Brought to you by the number...

Brought to you by the number 5!
GeoSans Light, Regular, 5

The GeoSans Light, regular, number 5 is a robust looking number. I really like the slant of the stem, it creates a sort of motion within the shape, as if the top half is moving ahead, trying to catch up with 6. The slant directs your eye straight to the end of the curve so that you can't help but see the fullness (or rather emptiness of negative space) of the bowl. The top definitely balances the over-sized bowl. I think if the stem was upright, it would look as if the '5' was sticking out its belly and the shape would have a completely different characteristic to it. This '5' is unassuming, yet it feels interesting and modern.

From Da Font.com

Design Foundry: ---
Designer: Manfred Klein
Date: pre-2005
Classification: Sans Serif

Not much information on GeoSans Light or on Manfred Klein. Klein appears to be a German typographer. But I don't read German, so I can't provide much information. Sorry! But he has a whole lot of type families that you can check out at: http://manfred-klein.ina-mar.com/

Brought to you by the letter...

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: T.
Interstate, Regular, lowercase t.

What stood out to me about Interstate Regular's lowercase 't' was the ends of its stem. For a sans serif, it adds a little pizazz to have the top cut off at such an extreme angle, and for the bottom of the stem to curve and cut off at a lesser angle. It could have been a very bland, equal weighted, cross shape--just another letter in the alphabet--but it was obvious that this 't' was crafted with care. The terminal curve and angle plays very nicely with the erect stem. This letter says I'm a good school boy, but I'm fun too!

Even thought it feels neo-grotesque in it's lack of contrast and even width, it certainly has a distinguishing characteristic. Although, perhaps to people not in love with letter forms, maybe it does look rather inconspicuous?

Courtesy of Font Bureau.com:

Design Foundry: Font Bureau
Designer: Tobias Frere-Jones
Date: 1993-1999
Classification: Neo-grotesque sans-serif

"Familiarity lies at the heart of legibility. Interstate is based on the signage alphabets of our Federal Highway Administration, letterforms absorbed at a glance everywhere we drive. Interstate provides a real edge in swift communication." Interstate is recommended for newspaper and magazine use. Interstate has 40 different weights!

Courtesy of wikipedia.com:

The terminals of ascending and descending strokes are cut at an angle to the stroke (see lowercase t, and l), and on curved strokes (see lowercase e and s), terminals are drawn at a 90° angle to the stroke, positioning them at an angle to the baseline. Counters are open, even in the bold and bold condensed weights, further contributing to legibility.

About Neo-Grotesque Sans-Serif, courtesy of Para Type.com:

Neo-Grotesque is a refinement of early Grotesque structure. They were issued during 1950s due to the requirements of the Swiss typography style. Neo-Grotesques are more elegant than their predecessors and hardly have any distinguishing features, so may be described as standard and inconspicuous. They have small aperture, even widths, low contrast and large x-height. They were designed in many styles and weights. Ascenders are the height of uppercase. Normally italic is absent or replaced by oblique. Slopes are from average to significant.

Brought to you by the letter...

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: M.
Futura, Medium, M.

What I like most about the Futura 'M' is that it's unapolegetic--no soft curves, no humps or bumps, just three sharp points. It's like Futura 'M' is saying, if you mess with me, I will cut you. It's shape doesn't fall into the trap of looking like mountains, it's not a mountain, it's a letter and 'M' knows it. It's not trying to be anything besides a legible, no frills, geometric letter. The thick black lines make out two isoceles triagles--our eyes filling in the baseline--and the white space under them make two more. I also like how the middle downward point just crosses the baseline. Trying to be a little rebellious, are we 'M'?

Courtesy of My Fonts.com:

Design Foundry: Bauersche Giesserei / Bauer Types
Designer: Paul Renner

Date: 1927
Classification: Geometric Sans Serif

Courtesy of Wikipedia:
About: Futura is based on geometric shapes that became representative visual elements of the Bauhaus design style from 1919-1933. Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness. The typeface is derived from simple geometric forms (near perfect circles, triangles and squares) and is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. This is most visible in the almost perfectly round stroke of the "o", which is nonetheless slightly ovoid. In designing Future, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating non-essential elements. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals. Original Futura design also included small capitals and old-style figures, which were dropped from the original metal issue of the type. The digital versions of these glyphs were first produced by Neufville Digital under the Futura ND family.

Brought to you by the letter...

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: G.
ITC Cheltenham, Book, lowercase g.

