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Sol Sender, from VSA Partners, takes us on a tour of the thinking, the process, and the runners up in designing the logo for what is easily the biggest brand of 2008. If you’re not familiar with identity work, it’s not easy, but it’s fun. Although I can’t imagine working on something with this much on the line. Seeing all the different iterations of the campaign logo is not only fascinating, it’s a great windo into the creative process of people at the top of my industry.

Lately I’ve become a big fan of Fast Company magazine. I started reading it about a year ago and was lucky enough to receive a subscription as a birthday present this year. Fast Company is one of those rare tech-savvy publications that isn’t antiquated by the time it makes it to print. Its mix of technology, the business of technology, and how innovation can and does affect our global society is consistently insightful and interesting. I especially love how I …

The small car segment in America is in quite a state of flux right now. Used to be that compact cars were as unequipped as they were unsafe. The concept of a premium or even a luxury small car in America was completely foreign. More accurately, it was european. But in the last few years, the segment has really expanded. The BMW-bred MINI reboot in 1999 and the introduction of the Cooper to the US in 2001 marked a turning point in the segment. Here was the smallest production car available in the market, and not only was it efficient and safe, it was sporty and nice.

The MINI Cooper S and the Clubman followed, but more interestingly, the small car offerings in the US market at large got much better. The premium small car market since then has only really seen the introduction of the Volvo C30 and later the 1-series BMW. Premium small cars aside, the regular small cars available in the US simply got nicer by default. A great example of this is Scion’s redesigned 2008 xB. My wife just recently leased one to replace her petrol-chugging pickup truck, and we both really like it.

I have but two simple complaints about my new Vespa Grantourismo. One, that the slightest overfilling of the gas tank sucks fuel into the intake track. And second, that you don’t get any auditory clue when your turn indicators are up and blinking.

This is hardly timely, but I wanted to capture my thoughts on riding my Vespa GT-200 for the first time.

It’s a strange thing how for a lot of scooters and motorcycles, the first time you ride it isn’t unitl after you buy it. I get it. Motorbikes require a minimum amount of riding experience and skill to operate at a basic level. You can’t just turn motorcycles and scooters over to people willy nilly. It makes a purchase decision difficult, however. In my case, I was coming from a scooter that I loved when I bought it, but came to hate because of the seating position — something that didn’t crop up until I started taking longer rides. Would the Vespa be better? Would it handle worth a damn? Would the brakes get the thing stopped in a controlled way? The best I could do was talk to people who owned GTs, read the online reviews, and trust the advice of the folks I’ve come know so well at Scooterville.

In my opinion, the Genuine Blur 150 is one of the finest scooters available anywhere. Period. In the seven months I owned my Blur, I rode a little less than 5000 miles. During that time, I rode on surface streets, on the freeway, on twisty roads, on hills, in traffic, and out on the open road all by myself. I pushed it to its safe and reasonable riding limits and that riding experience will probably be forever the benchmark in how I grade the performance of every scooter I’ll ever ride.

I’ve been a certifiable scooter crazy person for over a year now. The scooters I like the least still enjoy preference over almost any motorcycle. That is, until I started looking at Triumph. It’s the british thing. I’m such an english petrol-head at heart. From dad’s ’69 MGb GT to my MINI Cooper S, I’m a fan of of pretty much anything UK and internal combustion.

A few months ago, I got the Triumph motorcycle itch. With the prospect of selling the Blur, the thought of a Triumph Thruxton was looking very tempting. So I headed down to MotoPrimo in Lakeville, MN and got a test ride on a Triumph Bonneville — since the Thruxton is but a modified Bonneville.

I really appreciate this video because it’s about a subject that really does matter: internet comments. One of the things that motivated me to start this blog in the first place was a string of really nasty comments in a conversation I was trying to have online. The future of using the internet is going to be tightly bound up in actually being yourself online. The days of anonymously spewing ad hominem bile at whoever you like without consequence are hopefully numbered. In the mean time, here’s a funny lesson on web etiquette.