Seriously, you’d think two married graphic designers would have done fancy homemade gifts and a holiday card by now, right? This year, it was imperative that we make sure those happened.

The Mrs. made a beautiful tin for family and close friends with homemade white-chocolate peppermint bark. Drool… She also included some little bags of dried fruit and just about every flavor of Hershey’s Kiss imaginable. (Have you tried the Hot Cocoa flavor of Hershey’s Kiss? They’re killer.) I’ll post a picture of it later this week so you can see for yourself why I value and respect my wife’s talent every day.

While Mrs. Guthrie worked on our gifts, I worked on our card.

Guthrie Holiday Card 2008

The idea started a few years ago when I was asked to design a wedding invitation for my friends Eric and Angie. Both are actors and just plain fun folks, so I didn’t feel too limited when brainstorming. Even I, though, had an idea that was certainly too crazy: pose them as boxers and make a vintage silkscreened boxing poster. The copy even wrote itself — “A match so big they’ll need TWO RINGS,” for example. Clearly, it’s an idea that wouldn’t work for most weddings, but I never forgot it.

Earlier this year, though, it occurred to me the same would work for a holiday card for us, seeing as how I was raised in a Christian household, and my wife is Jewish. The challenge was writing copy that actually downplayed any violent overtones. Boxing promotion is about raising the stakes, classifying the title match as an act of war.

Despite a desire to print our card on my beloved Gocco, we opted to simulate the distressed texture and pulpy print quality in Photoshop. I actually think that was a better choice, as I was able to get more detail in the type. Unsolicited recommendation: Staples-brand double-sided photo quality matte paper.

What wasn’t a better choice, though, was using Photoshop to put in the boxing gloves. Using some cheap stock photography as a guide, the Mrs. and I posed in similar stances to the source images, and I brought in the gloves. However, I had to add lots of shadow and depth and move some bodily appendages around. Honestly, I should have just headed over to Sports Authority and bought some gloves; would have saved me hours of tense Photoshop work, praying that any imperfections in my clone stamping would be hidden by the halftone pattern.

So far, my favorite reaction has been, “So, when is this?” Sorry, it’s not a real event. Just our way of saying Happy Holidays, no matter which holiday you celebrate.

While the Mrs. and I did go off in separate directions to work on our self-appointed projects, we certainly do check in with each other constantly. A lot of people ask if it’s difficult being in the same field as Lesley, but it has been quite the contrary. Since we worked on our wedding invitation together, we’ve learned how to give each other constructive feedback and to support each other’s decisions. Plus, I trust her talent. She always scoffs when I say she’s a better designer than I am, but she really is. I know just about anything she creates, I will love. Thanks for keeping me inspired, honey.

On behalf of Lesley and myself, we wish you Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year.

In previous years, my favorite album choices would end several paragraphs of lukewarm observations about the previous twelve months (example — I still love that album, unlike my top choice in 2003). This year, I don’t feel compelled to rail about politics like I used to because a majority of Americans made their voices heard. Despite the suffering economy, I’m full of Hope™.

In 2007, I didn’t listen to nearly as much music as I usually do. In fact, seeing as how I was between blogs last December, it was not only necessary but perhaps even appropriate that my best album picks were broadcast via Twitter.

Not so this year. New blog, new attitude.

I’ve narrowed my list down to five favorites (with three runners-up that needed to be called out). In an effort to rank the albums arbitrarily and not give deference to any specific choice, I’ve arranged them in ascending order of the album cover’s average lightness value.

TV On The Radio
Dear Science

This band gets better and better with every release. They still create complex harmonies, evocative lyrics, and dense productions. Dear Science, though, is a much more accessible, melodic album than previous albums. I love this album more than their past efforts, and I love their past efforts.

