While I love the World Champion Dallas Mavericks, I couldn’t help but spend part of Sunday’s thrilling game against the dastardly Spurs stewing over the graphics displayed while the Mavs controlled the ball. At first I thought it was an isolated offense, a mere oversight or perhaps an incomplete font, that resulted in “LETS GO MAVS” scrolling across the scoreboard.

But then I saw it again. And again. And… you get the idea.

Someone please send my beloved Mavs a box of apostrophes!

Sure everyone knows what it means, but the use of “LETS” instead of the correct “LET’S” should never have made it to the big board. Surely someone in the Mavericks organization saw the error. But if anyone actually mentioned it, apparently it wasn’t seen as important enough to fix. Why not? If it had said “LET GO MAVS,” they would have fixed it. Does that mean that a certain amount of inaccuracy is acceptable?

Whether the person who originally made the error in this case was a designer or not, I can’t help but see it as an example of a systemic problem in today’s world of quickie design. Companies and designers alike toss aside vital steps such as proofing to get a project completed faster. Designers think they can live in a world of colors, fonts and images and not worry about whether what they’re producing actually makes sense.

Granted, as someone with an apostrophe in her name and an inordinate number of English teacher family members, I am particularly attentive to the atrocities of apostrophe abuse. So if you’re still reading, here are a couple of helpful links to clear up this whole apostrophe thing.

•  Basic rules for apostrophe use

•  Apostrophe use rules as presented by the evil geniuses at The Oatmeal

•  See, I’m not the only one annoyed by this stuff

As much as a scrapbooking organizer or food dehydrator would appeal to the OCD foodies I’m related to, I chose to bestow on mi familia the gift that truly keeps on giving. Yes, with my selection of a convenient camping tote, a few essentials from the travel aisle and dollar store, a good book and informative viewing, one lucky family member would have everything he or she would need to survive impending doom with a brand new Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit.

Of course, no nerdtastic gift is complete without an owner’s manual, so I threw together the one you see here with a full list of the kit’s contents and a few practical pointers. Given more time, I would have customized the packaging of all the items, but pre-holiday publishing deadlines kept me a bit busy, so the customization only got as far as a Sharpie addition to one of the items (replicated version at end of post).

[click here for link to PDF]

Feel free to replicate this kit (for non-commercial use only of course—don’t be a jerk) to prepare yourself and your loved and/or mostly-tolerated ones for whatever lies ahead. Or send me your best Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit addition and I’ll give you an editable version of the owner’s manual ready for your customization.

And remember, machetes don’t run out of bullets.

[This is the part where I pretend that my totally off-topic blog post is tangentially related to the design world...]

While you’re in zombie survival mode, if you’re of the web design and development persuasion, check out the brilliantly-titled “Zombie Apocalypse of Devices Preparedness 101” workshop presented by Jason Grigsby of Cloud Four at the New York edition of WebVisions. Sounds fun!

*<rant> Despite the all-too-common usage of the phrase “First Annual…” there is no such thing as a “first annual” anything. It’s not an annual event until it has actually occurred a second time! </rant>

“Redesign the report card,” they said. But in keeping with my inner nerd, before any redesigning, I believe there should be some substantial rethinking. I knew immediately that I wanted to move the report card to an online platform and include some data visualization.

After the break is my submission cover letter to GOOD explaining various elements of my redesign, the strategy behind the format as well as how I imagined the new version of progress reporting could bring parents, students and educators together to improve students’ educational engagement and success. (Click image below for full-size infographic.)

SUBMISSION NOTES:

One vital aspect of student educational success is an active, engaged and enthused relationship between student, parents and teachers. I’ve envisioned an online, interactive report card that utilizes social media and data visualization, encouraging students and parents to interact with educators in a dynamic, comfortable environment.

A simple number or letter grade once every quarter or six-weeks doesn’t sufficiently equip parents to play an active role in their children’s education, so this platform provides an in-depth, up-to-the-minute progress report on student activity. Students, parents and educators would login to the platform to view grades, track progress and interact with each other.

Some key features include: a tabbed section highlighting detailed grading criteria for each course with pop-up details for specific assignments, a news feed of extracurricular activities, a Twitter-style feed of instant teacher comments, a highlighted comments area to encourage dialog between parents and teachers, links to additional information in course syllabi, contact links to educators, and various reminders about upcoming school assignments and events.

This week Nike made nerd-dreams come true, finally making a movie icon available to the purchasing public. These long-awaited shoes are replicas of those worn by Fox’s character Marty McFly in the 1985 film Back to the Future (not sure why I feel the need to give you character and movie details — if you don’t know it, see pie chart below*).

For a limited time, the shoes are available on eBay with auction proceeds benefitting The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson Research. While the current model doesn’t feature the originals’ self-lacing technology, rumors have it that Nike might still have another surprise down the road.

And now for the design part (still nerdy too):

In case you haven’t taken the appropriate amount of time to really reflect on the awesomeness that is the Back to the Future franchise, I encourage you to check out a collection of BttF infographics I’ve gathered from around the googles.

BttF roads infographic (If you only click on one of these, this is the one)

Timeline of BttF trilogy

How the Flux Capacitor works

Beyond nerdy: trying to prove the implausibility of a work of fiction

How to leverage the gambling opportunities of your time travel activities

Feel free to share any I’ve missed!

*In an effort to keep my brain from turning into end-of-the-week mush, I’ve decided to institute Infographic Friday as a weekly endeavor to create and share infographics that amuse and/or inform on pretty much whatever topic strikes my fancy at the moment. Stay tuned.

Featured image created with Instagram from a photo of the Nike website.

From its humble beginnings as a typographic ligature, to a modern fascination resulting in a plethora of permutations as everything from bookends to baked goods, the ampersand is surely the fashionista of the type case. A quick spin around Google reveals an abundance of ampersand knickknacks, trinkets and tchotchkes celebrating the undulating strokes, meandering tails and assertive crossbars of the symbol in a wide range of fonts or handcrafted shapes. Here are a few I wouldn’t mind adding to my collection:

For me and my bookshelves

Getting cozy with some ampersands

I want this one for the wall of my office

Interesting book from The Ampersand Project

Another one from The Ampersand Project, this time with cookies

Awesome oversized ampersand

And if you just can’t get enough, bookmark this tumblr of ampersand fun!

Thanks to Beneath the Brand for bringing this to my attention!

At least those of us who missed it can still enjoy the great reimagined movie posters created for the Roadshow. I don’t know who the creative geniuses behind the posters are, but they’ve done a fantastic job of telling the movies’ stories through simple, yet immensely clever graphics.

[font samples in image above, from left to right: Antenna, Benton Sans, Caslon's Egyptian, Miller Headline, Prensa.]

The Tabbies recognize excellence in trade, association and business publications. TABPI’s mission is to bring together editors working for English-language publications worldwide and encourage a common dedication to editorial ethics and excellence.

This year’s awards pool consisted of nearly 400 entries, with nominations coming from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., India, New Zealand and South Africa.”

[view entire infographic]