I have often said that "just because I own a pipe wrench, that doesn't make me a plumber." Unfortunately, owning a computer makes a lot of people think they are a graphic designer. Putting aside the typical technical mistakes and bad clip art for a minute, let's talk about what drives me (and most professional designers) crazy: bad fonts. Fonts can set a tone, deliver context and provide aesthetic elements to a project. And they can also completely ruin a design project. The following are 5 fonts that I propose we stop using. In fact, trash the files so you are never tempted to "make your design fun."

1. Carpenter

This font was all the rage 10 years ago. You saw it everywhere from wedding invitations to billboards for anything feminine or classy. The problem is that it is impossible to read. Please pick another script face that doesn't require a second look to decipher.

2. Papyrus

It's the go-to font for people working on anything to do with nature, history or who are just looking to annoy me. It constantly shows up in museum and zoo design projects. Bottom line: It's been done. To death. Stop it.

3. Comic Sans

This one has been a problem for a long time and by now, everybody should know better. There are web sites devoted to hatred of this typeface. People think it's fun and friendly and folks must love it, because it has been around forever. But that doesn't make it right. Ever.

4. Fajita

Fajita turns up exactly where you would expect it to: Mexican restaurant menus and party invitations. It's exactly the kind of font my Mom would use to lay out the pages in her church cookbook. And while I love my mother (and her cooking) I hate this font.

5. Hobo

This one is a running joke at our office. Any time someone in the art studio (usually an AE) says "What font..." they will not get to finish their question because one of us will answer "HOBO?" What makes this extra funny is that Hobo turned up today on a highly visible promotional project for a huge event here in Louisville. And while it is a nice looking piece, all I can see is the Hobo. Someone should have known better.

Bottom line: when in doubt, use Helvetica. It's always appropriate.

Few things in this industry are more challenging than getting the public to pay attention to PSAs. We can market products, goods and services until the cows come home but it takes a truly talented team to create a PSA that gets noticed.

The Embrace Life PSA, created by the Sussex Safer Road Partnership with the help of Take2 Films, is one such PSA that left me speechless.

Maybe it’s the drama, maybe it’s the slow motion (most things are better in slow motion), maybe it’s because I’m not being sold something other than an idea or maybe I’m feeling sentimental today. No matter what it is, this one really spoke to me – and it didn’t speak only to me but also the 8,620,572 other people that have viewed it on YouTube.

Not only did this team get their message across that one small decision in your day, like choosing to wear your seatbelt, can affect so many, they did it with few words on a low budget. Without saying very much, they say a lot. They grab the public’s attention by tapping into their emotions without showing them something graphic or disturbing.

It just goes to show that it doesn’t take a big production or a lot of words to get your point across. With the right message, passion and teamwork, anything can get the attention you desire—even PSAs.

And yes, I always wear my seatbelt.

OK, so you're British Petroleum and you've destroyed habitats in the Gulf of Mexico.  And in the process are killing birds, businesses and communities.  Yeah, you blew it on the whole safe drilling and reaction plan things.  But how are you handling the PR nightmare 100 times the magnitude of anything the John Wilkes Booth family ever dreamed of.

And stupid, insensitive comments like "I want my life back," from embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward don't score points with the Gulf locals, shareholders or the rest of the world.

Sure, it's an uphill battle.  But I've seen some bright spots.  Certainly, setting up the $20 billion damage claims fund -- shakedown or not -- was a positive if unavoidable first step.  Then I saw this commercial last night that made me think BP really does care.  I guess that's the objective.

I even read a letter to the editor in the Courier-Journal  this week encouraging people to buy gas from BP!  True.  The writer's rationale was that if BP goes out of business, who's going to pay for the clean up?  Made sense to me.

As of today, I'd give BP an F-minus for environmentalism and a C-plus in post-disaster marketing.  For the long term, I'm afraid the picture is bleak for both BP and the Gulf.  Though, I think BP has the better chance of coming out of this mess.  And, as a marketer, I must admire their efforts to keep a positive spin on things.  They have little choice.

What do YOU think?  We'd love to see comments from UnderCurrent readers on BPs handling of the Gulf Crisis.   There's enough fodder here for a wide spectrum on opinions on the PR/marketing aspect of this.  Heck, even congress has taken up -- believe it or not -- polar positions on it (pick it up at 6:00 into the show).  So please, chime in yourself!

A special shout out to all the lovers of facespace, bloggitty blogs, tweeps and feeds. Rock on with your super social selves!