ITC Cheltenham Book 'g' is kicking off this new series exploring type because quite frankly this is the letter that inspired it. I want to learn more about fonts and typefaces, so I figured why not spend one day a week talking about a certain letter/typeface. (I already have a new typeface project in the works, but I'll share that little secret on another post.) You'll have to excuse me if I use the wrong terminology, but please do correct me.

What really caught my eye on this 'g' is the open-bowl ascender. That's what really separated it from the numerous other serif typefaces I was copying at the time. (My typography teacher once made us trace over the letters of five typefaces to learn the shapes, contours and minute differences. I absolutely loved this meticulous task, so I continue to trace.)

The ascended-bowl opening creates a more interesting white space that juxtaposes with the trapped white space of the top bowl. And then there's the perfect, strict stem (?) that connects the two curvy sections. It's a perfect synthesis of contrast. Plus, it's ear (or terminal) is pretty cute.

A very brief history of ITC Cheltenham Book courtesy of font.com:

Design Foundry: ITC - International Typeface Corp.
Designer: Tony Stan
Classification: Clarendon Serif which means strong vertical weight stress; usually with heavy, bracketed and square-cut serifs

About: The original Cheltenham was designed by the distinguished American architect, Bertram Goodhue in 1896, for the Cheltenham Press, New York. Generally stronger in appearance than the popular text types of the time, the ITC Cheltenham font family has a large x-height that adds to its legibility in text settings.

What are your takes on the 'g'?

Promises and promises

Okay, so I've done this before, all promising things (like a website) that haven't come to fruition. Well, you've got to cut me some slack. I've got a lot of things going on--including laziness, which I am doing my absolute best to correct.

Here are some upcoming things that I'm planning for the blog:

- The letters: a weekly post about my favorite letters and a short bit about why.

- Inspired or insipid. I post one thing that I found truly inspiring and explain why. You leave a nice or nasty comment saying if you agree.

- A 365 project: either photography, drawing or design, or maybe some combination of both. I'll spare showing all seven days work of work (I'm sure some of it will be sub par - it is okay to fail) and just post my favorite for the week.

More explanation will be provided upon commencement. I will totally assign arbitrary days to these weekly posts (I'm thinking Tuesday, Friday and Sunday in that order). I do plan on cleaning up the blog and building a website, so put that into the plan for 2010.

New Personal Logotype

Since the summer, I've been working on a logo. And I've come up with plenty. Unfortunately, they've run the gammit from clip art-ish to so-so. I'd like it a lot once I was "finished" with it, after tweaking it for hours. But I think I finally have one that I'm ready to share. I'm pretty happy with it. I haven't decided on a color palette yet, so for now, you get to see it in it's rawest form: black on white. (The best and true way to judge the value of a logo.) Please, feedback, gimme gimme gimme!

Maybe you noticed that those are actually two different logotypes (good eye!). Or at least two different typefaces. The first one is Trade Gothic in light which has a great 'g' (not shown). (I bring up the 'g' because my variations of this logotype include the words design and photography.) The second typeface is Drescher Grotesk BT in Light which has a great ampersand (not shown). I think I lean a bit towards the 'a' in Drescher Grotesk as well. What do you think?!

Whatever words of wisdom or catty critiques you might have, I want to hear it all. This is my first time around and I'm still working on it. So I won't take too much offense. Thanks!

The Client

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the designer-client relationship. I've had some really great clients who love my work and trust me and pay me, and also some awful clients who, from my point of view, have lied and cheated me throughout the whole process.

Really I'm just wondering--how do we talk to our favorite clients? Do we act as if they're friends, telling them personal details? How do we talk to the difficult ones? Do we play the alpha-dog? How do we educate them? Is it even our job to educate them, or do we just ignore them and move to the next client, leaving them to harass another designer?

Here's a pretty amusing video on the client-designer relationship:



You can also read amusing stories of clients from hell, at Clients From Hell.com.

Please share your stories and insights about clients in the comments.

Decapitated Panda -- Good Product Design?

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but haven't had the chance. And tonight I do. A light-hearted romp into my life if you will. For a long time, I was running all my schoolwork (design heavy stuff) on a 128 MB USB. Seriously, I know. Then I found out how small that was and how cheap biggers ones are that I upgraded to a Tribeca 1GB. And I couldn't resist buying the super cute panda! (It was much cleaner with paint fully intact when I bought it.)


And I took it home and unwrapped it from it's indestructible plastic casing, and I pulled its head off. --Wait, what?! Seriously. Tribeca, or whoever, designed the USB so that in order to use it, you had to pull off the panda head to reveal the USB port.


