Back in 2008, after PiQ was abruptly put to an end, some of us were still itching to do something in entertainment media and publishing. The only problem was that here in the Houston area, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity in that field, so we all scrambled to find whatever work we could. Me? I managed to snag a contract job at Shell that turned out to be one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had (not my fellow designers, mind you, just the corporate treatment) and all the while I kept the idea in the back of my head that one day I’d be back in publishing. I’d even started to blog about entertainment-type news and goings-on here to sate my appetite.

A few months later, I met up with some of the old PiQ crew and a kernel of an idea turned into a discussion, and that discussion turned into a plan. Myself, Scott Howard and Paul Starr decided to put together something along the lines of what we originally envisioned with PiQ. Entertainment coverage with some depth and character, but without all the all-too-easy snark that seems so prevalent these days. As “the magazine formerly known as Newtype USA“, we’d seen the blind hatred and spite of anime fans first-hand and made it our mission to fight the trend of just hating on things because it was easy. We wanted to celebrate the things we (and apparently, more than a few PiQ readers) loved and had fun talking about.

Enter Sodapop Journal. Sounds like a mouthful, but we found it catchy, meaningful and even a bit timeless, if you will. Unlike PiQ, this baby is all ours, free of interference from silly coked-out execs who can’t sit still and cagey money men who bend numbers to their will. If it fails, it’s all our own fault, but like PiQ, this is a labor of love first and foremost, so just the fact that we’ve actually started doing something is already satisfying in itself.

So remember the name. Sodapop. Journal. Even “SPJ” if you like. We’re just getting things rolling but feel free to jump into the discussion on your favorite movies, music and other entertainment. We won’t bite.

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

Yes, this joint’s been pretty dry lately. That’s because, among other things like looking for a new job and cranking out freelance work when I can, I’ve also been working on something shiny and new!

Some of you won’t be all that surprised, some of you will dig it and some of you won’t be into it at all. That’s OK, though. I stand at the ready.

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

Reports are in that ABC has cancelled Life on Mars after only one season. However, in a bit of an unprecedented move, the network will let the show wrap up and bring its main storyline–how detective Sam Tyler found himself transported back in time to 1973–to a fitting conclusion. Apparently ABC was pleased the show’s creative spin, but couldn’t continue to back its falling ratings, so perhaps allowing a series finale is a move to reward those viewers that stuck with the show.

Frankly, I’m surprised that more viewers didn’t get into Life on Mars. While it’s yet another British remake and was hampered by a complete revamp before even airing (including reshoots and recasting), I thought there was enough great writing and performances to keep viewers engaged. And while the show revolves around a central mystery, it never went so far into LOST territory that new viewers couldn’t check in and still enjoy it. Maybe that was a mistake on ABC’s part. After all, the show had excellent production quality (and exceptional music selections), but it was nothing like LOST, and perhaps aligning the two shows worked against Life on Mars. Either way, I thought it was a great run and will be happy to see things wrap up.

LINK

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

According to an announcement today by Great American Group, one of the firms liquidating the remaining Circuit City inventory, over $1 billion of product has been moved in the last month. After the announcement on January 17 that Circuit City would be closing its 567 stores, sales have apparently been brisk on discounted consumer electronics.

While that’s all well and good, deeper discounts and even lower prices are on the way, starting this Thursday, February 19th, and will continue for the next month or so until all inventory is gone. So, for those shoppers who didn’t bite at the “going out of business” prices, maybe now they’ll be able to find some real deals worth their time.

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

When looking for work late last year, I recently got in touch with a former employer of mine, Bob Lamons, and we discussed building out a site for his new B2B marketing venture, Industribrand (as in “industry brand”). Now, I’d worked for Bob for nearly six years at his ad agency, Robert Lamons & Associates and when that operation closed its doors, I moved on to publishing for several years. Still, I jumped at the chance to both rebuild a working relationship with Bob as well as flex some more of my skills in web design. As I’m sure often happens in the design industry, I was once again working for a former employer, albeit in a slightly different capacity.

