I’ll be presenting with couple of other guys from work; we’ll be talking about the impact of design on business and how a the perception of a brand is shaped by the design of products, user experience and messaging. We’ve had a few calls with the organizers of design week and quite a bit of brainstorming amongst ourselves. After a breakthrough today, it feels like the presentation is finally starting to come together… excitement is building.

KC Design week is all about celebrating the value of design, including graphic design, industrial design and architecture. There are a bunch of cool design-related events throughout the week (all of which are free), so head over to KCDesignWeek.org to check out the schedule and reserve a space for yourself. From what I’ve heard, about 90 people have registered for our session, which means we’re *this close* to a sold-out show.

And if your at the AIA building on the 4th, stop by and say ‘hi!’.

When all was said and done (yesterday), I came out with 198 photos — an admirable effort, but well short of the goal. It’s still a blast to look through the photos and see where I was (or where my head was) throughout the year.

With that in mind, I made a quick movie of all the photos set to the song I listened to the most in 2009, Radiohead’s “Gagging Order” (199 plays, according to iTunes). Enjoy!

(and if you want to participate in 2010, it’s the perfect time to start. I’ve already posted my first photo for 2010.

iPhone 365 – 2009 from Kyle Johnston on Vimeo.

I decided to tune in again Friday night, and was treated to—dare I say—an even better performance. Here’s the setup: Fallon asks members of the audience for a few details of their lives, then challenges The Roots crew to freestyle a song on the spot. Even better, they have to match a specific style or genre of music. It’s incredible to hear what they come up with in a pinch. The clip below is about 10 minutes, and you’re in for a treat if you have time to watch the whole thing. Hint: The Roots channeling Paul Simon.

I have to say, this show is really growing on me.

For those new to Urban Photo Safari, it’s a free event created to encourage you explore KC, get creative with your digital camera and—most of all—have fun (friends, family and non-creatives are welcome, too).

I’ve Safari’d 4 times now (’03, ’04′, ’06 and ’07)—it’s been a blast every time.

You can find the location, rules, tips and more at UrbanPhotoSafari.com. Hope to see you there! Until then, enjoy some of my shots from the ’07 Safari in Lawrence:

“I’m always surprised by how wealthy people gravitate to huge homes. Who wants to walk a half block to get a midnight snack? But smaller alone isn’t really the whole story. Smaller and higher quality is really the opportunity.

This is something I often think about when I drive by high-end homes… outside of major cities, it seems like bigger is the only option available for non-retirees. What if builders offered smaller homes with better features?

Offerings I can think of off the top of my head:

• Higher-quality building materials
• Pre-configured wireless network (with or without tech support)
• Home wind turbines and solar systems
• Include a car, maybe a Hybrid in an exclusive model or color
• Include bikes, Segways, or other low-impact modes of transportation for quick errands near the neighborhood
• Neighborhood services like chefs, nutritionists, personal trainers or pet sitters

Ultimately, I think the offerings would need to appeal to self-interest and sense of status to be successful. Green features and community enhancement sound good on a list, but my cynical side isn’t sure they would translate into big business.

What do you think—is there an opportunity here?

This has been the second in a series of random product/service/whatever ideas that pop into my head… ideas that I think are viable from a business and/or usage standpoint, but probably don’t have the time/desire/resources to implement.

On a totally unrelated note, this blog has been woefully neglected over the past few months in favor of—in no particular order—getting Creative Cohort off the ground, a couple of extensive freelance projects, gobs of activity at the regular gig and livin’ life. More posts to follow soon, probably a short burst of activity followed by another month or two of dead silence. Such is life.

I probably wouldn’t have been inclined checked out the new show, but Mr. Fallon managed to secure The Legendary Roots Crew as his house band. After watching a few minutes of the show, I started to doubt they could be used to their full effect. Then, they started to slow jam the news. Faith = restored.

I’m happy to announce the launch of a new site: creative-cohort.com. Creative Cohort started life as a LinkedIn Group. The group quickly attracted a lot of smart folks who sparked a lot of great discussions and it didn’t seem fair to keep those discussions confined to the closed walls of LinkedIn, so Creative Cohort was born.

All the articles are written by creative directors with the goal of helping fellow CDs and aspiring CDs grow and learn more about the in and outs of the biz. Seven other creative directors with a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences have volunteered to contribute to the site (and I’m always looking for more contributors). Be sure to check it out and bookmark it or add it to your favorite feedreader. That name again? Creative Cohort.

And thanks to Sebastian Lopez for supplying the cool illustration.

Here are the details:
Thursday, February 26, 2009
7:30 – 8 am – Registration and breakfast
8:00 – 9 am – Panel discussion, Q+A.
Kansas City AIGA Office

Just $20 for AIGA members and $30 for non-members.

Hope to see you there!

Scanning through my Gmail today, I noticed a bright red link at the top of the page reading, “Do more with labels!” I clicked through and landed on Google’s What’s New page, where I spied a unicorn posing in front of a rainbow.

I thought maybe they were getting on the cornify bandwagon (hat tip to Ryan), but the modest use of glitter led me to dig a little deeper and learn that Google is indeed giving away stickers for the low, low price of a self-addressed stamped envelope.

And now that Google’s released Latitude, you know exactly where you can find friends to swap stickers. Integration, people. Integration.