And now my adorable little panda is a decapitated piece of metal--gasp--robot Panda! (That joke would make more sense if you could see the body/USB part of it. Oops, didn't upload that photo. But robot panda was a great joke for it.) The whole point of this blog is just to say--wouldn't it have made more sense to make the feet the part that comes off? Because then you'd plug in the panda USB and a happy panda face would be looking back at you, instead of just a panda body. Strange indeed.

Side Note PRO: I really do like how the little light between its feet glows red. That's pretty cute.
Side Note CON: The panda body is a little chubby, because you know, pandas are and this is obviously a close to real life replica. But this extra pudge means the panda USB won't fit into the USB ports on the side of the MAC keyboards and that is sad.

Pantone: Color Leader, Cultural Failure

I want to start by saying, I love Pantone. I love each tiny chip of perfect alphanumeric code of color. I envy people with Pantone mugs and bookbags. And I am aware that Pantone is an industry leader in terms of color and design. It's for that reason, that I'm concerned about how Pantone is choosing to lead the industry culturally.

Pantone recently sent me, at my request, a bunch of promo materials for their newest products and programs. They sent me collateral on Pantone Goe, the Pantone Chip In program, Pantone Fashion & Home, and Pantone's "Less Mellow, More Yellow" booklet. (I've since been to the site, and have not found a way to request these samples again.)



If you didn't know, Mimosa is Pantone's color of the year 2009. Hence, the Mellow Yellow booklet, to highlight all the various emotional connotations of the color yellow beyond mellow: aggressive, playful, zesty, surprising and intimate. I certainly agree with Pantone that yellow can be all of these things. However, I do not agree with how Pantone chose to represent these many shades of yellow (see below). My commentary continues after the images.



It's late, so I'm going to keep the critique simple and short.

The aggressive photo plays with the stereotype that black men are aggressive. But particularly because black "gangster" men are aggressive--note the bandanna, tank top, chain necklaces and tattoos. What really makes this offensive, is that they didn't even shoot the man in an aggressive pose such as head on with direct eye contact. Instead, he is shot at an angle, and his eyes are looking to the viewer at an angle--suggesting that he is responding to our gaze, not directing his own. They took all the "aggressiveness" out of this photo through the subject's pose, and relied on his cultural markers to identify him as aggressive.

Less offensive photo idea: Shoot an image of a person head on, eyes straight, in what appears to be some type of business suit. The tie could be yellow.

In the playful photo the woman is nude. She has no gaze because her eyes are shut. Her mouth has the hint of a smile. (I'm surprised they didn't shoot her mouth slightly open.) Her body positioning is offering itself to the viewer by elongating her neck and turning the head away. She is supposed to be playful, but is portrayed as the play thing instead. Also, the black lipstick, heavy black mascara and yellow band across her neck make this image reek of bondage themes, and she is clearly not the dominating one.

Less offensive photo idea: Show her moving! Show her actually acting playful, and preferably with clothes on.

The zesty photo makes the least sense to me. Again she is nude, because that is important when licking fruit and wearing bananas on your head. (C'mon, bananas? Are they really zesty?) Her eyes are positioned at an upwards angle. She is positioned to be looked down at and upon. Her mouth is suggestive. She's certainly not eating that fruit.

Less offensive photo idea: Show "zesty" foods or zesty behavior. Zesty is not a synonym for sexy. My zesty guacamole is not sexy. Use lemons, limes, peppers, spices. Or show her making a "zesty" face. And zesty face is not equal to sexy pout face.

The surprising photo isn't particularly offensive on its own. But it is offensive when shown with the rest of the series. A white male has his clothes on. He is positioned head on and in control. His gaze is direct. The meaning between the word-surprising, and the image is clear. It is surprising that there's a spoon on this guy's nose. There is no direct (and un-offensive) correlation between the word and the subject in the other photos. This photo is so blatantly different from the others. Why weren't they all shot in this way?

Less offensive photo idea: Make the other photos work better rather than perpetuate ridiculous stereotypes.

The intimate photo completely disregards any subtlety. The photo is a voyeuristic snapshot into the top of a woman's tank top. This photo gives the woman no agency, not even a face. Her mouth may be smiling, but it's not actually clear. She's being viewed from above, so she is looked down at and upon. Her body is being objectified, because it's not the entire woman being looked down at, only her cleavage. The short depth of field and soft focus on this image is completely unlike any of the other photos. And even more ridiculous--there's not even any yellow in the image! Except for the photoshopped flowers and swirls on top of the image. In that case, why use this image at all?