Back in 1998 or so, I’d built the RL&A site (ads2biz.com) entirely by hand, one page at a time. Eventually, I retooled the site using one of the early versions of Movable Type mostly out of a need to make adding and editing content a breeze. Similarly, the Industribrand site would need to be just as easy to use, while still being powerful and flexible. Enter WordPress.

With Movable Type now a commercial product and WordPress a free, open source project with an ever-growing community of developers and supporters, the choice became pretty clear. I’d already spent a fair amount of time using WordPress on other projects that I knew I could make it do things that were beyond the standard “blog” look and feel, and this would be a good opportunity to employ WordPress more as a CMS than a simple blogging tool.

Something that I’ve always been a proponent of when it comes to web design is simple, clean layouts and an uncomplicated experience. While Industribrand would have its own look and feel, that principle would still apply.

One of the holdovers from the original RL&A site would be Bob’s editorial columns as published in Marketing News, but with a new emphasis on marketing principles and ideas, there was no longer a featured portfolio of past work.

Instead, there would be a collection of brand stories that focus on exemplary branding techniques from some of the biggest companies in the world and from Bob Lamons’ own book The Case For B2B Branding, a simple seven-step process to developing and maintaining a strong brand. The challenge this presented is that there wouldn’t be much in the way of visuals or imagery, making the site particularly text-heavy. Ultimately the best solution was to present the site in a simple, very reader-like format. A strong, clean header design, followed by basic navigation links and then a single column of text in the center of the page. Only the archived articles would use a sidebar to allow for a foreword, archive navigation and other tools, like searching, link sharing and finding other related articles.

The advice, wisdom and ideas throughout the site was what visitors should be focused on and providing too many distractions only stood to weaken the message. As a result, the Industribrand site became an exercise in designing around the content, not in lieu of it. The added benefit of having an easy-to-use backend, automated SEO capabilities and flexibility of design was just icing on the cake. Take a look and more importanly, give it a read.

Visit the Industribrand site

The Case for B2B Branding by Bob Lamons

Bob Lamons on LinkedIn

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

Hot on the heels of last year’s big release of Battlefield: Bad Company, DICE has announced the release of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 this winter. Once again, gamers will ride or die with B Company and fight their way through more of the intense, totally destructive environments that only the Frostbite engine can deliver. Also announced is the new Battlefield 1943 title, following in the footsteps of the wildly successful Battlefield 1942 WWII setting and gameplay. Bad Company 2 will be available for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, while Battlefield 1943 will find its way to gamers online through Xbox Live Marketplace, Playstation Store and PC.

I played a fair share of Bad Company and even though some of the weapons frustrated me to no end, it was endlessly amusing to see what can happen when you take all manner of weapons to any given structure. So while the promise of more vehicles, more team play and more mayhem in Bad Company 2 is a no-brainer, I’m more curious to see how Battlefield 1943 will fare, both in terms of being yet another WWII game and with online distribution for such a massive game.

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

While it’s starting to look like Slumdog Millionaire is the favorite to win Best Picture at the Oscars this year after snagging top honors at the Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes and SAG Awards, there’s also growing unrest over the nominations as a whole.  Would you rather have seen others on the list like The Wrestler, WALL•E or even The Dark Knight?

Are there any films that you think were overlooked or are these the right choices out of last year’s crop?

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

It’s only fitting, of course, that the two shows that I’ve been looking forward to the most, LOST and Battlestar Galactica, are also in the final stretch of their respective stories. I knew they would have to end some day. I was just hoping that day would be much later. Then again, I’d rather have quality over quanity anyday.

If you have any interest in seeing these shows and/or maybe aren’t caught up yet, consider yourself warned, there be spoilers ahead.