Amazon MP3 Store

Girl Talk
Feed the Animals

I’m not sure even Gregg Gillis knows how brilliant he is. Girl Talk’s mash-ups are booty-shaking romps that also deserve careful consideration. His ability to love and skewer popular culture may fall somewhere between Weird Al Yankovic and Negativland, but even that description defines his skill too narrowly. I will be bold enough to say that Girl Talk is (hyperbole warning) the most important musical artist of this decade. He captures the cacophony of the entire musical landscape and molds it into a listenable work of art that is so much more than the sum of its 300+ parts.

eMusic / Download directly from the source

MGMT
Oracular Spectacular

It’s not often that I have a favorite album that actually makes me happy, but maybe I’m just happy these days. Their new-wave, soul-injected Brian Wilson schtick shows no signs of wearing off on me. I wonder just how good this album would have been without the influence of Dave Fridmann, The Flaming Lips’ go-to producer. Whoever deserves the credit, nevertheless, earned it with this incredibly silly yet strangely sophisticated album.

Amazon MP3 Store

The Kills
Midnight Boom

The album cover looks exactly like this album sounds. Dark, brooding sexual tension wrapped in sludgy blues coupled with a distant, alienating drum machine — it might as well have been recorded on that messy bed. I probably listened to this album more than any other this year; I just get lost in it when it starts playing. It sounds like a really bad night in a really good way.

Amazon MP3 Store / eMusic

Marnie Stern
This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That

Marnie Stern almost defies words. It’s all in her riffs, the way her fingertapping style leads to constantly moving, often pounding rhythms. Coupled with the voice necessary to pierce those rhythms, “This Is It…” is quite a propulsive ride.

Amazon MP3 Store / eMusic

Buy the Albums

Each album above has a link to eMusic and/or the Amazon MP3 store, my favorite ways to purchase music now. And yes, I purchase music. Most of these bands are on independent labels who need your money just as much as the band does.

None of these links are affiliate links, either. I will make no money off of these purchases.

You should also go see the bands live.

Runners Up

This time in alphabetical order by band name, each described simply with two words:

The Bug, “London Zoo”: Urgent dubstep.
Fucked Up, “The Chemistry of Common Life”: Epic hardcore.
Vivian Girls, “Vivian Girls”: Dreamy lo-fi.

Next Year

My old college roommate Clint has a nearly fetishistic relationship with tracking data. His annual movie list is no exception. I will say, though, since I’ve been playing this pretentious role of pretend music pundit, I’ve become fascinated with the prospect of tracking all of the albums I hear in a year, and not just the newly released ones. For example, I recently listened to all of Foo Fighter’s post-The Colour and the Shape albums and decried them as now being in the same category as Nickelback (earning me some jeers on my Facebook wall). So starting this year, I’m going to make track my feelings about every album I listen to that’s new to me, no matter when it comes out. I’m looking forward to the exercise, and I’ll share the results next December.

(Okay, perhaps Clint is not nearly as obsessive about data as Nicholas Felton, but I know Clint personally, so he got the nod.)

I want to be remembered as I was when I was young and in my golden times… I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people’s perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form.

I don’t think you’ll have to worry, Bettie. Thank you.

Moment of silence for the one and only Bettie Page.

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate meetings. We all spend too much time sitting around talking about stuff we should be doing instead of actually doing stuff. More often than not, any information required can be either decided by an individual with authority and the groups’ trust or acquired via a quick email or instant message.

Nevertheless, sometimes there are so many moving parts that the emails start flying. You’re replying to an email at the same time someone else is, and all of a sudden, everyone is confused. That’s when I stop everything I’m doing and pick up the damn phone. That just happened to me. Too many emails, too many people, too many elements — so I picked up the phone.

And then it dawned on me — there has to be a formula to this. After some doodling and calling upon high school physics, here’s what I came up with:

m

The number of people involved in the conversation, including yourself (in other words, mass)

e

The number of emails sent by all of those people, including those you’ve sent yourself

t

The amount of time in which all of those emails were sent, measured in minutes

Plug in the numbers. If the above formula is indeed true — the left side is greater than or equal to the right side — then you probably need to pick up the phone or have a meeting. Clearly, if there is that much to say, then you need to talk. Or if everyone is so unfocused that they are just sending short emails pretending to be involved, then you need to get everyone together and get focused.

Every scenario I’ve plugged into this formula seems to work. Does it work for you?