Less offensive photo idea: Intimate doesn't have to mean sex. This photograph could easily work by showing an adult parent coddling a child. Or heck just show a baby with a yellow cloth diaper or blanket--let the intimacy be inferred.

I don't want to forget the woman on the cover (1st photo) who is also nude. She's touching herself in an intimate way. She's not rubbing her neck, she's running her fingertips across it. Her mouth is slightly ajar.

Less offensive photo: Anything.

To sum up: Women are zesty, playful and intimate. Men are aggressive and surprising. Women are best gazed upon and nude. People of color are at their best when they represent stereotypes. And the main point to sum up about Pantone is that they either do not care about the messages they are sending out into society or this is just a huge glaring yellow blemish on their PMS chip.

Pantone's already declared yellow to be much more than mellow--aggresive, playful, zesty, surprising and intimate. Now I'm adding controversial to the list.

What do you all think?

Preserving a Language

Recently @Issue posted an article (Designing A Font To Preserve A Vanishing Language) about Juliet Shen who is designing a font to preserve the language of the Native American Lushootseed tribe. It's really amazing to see the impact design and typography can make on culture.

What was amazing about Shen was that she took their alphabet/sounds (which were being represented by a mash-up of Times Roman and the International Phonetic Alphabet, work done by Thom Hess) and created a typeface for it.

From the article:

Shen recalls, "At the first meeting, one of the oldest of the language teachers said, ‘This is a graceful language, but it doesn’t look that way.’ The sound of the language speaks of the physical environment that the tribe has inhabited – like water washing ashore, wind moving through the trees. My internal design brief was to get rid of an ‘adapted’ look and make it appear as if it has always been.”

Poster Design

Here's the latest poster for Turn Around Norman. The music is very cool and jazzy (that's not meant in a demeaning way.) I couldn't get away from a sort of 40s film noir vibe. You can listen to some tunes at: We Turn Around.com. So I tried to capture that. Real modern typeface--really, this type is categorized as modern--with some sans serif. Many shades of grey. I went with orange instead of red for readability, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think the circles and dots create a neat light effect--lighting being very important in film noir. I don't know... not a total film noir poster but somewhat reminiscent of it, maybe? How'd I do?

Poster: Creating Music Series

Recent poster I did for the Creating Music Series.













Definitely recommend going-great music, great musicians. (and it's free.) Towson University.

Very Satisfied Customer

I used to big a real make-up junkie. I even wanted to go to beauty school for a while. Things change, and while I'm not as interested in covering myself in pretty colors (or rather, I have less reason to do so) ranging from smoldering to punk, I recently decided, what the hey, I'll go buy some new make-up.

And boy, is it great!!! I got a promo thing in my email from animal friendly, rock n' roll makeup line Urban Decay, and I bought the Urban Decay Book of Shadows vol II. And I was super happy with the product and its packaging.

See photos:

The box: Super pretty, swirly and sturdy. Came with purple ribbon and what looks like foiling or metallic inks.











But there were so many great things inside the box. The peacock print, the large mirror, the pull-open doors, the promo booklet about Urban Decay and oh yeah, the makeup itself.
















It gets better--- there were extra goodies that I didn't even pay for! Jackpot. Purple make-up bag, eyeshadow, eyeliner, eyeshadow primer sample, and mascara. I mean seriously, that is easily worth $30. Most of these were full size products, not sample. Whoo-hoo.










The lesson?
1. People want to get what they pay for. Urban Decay products while not cheap, obviously look like they're worth the money (i.e. it looks like someone took the time to put this package together nicely.)

2. People want to interact with their purchase/company. Sure I could have just gotten a box of eyeshadows and thrown it in my drawer. Instead, I ooohed and aaahed over it, I played around with it opening and closing things, I read the promo booklet, I took pictures of it and wrote about it!

3. People love a little extra something. Not just because it was free, but because it was a surprise.

Urban Decay, you get two big thumbs up from me. (In case it needs to be said, I have absolutely zero affiliation with Urban Decay.)

Photography

So, I've always been fascinated with photographs and images, but honestly, don't know much about them in the scholarly sense. I'm taking a digital photo class this semester, and I'm hoping this will vastly improve my skills. (Although, I'm hoping to find out that I'm not completely lacking in skills ::crossing fingers::)

Recently, I went on vacation to Italy and Switzerland. And took a lot of photos. 500 photos. And as much as I love them, and some are just for memories there are many I want to go back to and work with to make them photographs, and not just snapshots.