I’m sure this is the case with most folks, but I was originally introduced to Lost through ABC’s intensive marketing blitz over the summer of 2004. I had mistakenly thought it was maybe a two-hour movie or mini-series (which, you may have noticed, simply don’t exist anymore) and kept it in the back of my mind. The one lasting image I had was of Charlie and his famous line “Guys, where are we?” to hold on to until the show premiered. Sure, I knew of Matthew Fox and Terry O’Quinn, but at the time, Dominic Monaghan was the most recognizable face, fresh off his role as Merry in The Lord of the Rings. The only other thing I remember hearing was that the show was not about an island full o’ dinosaurs or aliens or any supernatural phenomena, but would be based on real-world science. Perhaps it’s only an indication of how uncreative television had become, but that sounded kind of far-fetched at the time. Still, I was willing to see for myself.

Once the show premiered in September 2004, I was surprised at how un-sci-fi Lost was. There were the noises/creatures/smoke monster, the “ghosts”, the archaic experimental hatches and as the show went on, the mysterious Others who also inhabited the island, but those always seemed to be kept intentionally vague and largely unexplained. Looking back, I can see that those were simply the standard tropes that Lost used to reel in viewers, but anyone who paid close attention knew there was more to the show than that.

The one thing I didn’t expect was the unique way the show handled such a large ensemble cast (Season 1 featured fourteen distinct characters) by dedicating each episode to delving into a single character’s past. I thought the flashback device was an unusual choice at first and wondered how long the show could sustain that approach, but as the show went on, I found myself watching a group of survivors that, whether I liked them or not, were entirely familiar. I knew that Jack had doubts about his marriage, I knew that Locke was too willing to trust in people, I knew that Sawyer was more than just a tough guy scam artist. By not just telling audiences about a character’s past, but actually taking them to that moment in time, I’d argue that the survivors of Flight 815 might just be the most well-developed characters on TV.

With the show now on a set course for a 2010 finale, the fifth season of Lost has finally let off the brakes and is about to take these established characters and put them through the sci-fi ringer. After the early theories of dinosaurs or aliens were dismissed pretty quickly, the idea that the island was some sort of purgatory or limbo still seemed a possibility for the first three seasons. But it was the Season 3 finale that shot a giant hole in that one, showing two of the survivors back home after being rescued. As Season 4 progressed, the idea of time travel started to creep into the plotlines, making itself fully evident in “The Constant” as Desmond must endure his mind-boggling slips between his past and present. While the finale featured a “moving” island, anyone who asked themselves “where did it go?” simply needed to tune into last week’s premiere to find that the proper question should have been “when did it go?”

Lo and behold, here’s the sci-fi we’ve been waiting for! And I suspect not simple Back to the Future time travel we’ve seen a dozen times before, or even the hardcore time travel a la Primer, but a new kind of time travel. After all, isn’t redefining conventional storytelling what Lost has excelled at?

Once again, the show’s strength of posing real dilemmas against human frailty and morality only stands to become amplified against the backdrop of multiple locations and points in time. As much as some of the DHARMA-speak points to a potential world-changing event, rest assured that it’s the humanity of the characters that’s truly at stake.

Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, was a different kind of discovery for me. The name itself was tainted with memories of the cheesy ’80s TV series and therefore fell off my radar shortly after the new series was announced. Still, I did eventually catch the mini-series/pilot when it aired on NBC in early 2005. While I was fully impressed with it and it’s allegorical take on 9/11 and a society in disarray, for one reason or another I never got around to turning in for the first season of BSG on Sci-Fi Channel. I’ll always regret that.

Fast forward a year and I’m flipping through the channels one Friday night and land on Sci-Fi during the Season 1 finale. The discovery of Kobol, Starbuck’s return to Caprica, the military coup, and the most shocking moment–the attempted assassination of Adama–all had me completely enthralled from beginning to end. It was then that I immediately decided to get in on the show. Fortunately, I was able to record the entire first season in reruns and was ready for whatever Season 2 would bring.

