Synthesis Studios

Last year, students at the Art Institute of California - San Diego created eight posters to represent the eight Millennium Goals of the United Nations. Those goals are as follows:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

What struck me as the most interesting wasn’t the starkness of the goals, whose missions I had read and heard many times before. What stuck with me were the cunning visuals the students were able to emblazon across their posters. Not only does each image illustrate the intent behind each goal, but it also brings a further meaning by utilizing prosaic items with double meanings. For example, Goal 8 calls for “global partnership;” the poster depicts a globe made of yarn, showing how all the world’s population is reliant upon each other.

Pretty neat, huh?

I’ve got to say, it’s the creative design behind the images that I find almost more inspiring than the UN’s goals themselves… which is why I ordered copies of the eight posters for the office. Shouldn’t we be thinking like this at all times? Not only about what we should accomplish and what we can accomplish, but unique and unusual ways of doing so. Having the goals in the back of your mind is one thing, but being graphically reminded of them while you work at your desk is another.

(And, in case you’re wondering, my favorite of the eight posters is that of Goal 7; not only do I think it is the goal I am most capable of working towards myself, but I just happen to find the trunk-to-wire transition very cool indeed.)

So many of our products come from other countries that it’s easy to ignore the ever-present “Made in …” hidden in the packaging. Apple goes so far as to prominently declare that their products are “Designed by Apple in California,” conveniently downplaying the fact that most are manufactured in Asia. The Garmin GPS I ordered has a similar message, which completely escaped my notice when I opened the package. Watching the device’s output, however, I was greeted with an impersonal but powerful reminder of just where it came from.

Our office has very little GPS coverage, even if you hang an antenna out the window. Thus, when I connected the Garmin to my computer, I was greeted with the following output:

$GPGGA,012013,2503.7070,N,12138.4160,E,0,00,,,M,,M,,*52

For those of you that don’t speak NMEA, that means the GPS was reporting a location of 25° 3.7070′ North, 121° 38.4160′ East, but with no visible satellite. In the other words, it was lost, and repeatedly outputting its last known location.

Once I realized what was happening, I had to had to find out where the GPS thought it was. A quick zoom through Google Maps (with the help of the Get Lat/Long mapplet) revealed the following building:

There it was: the birthplace of my GPS (in Taiwan, of course). You can almost tell which window it was looking out before being packed up and shipped off.

If any members of our international audience want to check out the place for themselves, here’s a map to point you in the right direction:

For the last few turns, you’ll probably want a GPS of your own.

I just wanted to point out a simple little application that dose not get as much press as it should. It’s called Pink Noise and it’s made by Blackhole Media.

What is Noise exactly?  It’s described on the Blackhole site as follows:

Also known as a signal with even power distribution on a logarithmic frequency scale, pink noise masks background noise to help you concentrate.

Why do I think this needs extra mention? Because I have noticed several big box retailers selling the noise-canceling or sealing headphones. These are great for listening to music in a noisy environment, and reduce the volume you have to play music (or as often the case here at Synthesis, NPR) considerably.

If you are looking for a way to remove auditory distractions from your workspace, the combination of Pink Noise and noise blocking headphones works.