Via: Flickr blog., from the Library of Congress. Say what you will about Flickr and their inability to sustain any kind of momentum – their blog is pretty fantastic.

It’s unadorned. “It’s just a hat,” you’d think, if you saw it in the wild.

If you saw it in a museum, surrounded by other items, you might think it was just another dead person’s hat. You’d be okay in thinking that. It’s no different from that Monopoly guy’s hat. Or the hat of any businessman from the late 1800s.

Even if it was labeled “Abraham Lincoln’s Hat,” you’d probably only give it a passing glance. Your eyes, distracted by everything else, would fail to grasp the importance.

But it IS important. This is Abraham Lincoln’s hat. Abraham Lincoln. Yes. THAT Abraham Lincoln.

You place it on a pedestal. It begins to stand out.

You devote the hallway leading up to it to spelling out the importance of Abraham Lincoln. It begins to gain context.

You show images of Abraham Lincoln wearing the hat. It begins to develop its own history.

Finally, you light it, dramatically, handing out a lasting image to whoever walks by.

It goes from being just a hat to being Abraham Lincoln’s Hat. Capitalized. Important. Worth Looking At.

And, in that time, nothing has changed outside of how you presented it. You took something ordinary – because, let’s be honest, it’s still just a hat, though most certainly a hat worn by a famous President – and provided the context, visual cues and legend that can only be assigned to something worth remembering.

Taking the ordinary and making it beautiful. That’s why storytelling is important. Why graphic design is important. Why creativity is important.

“It’s just a hat.”

No. This is Abraham Lincoln’s hat. Pretty impressive, huh?

But it wasn’t the easiest thing to figure out. Part of that is because, in essence, Sierra also got the following for her birthday:
• A photo editor
• A game system
• A framing kit
• A slide show
• A movie camera

All in the same package.

Sierra is a three-year old girl. She likes to take pictures with her camera – not play games, not film movies, not put wacky frames on wacky shots. To her, this is merely a camera. To me, it’s a monstrosity in over-indulgence; some “design by committee” product spec that attempted not to make a great product but, in the way committees are wont to do, make a product that tries to appeal to every single demographic available.

Sierra loves her camera, and I think it’s pretty fun. Grandpa Dennis did a great job picking it out. We’ve already started a Flickr page with Sierra’s pictures. (They are fantastic, by the way, if you like blurry, off centered pictures of her family and the backs of their legs.)

But the insistence of modern manufacturing to pile on the features and added benefits – often to the detriment of the original reason for purchasing the product – is frustrating and, dare I say, ugly.

Kids want cameras to take pictures. They will be happy with a simple camera that takes good pictures and – here’s the kicker! – is easy to use.

That means no extra features to bog down the button landscape. Just a few buttons to work the camera, like the old Holga models.

Do people really want all the things on this camera? Or are they simply a way to create false competitive advantages in a crowded toy marketplace – competitive advantages that are then one upped by the competitors, which are then one upped by the original product, which continue ad nauseum until soon there isn’t enough room on the package to explain what the damned thing does.

Here’s the thing: it’s a toy. For a kid. Yet, it’s become so complicated that even I had a hard time working it.

Did we forget about the simple rules of making toys? Rule Number Two: TOYS ARE FOR KIDS.

It’s all I ask. Simplicity. Better design. Something Sierra will be happy with. Something she’ll have no problem grasping and understanding. Something we all can be proud to purchase.

And, thanks but no thanks, we’re okay without the wacky hat slide show.

Art and writing and creativity – whatever that is – is subjective, which means it offers no good metric for success, and that means we rely on feedback, and when feedback doesn’t come it’s like the world has dropped from below us and we’re left scrambling to straighten our upturned confidence.

Today, I rediscovered a simple solution.

No phone. No e-mail. No Internet. No searching for confirmation. Nothing but sun. A cup of coffee. A walk. Some lunch. Maybe eggs Benedict. Some talking. Some friends. Some family.

Cut free from the grid and fire up the grill. Stand impressed, reminded; feedback doesn’t matter, life continues without it, and even an overcooked hamburger tastes better than whatever it was you were worried about in the morning.

EDIT: I hereby interrupt this nice sentiment to clarify that this picture has a texture on it. Our bathroom isn’t really that dirty. We promise.

Every time, I’m reminded why great feature journalism is both inspiring and necessary.

Case in point: the New York Times’ story about one Brooklyn pay phone and the people who stop by throughout a 24-hour period.

The lede to Manny Fernandez’s article, “Listening In on a Pay Phone in Queens”:

Benjamin Patir called his son because he was lonely and, perhaps more important, because he had a quarter. Robert J. Covelli called his son, too, to find out if, at some point during the more than 24 hours he spent in custody, he had become, for the first time, a grandfather. Frank Federico, fresh from a courthouse jail cell, called his mother, who spared him any lectures and asked him if he needed a ride home.

It’s not breaking news. But it’s not a throwaway puff piece, either. It’s just pure quality. And it’s why, as long as people are willing to think creatively for stories that truly interest their readership, there will always be an audience for great journalism – either online or in print.

Now, to only monetize it in a way that continues to support the craft without placing the onus of cost on the average reader.

Check out Piotr Redlinski’s pictures in the slide show (about half-way down the page: “Still a Quarter to Call”) for shots that perfectly capture the tone of the article.

Humbling, as always.

For more photos, I implore you to check out the photoblog (Much More Sure) or our Flickr page. And get Graphic Content into your feed reader, if you haven’t already.

I don’t write, or take pictures, or do whatever it is, simply for my own enjoyment. Though that is the main reason, I also do it because I have pride in the work I do, and because I hope that others will find value in it.

Such is the case with most creative fields. We spent hours at our craft not just to have a finished product we’re proud of, but also to have a finished product that others are proud of.

The problem is that I’ll never accurately know the impact that finished product has. (At least, not without blatantly fishing for compliments.)

Chances are, we all care about our standing on the Web, or at work, or in whatever arena we fill. Yet, there’s no way to effectively gauge our impact – readership, influence, whatever – without making a plea for loyalty. I’ll never know until I can get a roll call, and even then it’s not likely.

It’s a Catch-22. I’d love to know if some of the people I follow – whose stuff I’m inspired by, local or national – follow me back. But I can’t let anyone know about it, because those same people are confident enough not to fish for confirmation.

It sounds pathetic to wander up to people you respect and ask, “DO YOU LIKE ME?” Even more so when you understand that they’re stuck – either answer yes, regardless of feelings, or stay silent in a perceived admission of distaste.

©IBM Research - Zurich | Photo from IBM Research - Zurich's Flickr page.

It’s a pentacene molecule. 22 carbon atoms. 14 hydrogen atoms. Smaller than I can even comprehend. And, for someone who spent two hours a day in science classes throughout college, surprisingly breathtaking.

Not because it’s so small. And certainly not because it’s a clear picture, or because of the technology involved.

It’s breathtaking because it’s exactly the way we always thought it would look. Five circles of atoms, hooked together in the same way as my Organic Chemistry 201 textbook.

But seriously. THOSE ARE ATOMS. IN A PICTURE.

(Via Make the Logo Bigger. Funny how I learned about a major breakthrough in science from an ad blog.)

(c) Jerry Lodriguss

Great sports photography.

Seriously. I could look at this stuff all day.

(c) Jerry Lodriguss

From Jerry Lodriguss’s collection.

(Via Ball Don’t Lie)