Saturday, November 29, 2008

a helluva town...


...the Bronx is up, but will I want to see the new Yankee stadium?

New York gets in your blood, I guess. It's not in the cards for me to live there at the moment, but who knows what the future will bring. It was fun to be back, if just for a few days. But a little surreal, as the city is very different from when I last called it home.

Besides 9/11, New York has become "family friendly," which actually translates to gigantic high-end mall. As we took a quick stroll down 5th this afternoon to check out some holiday store windows, I was appalled to see people lined up to get into the Abercrombie & Fitch store. C'mon people. It's just the Gap. Really. And last time I looked, they had one of these stores in a local mall. But this was the New York store...

Did I mention the other crowd of tourists taking photos of Trump Tower? Why? You got me. Because it was there, I guess.
This is my third New Yawk trip in a year. Wow. Anyway, I have to admit that Times Square still fascinates me. Where I work I am always hearing the fearful predictions of the death of print. I do think that newspapers are on the way out, and magazines probably not so far behind. But we'll still have the IKEA catalog, right? But I digress.

I do both print (primarily) and web graphics to earn my bread, but what this latest trip through Times Square taught me is that yes, digital techniques are changing printing, making paper products, posters, less necessary. I have to admit to being amazed that a digital subway kiosk sign was already proclaiming Twilight as the #1 movie. Quite a far cry from the old out-of-date posters advertising movies tnat bombed or concerts that happened long ago. A digital ad can be updated frequently. Bad news for printers with old-school presses, but good news for designers and others wishing to embrace new technologies.

New York is leading the way. D.C. has a small area in it's Chinatown with a large digital display. In another ten years or so we could all be living like Blade Runner. But what will New York look like then? What will our Obamaworld be?

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