The single greatest moment I’ll remember Battlestar Galactica for came during the Season 2 finale–the proverbial “game-changer”, if you will–when the show, with so many characters and plotlines on the line, took a surprising leap a full year into the future and didn’t look back. Once again, here was a show that focused so strongly on characters that I couldn’t help but go along with it, and it’s in Season 3 that Battlestar Galactica wandered into some of its most relevant (and probably most controversial) storylines. Foreign occupation, terroristic plots, suicide bombers, insurrection, treason, torture and disillusioned goverment all weighed in heavily, which spoke to one of the show’s grandest aspirations–to reflect and examine the struggles of our own modern-day society, warts and all.

Meanwhile, the biggest sci-fi element of Battlestar Galactica took shape in the form of ourselves. The looming threat of the Cylons was always present, but when they appeared on screen, they were in the captivating form of men and women who were all but human. While the Battlestar Galactica shares some sentiments that can be found in sci-fi classics like Blade Runner, The Terminator and The Matrix, the show takes things several steps further, with the Cylons experiencing crises of identity, religion and even parenthood. More than just “man versus machine”, the one single element at the focus of all conflict has been humanity itself and how the characters struggle to keep a tight grasp on it.

Now, as the final season is unraveling on the airwaves, Battlestar Galactica is poised to end either one of two ways for our fleet of survivors: on a really high note or an absolutely bleak nightmare. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be completely intriguing and I’ll be watching with a full heart.

Over the years, I’ve followed plenty of good shows, but in terms of science fiction, these two are the only that have consistently kept me coming back. Yes, there are spaceships and robots. Yes, there’s traveling through time and mysterious locales. On the surface, shows like LOST and Battlestar Galactica could seem like a bunch of empty hocus-pocus, but they just go to show that when you put an emphasis on characters and storylines first, audiences will genuinely appreciate what science-fiction can bring to the fray.

Also, I think it’s a nice touch that the producers of both shows (Damon Lindelof/Carlton Cuse from Lost and Ronald D. Moore from BSG) have taken advantage of podcasting to reach out and communicate with fans, which is something I don’t think anyone ever expected.

So here’s my hearty “thank you” to “Darlton”, Ronald D. Moore, the casts and crews of Lost and Battlestar Galactica for all they do and even ABC and Universal for giving shows like these a chance. Even though each has had to deal with audiences’ tolerance for annoying characters and dawdling storylines (and the haters, of course), viewers that have stuck with them have undoubtedly seen what I think is some of the greatest science fiction on television. With LOST in its fifth and penultimate season and Galactica in the “back nine” of its fourth and final season, I can’t think of a better and more exciting time to be a fan of both of these shows.

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

Nominations for Best Picture include The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire. Despite campaigns to land nominations, The Dark Knight and WALL•E were shut out, although WALL•E seems to be a shoo-in for Best Animated Feature. Also of note, Heath Ledger nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role of the Joker in The Dark Knight. Also also, Tropic Thunder’s Robert Downey Jr./Kirk Lazarus nabbed a nom too.

Personally, this will mark the first year that I haven’t seen a single one of the nominees for Best Picture. I’m not exactly in a hurry to see any of them, although I’ll probably catch Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire on DVD someday. However, I’m excited to see Ledger, undoubtedly the best part of the year’s biggest film, receive some even-higher-profile recognition for his performance. 

LINK

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.

Apparently, Obama’s quite the Stevie Wonder fan:

“If I had one musical hero, it would have to be Stevie Wonder. When I was at that point where you start getting involved in music, Stevie had that run with Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Innervisions, and then Songs in the Key of Life. Those are as brilliant a set of five albums as we’ve ever seen.”

I’m all for breaking new ground and achieving some new firsts, but having your own administration soundtrack? Yes, he can!

It’s All About the Love Again – Stevie Wonder (Download MP3)

© Level Orange. This content was originally published at Level Orange, the online home of design professional Robert Cortez, including news and opinion on graphic design, entertainment, technology, tales of everyday life, and the occasional insights into the worlds of advertising and publishing.