Here are a few low-res images that I've been playing around with.

View from the Top:



After the Storm:



Film Exhibit:

Beast Wedding!

Above is the new poster (of my creation) for the Jersey Band Baltimore CD release show. Jersey Band plays a new genre called lung core. It's hardcore music with a full out horn section. It's really cool and you can listen to them here. The CD is called Beast Wedding. Also playing the show: Quartet Offensive (plays Pavement), Soul Cannon and Leisure Icons. It's at the Ottobar in Baltimore on Thursday, August 27. The show is $8 and starts at 9pm. It's going to RAWK! Ha.

Attendance Map of Oriole Park - 2009 Season

(May take a while to load.)

Basically goes through the first half of the Orioles season 2009, showing attendance for each opposing team's series. I thought that by displaying the information (opposing team, game number, percentage in attendance, actual tally of attendance, day of week and time, and whether the Orioles won or loss) this way, it would help the Orioles marketing team look at this data from a new perspective. Why were there huge jumps or major drops in attendance in a series? Which games were just anamolies--such as Matt Weiters pro-baseball debut against Detroit that made the attendance spike to 87% from just 24% the night before--and which games/series have no obvious reason for the climbing attendance--such as Texas' second night when attendance reached 84%, but averages about 45% for the 4-game series.

How can they improve attendance overall? Does a win or loss effect the next day's attendance?

Expect an update when the 2009 season is over.

Song by Warning Track Power, "How Bout Dem Os"

Bing.com: Changing the Face of Search

Move over Google, there's a new search engine in town and it is pretty.

Bing essentially keeps Google's pared down, essentials only aesthetic. Bing has it's logo, a search box and button, and a few key category links. And a few, poignant links at the bottom to entice the bored web user (yes, they exist). Oh, and did I mention the beautiful photos?

Today's (7/14/2009) Bing:


Ooh what beautiful purples and blues. Ahh, Paris! Ahh, the Louvre! I honestly believe that the use of a single image on the homepage may help Bing take a bite out of Google's hold on the search engine market. Here's why:

1. It's Trendy
Seriously, I mean that. The web is going to see many more of these large format photographs as backgrounds in the future. Don't believe me? Check out Smashing Magazine (#4) or Web Designer's Wall's great collection of large-image background sites that are already ahead of the curve.

What I particularly like about Bing, is that in this web of digitally layered abstraction, to have a single, well executed photograph is very calming (is that the right word?). It's like a fresh breath amid the chaos.

2. Users Connect
The image, which changes everyday, helps the user connect to Bing in two ways. 1. It gives users a reason to visit the site, even if they're not trying to search. But just by going to the site, the image or one of it's related links will entice the user to click. A click will take the user to a search results page. So, even though I just came to look at a picture, I clicked on one link, and voila, I see Bing in action. Similarly, the changing image entices people to set Bing as the user's homepage, for the same reason as previously stated and hopefully with the same benefit.

The second way users connect to the image is by the content. The images on Bing (as far as I have seen) have always been a location. And it's an added bonus for the user, if they recognize the location in the photograph. If they visited there on a trip, the user is likely to share this photo with others, saying something like, I can't believe it, I've been there! (This happened in my office when a co-worker recognized a small seaside town in Italy that he had visited. As a result, all eight of us sitting around him headed over to Bing to check it out.) For example, the image above is of Paris, but a very specific location in Paris. And that's why it feels special if you recognize the place. They've managed to make Paris personal. Not only does the image cause a positive emotion, but makes the user likely to share this positivity. Again, increasing the number of visits to Bing which could easily increase the number of users.

3. Connecting the World
The locations displayed can be small remote locales or large, well known cities. It's as if Bing is scouring the world and bringing it into our homes. Is this not symbolic of what the internet does? Globalization is here. And Bing is bringing us the beautiful side (much needed among this depressing economy and environmental destruction.) The photographs give a location to this virtual space and it feels very welcoming. We're not blindly jumping into a virtual portal, we're setting out for an adventure beginning in Paris at the Louvre.


Conclusion
In writing, the most fundamental principle is that a piece of work must be both unique and universal. And Bing has found that very difficult common ground.

Bing is off to a great start with a strong visual viewpoint. But just because you build, and just because people come, does not mean that people will return. Ultimately, the real test for Bing will be its usability, its optimization, its search strategies, its advertising potential (in the future?) and its ability to bring something better than what is already out there.

I would let you know, but so far I only Bing for the photo.