Being an Account Coordinator, working day in and day out with clients, my job revolves around service. My focus is on fulfilling customer needs and I take that responsibility seriously. Which means that when I leave the office I don’t stop thinking about service, it’s on my mind wherever I go: to lunch, to the mall, pretty much anywhere I see a transaction taking pace.

That said, let me tell you that I haven’t been especially pleased by most of the service I’ve been witnessing lately. Take the sandwich place I went to for lunch last week. There I was in line, about three people back from the counter, when the sandwich maker stuck his head out from behind the folks in front of me and demanded to know what sort of sandwich I wanted. I thought it was rude. A few minutes later when I got to the front of the line, the fixin’s girl wasn’t any nicer. She bullied me to tell her what I wanted, then threw the veggies on and pushed the sandwich along the production line.

So alright, you might say, that’s a sandwich shop. But would you believe the same thing happened when I was shopping for vendors for my wedding reception? Most of these folks I dealt with — from the florists to the decorators to the caterers — made me feel as though I was putting them out by offering to give them my money.

All of these experiences got me thinking: these days, marketing is about a whole lot more than websites, newspaper ads and radio commercials. These days, it’s the lowest paid, front line employees that are on the leading edge of marketing and branding, not a marketing director in some corner office. If the people who are performing the actual customer contact don’t treat customers right, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the boardroom, because those customers are never coming back.

I haven’t done a formal survey, but my own sense is that more and more retailers are forgetting how important it is to market on the micro level. And that’s a pity, because that’s where the most crucial part of the marketing game is played.

Exactly 13 months ago today, Wolfram|Alpha, a self-billed “Computational Knowledge Engine,” went online. It was hailed as a new type of search engine. Unlike Google or Yahoo!, Wolfram|Alpha wasn’t made to scan the entire web for relevant articles and content. Instead, it was built to deliver objective, factual data on the search topic as well as solve complex mathematical queries.

For instance, search “barrel of oil” in Wolfram|Alpha and instead of a slew of articles about the Gulf spill, you’ll get a collection of facts about oil barrels. Search “Chuck Norris” on Wolfram|Alpham, and instead of facts like “Chuck Norris sheds his skin twice a year,” all you’ll get are his hometown and birth date. Boring, yes.

Having been designed largely for academic and scientific purposes, Wolfram|Alpha is a powerful tool for everything from solving calculus equations, to doing a quick calorie audit of what you had for breakfast. The point being, it only yields results that are demonstrably true.

So the question is, with today’s students enjoying the unmatched research power of Google and Wikipedia along with Wolfram|Alpha for the math homework, is personal knowledge losing value? Are we transitioning from a society of “knowers” to a society of “finders”? Is this a good thing?

I’m not quite sure, but a strong argument can be made that traditional learning, i.e. repeating, understanding and storing information, is quickly becoming obsolete. These days, the answer to virtually any question you can think of is only a web search away, and with mobile technology, access is abundant.

While genuinely knowing things will never go out of style (I’d hope), it seems to be ceding ground to knowing how to find things. With our collective human knowledge growing at an exponential rate, perhaps this is as it should be; I guess only time will tell. However, it does seem that while personal knowledge will never become worthless, it’s certainly becoming worth less. ;-)

We all have that friend who constantly explodes your Facebook newsfeed with all of his/her status updates. Or that family member that spends dinner time tweeting. And if you’re really lucky, you have the pleasure of knowing someone that takes their phone into the restroom so they can update from the porcelain throne. Nice, right?

Many people have become obsessed with updating and tweeting to a point of addiction. In fact, in a study conducted by Retrevo Gadgetology found that 48% of the people surveyed check/update their Facebook or Twitter during the night or as soon as they wake up. The survey also found that 56% of users need to check their Facebook at least once a day and 12% need to check it every couple of hours.

In light of this information I have created a list of signs that might help you determine if you are a “Social Networking Addict:

1. When a friend says something great, you say “I’m going to make that my new Facebook quote!”
2. Your dialogue has been limited to 140 characters or less.
3. You want a “like” button for all things in real life.
4. You make sure you bring your camera to every event, not for memories, but so you can “Facebook” them.
5. You quit your last job because they blocked sites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
6. You’re meeting your @mom and @dad for dinner this evening.
7. You buy a new cell phone so you can keep up with all of your social media apps.
8. You dressed as the twitter bird for Halloween.
9. If one of your status updates doesn’t get a comment or like, you feel you’ve been defeated.
10. You’ve become better at Farmville and Mafia Wars than you are at your own real-life job.
11. You spent an hour looking at pictures of a friend-of-a-friend, who’s a friend-of-a-friend.
12. The Fail Whale sets off symptoms of a heart attack.
13. After reading this blog you have decided that you are, in fact, addicted to social media and retweet this blog!

