people who are listened to and respected are the ones who work on the edges, speculating upon new and original concepts – not the ones regurgitating old ideas and using your clicks to make money. We want to offer something of value: posts that make you think, that get your creative juices flowing and make you consider new connections between fields of thought you had always thought were completely distinct from one another. Read the rest of this entry »
May 19th, 2010 by Brendan
Hold The Phone
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This posting is probably the last thing you would expect to read on the blog of a web design firm…or any blog related to technology for that matter. It’s a case against technology. Well, it’s really more of a case against the disruptions in our lives that can occur when technology is allowed to seep slowly into all the cracks in our lives. I’m talking about all the moments between appointments, in the car, waiting for a friend or sitting on the toilet when we now have a choice between sitting there in boredom or pulling youtube up on an iPhone. The important thing to remember is that this choice didn’t always exist and I think most people see the advent of this choice as a purely positive development. Maybe I’m just picky, but I can’t help but think this might not always be a good choice to have – that empty time might not be such a bad thing. To some that might sound anti-modernist or just really boring, but, in my mind, this posting is not so much anti-technology as it is a case for contemplation and giving the mind a chance to breathe. Read the rest of this entry »
March 30th, 2010 by Brendan
Is FourSquare the new Wii?
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I’m not a technology nut. I’m just as happy as the next guy that I can pull up tv shows on demand and email from my bed, but I usually find myself asking, “Is this necessarily a good thing?” when the next big thing comes out. This might make me seem like a wet blanket to some, but I just see myself as a big picture thinker. In my mind, all too often the things that are supposed to be conveniences just end up drawing us further into the digital realm, distracting us from the real world. Unfortunately, in the digital revolution, the law of the land is “shoot first, ask questions later” and we don’t realize how distracted we’ve become until the cause of the distraction seems irreplaceable. Recently, however, I’ve noticed trends in the technology world that seem to indicate we’re trying to make technology work for us again instead of the other way around.
February 9th, 2010 by Sean
A Working Class: The Educational Breakthrough That Is Reshaping America
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In 1994, the Chicago educational system had an epidemic on its hands. In certain communities, the high school dropout rate was as high as 75%. Like lemmings, students were fleeing the classrooms and flooding the streets. The streets were stricken with crime. In the span of a decade, something drastic happened. Kids who may have become gang members, were earning diplomas and gaining admission to college. Students who couldn’t afford to go to school were graduating with nearly 90% of their tuition covered at no cost to their families. Confidence in the communities resurged. Children who thought their future would be on the streets now had visions of becoming competent professionals. So what happened?
February 9th, 2010 by Brendan
The Most Bizarre Commercials I’ve Ever Seen
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Advertising enthralls me. But, what fascinates me the most is not the advertisers’ skills of emotional manipulation. It’s not their eerie ability to utilize tools as trivial as jokes, animals and babies to subtly shape our collective opinion on important subjects like gender, money and happiness. It’s not even the simple fact that, after years of habituation to their ways, they can still convince us in less than a minute that we must have something we could just as easily forget completely in the next minute. What piques my interest the most are the incredibly obvious things that we don’t notice. The dynamic that fascinates me is that there is often something completely ridiculous going on behind the curtain and we rarely think to look behind it. In my casual investigation, the most incredibly obvious, yet almost universally overlooked absurdity of modern advertising is the battle for local news weather supremacy.