The Pregnancy Flow Chart

To see a detailed version, open this PDF and zoom.
Most information from the chart from: The Cradle.com

About the Pregnancy Piece of Mind Flow Chart

The flow chart examines information variables (medical, lifestyle, work and fun) over time (1st, 2nd, 3rd trimester). The start point was placed in the upper left hand corner, and colored yellow to differentiate it as the starting point. Decision markers were made black, information boxes were blue, and circular, ending points were either green or red for a negative/alerting or positive result.

Occasionally, information had to be placed next to the chart but was not actually linked to it (see "Every Visit Checklist" and "Daily Vitamin Checklist".) I'm hoping the written cues in the decisionmarkers--see left, see far left--is enough direction for the viewer to understand what to do (i.e. to look at the checklist but keep on the flow chart.)

I also think that the flow chart displays the significance of the medical process. I think it's easy to get caught up in the "fun" stuff like buying baby clothes and thinking of baby names, but really the most important aspect of the pregnancy (i.e. having the most steps involved) is the medical part. It helps keep the pregnancy in perspective about what is important.

Project Expansion

With more time, I'd like to include the information regarding what some of those tests are as well as why some of those activities would be beneficial. Probably result in more informational boxes, not actually changing the process within the flow chart.

Need a Little Lost During the Break?

A project I did for class: Mapping the first 16 days on the island. It's not as detailed as like, my apologies, but summer school is quite compact. I'd love to open it up to show each individual, as well as expand it to show the entire 101 days. That may be a crazy long undertaking though, and am I really that devoted of a fan? Plus, how would I handle the time travel?!

Short Story

Okay, so this isn't design, but I thought I would share anyway. Previously, I always thought I would be a writer. I've given up the pen recently for pursuits involving manipulating images via photo editing software. But I still love writing, and on a semi-regular basis, I teach some creative writing to some high school students. I try to write when they write and here's what I did:

"Where are we going Dad?" Kerry asked. Kerry was slung across his father's chest in a carrier bag. Kerry hadn't been in a carrier bag since he was young and couldn't fly, but recently his feathers had been molting and not growing back. Kerry hadn't flown for weeks now. This didn't worry Kerry, his parents kept telling him he'd be fine as they swept fallen feathers or smoothed out dying ones.

"We're going to Shadow Grove. Mom wants some special herbs, and I thought you could use some fresh air and sun. Your skin's too blue, it's not healthy." Brunji, Kerry's father, said. He kept his eyes ahead on the lookout for preying birds. Dusk was setting in and the attack birds would be out soon.

Kerry and Brunji soared over the tree tops, ducking up and down. Brunji wasn't yet old, he was still robust and when his wings flapped they sent breezes rippling through the mountains. Kerry stayed nuzzled against his father's white plumage. He didn't worry about predator birds, he was safe. The thrill of flight exited him and made him desperate to fly again. Whatever disease that was ruining his feathers, Kerry was more determined to beat it.

"Dad, when will my feathers grow back?" Brunji didn't answer. Kerry wasn't sure if his father heard him but decided not to ruin the quiet moment.

They circled down, and with ease Brunji landed in the grove. There were no trees, only a large field with a scattering of bushes. The grass was golden in the sun's diminishing glow. Brunji unlocked the carrier with his beak and Kerry hopped out.

"Go stretch your legs." Brunji said as he headed towards the bushes to gather herbs, the carrier case slung across his body. Kerry walked around, touching trees and digging his talons in the dirt.The fireflies began to come out--twirling and teasing Kerry, using their tiny wings to zig and zag just out of reach of Kerry's beak. He paid little attention to his dad who was still keeping an eye on him from the bushes. Kerry flapped his wings, giving them a good flutter in the open space, but no, he certainly couldn't fly with those bare wings.

The rustling stopped from across the way, and Kerry glanced up from his bug game. His father had moved towards him. The night was approaching and shadows encroached, but Kerry could still see the grim look on his father's face.

"Why so blue Dad? What's wrong Dad?" asked Kerry as he started to run to his dad. That look from his dad made Kerry's heart panic. Brunji said nothing, only stared at his son. Brunji extended his wings, he was a giant in the shadows, and swiftly began to rise into the sky.

"DAD!" Kerry yelled, screamed until it echoed through the mountains. Desperately beating his bare wings, trying to reach the air that was separating him and his father.

Brunji flew away through the mountains with all the might he had. The carrier bag empty. He wanted to be far away, removed from the far reaches of echoes, before the predator birds came out for the night.