I reviewed two tools that I use on a constant basis a while back and thought I would add another program to that list. Rarely do I bookmark a site that I find interesting anymore. Instead, I use the Evernote web clipper extension for Chrome. This extension works in conjunction with the Evernote program which I use constantly. You have the ability to create notebooks inside of the program to keep everything you are saving organized. For example, I have a notebooks for photography, design and apps just to name a few. Evernote is available for your computer as well as your phone so you can always have access to everything you’ve saved. When using the web clipper extension you have the ability to easily save a full page, the url of the page or just the article you found interesting. As soon as it has been clipped it will show up in your Evernote program. I clip articles and pages that I find interesting all the time so that I can easily reference them later. It’s also handy to save recipes that look good for a Mother’s Day brunch which worked out well for me recently. - Steve Image courtesy of blog.evernote.com

I reviewed two tools that I use on a constant basis a while back and thought I would add another program to that list.

Rarely do I bookmark a site that I find interesting anymore. Instead, I use the Evernote web clipper extension for Chrome. This extension works in conjunction with the Evernote program which I use constantly. You have the ability to create notebooks inside of the program to keep everything you are saving organized. For example, I have a notebooks for photography, design and apps just to name a few. Evernote is available for your computer as well as your phone so you can always have access to everything you’ve saved.

When using the web clipper extension you have the ability to easily save a full page, the url of the page or just the article you found interesting. As soon as it has been clipped it will show up in your Evernote program.

I clip articles and pages that I find interesting all the time so that I can easily reference them later. It’s also handy to save recipes that look good for a Mother’s Day brunch which worked out well for me recently.

- Steve

Image courtesy of blog.evernote.com

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Saturdays Surf NYC opened its flagship store on Crosby Street in SoHo in August of 2009. 

What started as a small retail location that sold surf boards and wetsuits, has become an international brand with two stores in New York and two in Japan.

While operating coffee shops out of all their locations, and designing and producing their own line of men’s clothing, Saturdays began printing an annual magazine in 2012.

Each issue is more than 300 pages of cover-to-cover content, further illustrating a lifestyle occupied with surfing, living and working in New York City, and the high-quality craftsmanship and timeless style that inspires it.

Take a look at this short film that touches on the brand and the printing of the second issue of Saturdays Magazine.

- PS

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Alert: This post contains heady talk of souls and purpose and life. You may proceed, or not.

In 2005, the late David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College. In it, he gives students a perspective on adulthood that puts a great number of truths in illustrious context—things that even enlightened people might not have grasped about their homes, jobs, recreations and souls.

It may feel hippy dippy, and some of it does exist on an extra-terrestrial level, but even that is addressed. It’s a smart enough piece of writing to know what you’re thinking about it, and to answer your doubts before you can verbalize them. Wallace—who, it’s ironically contradictory to mention here, killed himself three years later—goes out on a limb to tell these college graduates, poised on the perch of the future, to consider that life might actually be about something more obvious than you thought.

For Wallace, for this semester’s fresh new graduates, and for all the rest of us navigating our beautiful, challenging, impossible, incredible world, this is a salient reminder that our real freedom—that which belongs to our souls and not a document—is a choice.

Have a great weekend. :)

-Ben

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Illustration for Illustration for Illustration for

Ever feel like your life is a never ending conveyor belt of groceries? I know, I know, and so do the employees of the Northern Cambria Giant Eagle. Join them on the lowest rung of the ladder in E.R. Barry’s latest piece of short fiction for the Quality/Quantity issue of Block Club. The dreary, infinite grocery belt was one of my favorite illustrations to work on yet.

- Julie

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Newsflash: selfies existed before Instagram.

An age-old tool called the camera lucida, used a prism to reflect an image onto a piece of paper, which you would use to trace your drawing. A recent Kickstartr raised money to make a new batch them, called the NeoLucida. Unfortunately, they’re already sold out and apparently won’t be making any more of them. Check out a video of the re-designed tool on This Is Colossal.

-Ben

Images courtesy NeoLucida.

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We put together a brand book for Inside Sales Team and the finished product came in looking great. The piece is printed on a heavy uncoated stock with a custom folder pocket to insert a personalized note to a potential client. The book is an extension of the culture they’ve created at Inside Sales Team, and we’re really pleased with how that culture was captured within the pages of this book.

-Tim

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Lotsa, lotsa bikes at Jazz Fest. St. John Bayou. Sidewalk chalk is everywhere. St. John Bayou. The Howlin' Wolf. Warehouse district. Streetcorner serenade. French Quarter. It's even in the air. The Bywater. Schools, and children, treated with respect. Midcity. Jazz Fest logo is like a city crest. The Bywater. Everything is illuminated. French Quarter. Lion around. French Quarter. One with the water. Lake Pontchartrain.

A week in New Orleans always does me right. My often-annual trip for Jazz Fest refuels me on every level, even if the Abita and Bourbon drain me a little. I come back with clearer goals, truer gratitude, and renewed hope in all that I do in my home, which I hold in distinct but equal reverence.

This year, I took two days off from the four-day festival to explore on foot. I’ve been through many of the city’s distinct neighborhoods over the last six years, but never before without objective. I saw the French Quarter during the day, which is not unlike being in your high school at night; I breathed in the quiet air of the Bywater, where homes and corner shops are practically interchangeable; and I reveled in the busyness of the St. John Bayou, where the horse track that hosts the music festival is located.

Instagram dominated my social media coverage during these seven glorious days. I decided to focus less on my vague monologue, less on interpretive critique, and more on just what I saw—simplicity is king in this town. And what I saw was beautiful. Mention that you’re going to New Orleans and a million and a half people will tell you where to go, what to eat, and who to ask for. I could do the same, but instead, I’ll let these sights be my recommendation. Enjoy.

-Ben

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What if you could turn off the internet?

Tech writer Paul Miller did that for a whole year. This is what he found. Safe to say, his findings about the forces of dependency, internal and external, are not what you’d think. How is Online Paul Miller different from Offline Paul Miller? Does that different matter? As he puts it, “there’s a lot of ‘reality’ in the virtual, and a lot of ‘virtual’ in our reality.”

The experiment’s resulting short feature, “Finding Paul Miller,” is an introspective tale of the human desire for connection, the metaphysical need for purpose. Stunner: it has little to do with technology.

This is worth every one of its 17 minutes, and especially salient given the topic of the next issue of Block Club. More on that later, though. Until then, let’s give Miller the floor.

-Ben

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