In her blog post on Fast Company, Ellen Lupton (author of Thinking With Type) talks about the curious habit of piling up papers. This particular quote gave me a bit of hope, as it exactly describes my working style:

She describes her work style as “managing through piles.” MacLear assigns each project its own stack of papers. “If I don’t see them (they are in a cabinet) then the project might as well be in cold storage,” she says. Many productivity experts agree that documents should stay more or less visible until you are finished using them. At that point, most papers can either be recycled or banished to closed filing cabinets.

How does everyone else arrange their workspace?

Way back before we started Hexanine, I commuted out of the city to a design firm in the Chicago burbs. My drive averaged 70 minutes each way, and gave me plenty of time for brainstorming and podcasts. But while motoring to the Kennedy Expressway, I saw things I might have missed if it weren’t for the gridlock. One of them was this van: (Photo taken with my old cellphone.)

In the 2+ years I made that drive, this homemade billboard of a van was parked on the same 3-block stretch (moving occasionally) right near the highway. That was almost 5 years ago. And guess what? It’s still there. That old van even has a spot on Google Maps street view. For those of you who don’t get the funny syntax English, the author of this vinyl lettered rage (applied to all sides of the vehicle!) doesn’t like American Family Insurance. It’s obvious to anyone who drives or walks past this Hate Van that for whatever reason (“Didn’t fix this Car!”) American Family did something to absolutely piss off the owner.

Read on…

Welcome to the official launch of the Hexanine website, as well as this blog, Zeroside.

After many late nights, sweat and tears, we’re live and worldwide, comin’ at you.

In the coming weeks and months we’ll be posting a variety of bits–insight and inspiration in the form of articles, case studies, relevant links & more. We look forward to beginning the conversation with you. More very soon.

Excelsior!