Be sure to share your results below or add to the list!

About a year and a half ago, Google released its first public version of its browser Chrome. Since then I've switched from Safari to Firefox and installed countless add-ons to make my life as a web developer easier. Lately though, I've begun to question my browser of choice, Firefox.

I know what you're thinking: "Brandon, I thought you loved Firefox!" Well, I did. That is until one day Firefox started crashing and becoming sluggish. Sure, I had 11 tabs open, was listening to Pandora and using Web Developer Toolkit. But come on, man! I need a browser that performs!

Enter Google Chrome, my latest internet love affair. The interface is second to none and very intuitive. Chrome lets me use all my favorite add-ons, like Web Developer Toolkit and Firebug, without having to relive the nightmare of a slow browser. Now I know what you're thinking again: "Brandon, stop being such a hater! Firefox is a great browser!" And you're right, Firefox is wonderful. If you're into slow.

So enough of my opinions, lets see the facts. To see just how Chrome measures up with your favorite browser, take a look at these browser speed tests. And if that arrangement of lines and numbers doesn't impress you, here is a video proving once and for all that Chrome is faster than a potato, sound, and lightning.

Enjoy and get Chrome.

The first thing I do—after I kiss my husband “good morning” and accept that wonderful cup of coffee he brings me every day—is say a prayer of thanks that I get to go to work each day in a place where extraordinary people are hired and entrusted to do what they love. And that we have such an interesting array of clients and businesses to serve. I’m often asked what a typical day is like, and well, there is no such thing at CurrentMarketing. I cherish the variety of projects and the creative thinking that I am challenged with every day. I can’t imagine working in a factory setting or facing a workday where there is no creative outlet.

The second thing I do is choose my attitude for the day. I know that I have a choice every day on how I am going to react to whatever comes my way.  I know that my tone of voice matters when I greet someone I work with first thing in the morning. I know that paying someone a compliment often makes their day. And that mistakes happen because we are human and it is how I react in those challenging moments that can make or break the “teachable” moment. We are not performing brain surgery.  And it is very important to have a spirit of fun at work, even when we are up against deadlines!

The third thing that I probably couldn’t live without is Jolt®. Jolt is our daily status meeting—a gathering of the entire company that begins at 8:43am. This is the one chance every day that I get to see and interact with everyone, even if only for 17 minutes.  We rocket around the long black table in the center of our studio and every person at CurrentMarketing talks about what they are going to get accomplished today and what they need from others to complete any tasks. If someone’s workload is light, they can jump in where most needed and level things out. It also helps keep everyone informed about new clients, new projects, new technology and new personal developments—from engagements to home purchases.  And it eliminates the question that some folks have about others they work with: What is __________ working on today? Often wondered because they have so much going on and they want to make sure that others are equally as challenged.

Following Jolt®, each and every day is very well planned and coordinated. It is never the same and always fun and exciting. And I look forward to being here!

We all know that Facebook has grown exponentially in the past few years. Along side this success and growth, Facebook has also seen a wave of malicious and abusive applications. Facebook recently made an announcement that they are trying to keep these people from creating applications on their platform by requiring developers on Facebook to verify their identity with a phone number (in which they enter a code sent to them through Facebook via text message) or a credit card.

I am not really convinced this will catch on, though. As our CTO often says about such attempts at security on the web, "It will keep the honest people out." If a developer has the intentions of wrong doing, what would keep them from using someone else's phone number or credit card in order to verify themselves as a legitimate Facebook developer?

This isn't Facebook's first attempt at making applications more secure. In 2008, they launched a similar program with a much more involved process for verification of developers and applications they create. The idea was to create a network of more trusted applications and leave it up to the users to decide whether or not they would rather use the verified applications or take their chances with the ones that weren't. Unfortunately, most users on Facebook don't think twice about where the application they use on Facebook came from or whether or not it is verified in any way. So, it is understandable now that they would require developers to verify their identity.

However, the process for verification seems to be much simpler than in 2008 and has yet to be implemented. The announcement was made at the beginning of June and implied that it would be going into effect fairly quickly. I am currently a developer on Facebook and have not had a request for verification at all and was able to create a new application just before this blog post with no security questions what so ever.

Related links:

Facebook now requiring developer verification
Facebook launches verification program to increase user trust in applications
Phone confirmation
Facebook's developer blog