• The New Yorker on publishing bibles: design, marketing, packaging, segmentation
  There’s been research that has shown that half the people who come into a Christian bookstore intending to buy a Bible, with money in their pocket, leave without one, because they get overwhelmed
• Nelson Bibles: many categories
  Devotional Bibles, Bibles for Women, Bibles for Men, Youth Bibles, Children’s Bibles, Compact Bibles, Giant Print Bibles, Spanish Bibles and much much more
• Revolve Devotional Bible: The Complete Bible for Teen Girls
• Refuel: The Complete New Testament
  for young guys
• Explore: The Complete New Testament
  Why is God so awesome?
• Blossom: The Complete New Testament for Girls
• Magnify – New Testament: Biblezine for Kids
• Refuel: The Epic Battles: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah
• Zondervan – The Bible Experience
  A cast of more than 200 stars, including Blair Underwood (Jesus), Samuel L. Jackson (God), Angela Bassett (Esther), Denzel Washington (Solomon), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Judas),

• Wiki of Television (and other media) Tropes & Idioms
  Stories are made up of familiar elements that we the audience recognize and engage with. This site is a growing document of these plot, character, and other elements.

online

print

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting summary with typo in the blurb for this week’s Consumed column.
His aids were followed…
should be
His ads were followed…
but of course, this type of thing passes spellcheck, since the error is still a valid word. Just not what the author wanted to say.

Prairie Winds is a new development in Western Michigan, a planned community (isn’t that the term?) that offers a faux version of simpler times, a vicarious farming experience. Without, presumably, the back-breaking labor, poverty, foreclosures, livestock, etc. They’ve already put up the barn, visible from the freeway, with a sign reading “Farm Living Never Looked So Good!”

I was immediately reminded of the previously blogged Karrie Jacobs piece about loft subdivisions in Colorado, manufacturing a ridiculously inaccurate buildings that are associated with a lifestyle. Contradictions? Only if you choose to see it that way, I guess.

• Photoblogger calls attention to surveillance camera on Crown Fountain in Chicago’s Millennium Park
  Mainstream media picks up the story and the camera goes away the next day. Hmm. The fountain features huge photos of faces, twisted irony to use that structure to take pictures of park patrons.

In California, gas stations usually show three prices: regular, mid-grade, and premium. Sometimes diesel is shown. Even if there is small text to explain what those prices refer to, we mostly go off of familiarity, knowing what each box in sequence is telling us.

This sign from a Speedway station in western Michigan uses a fourth slot to indicate price for another item: cigarettes. Gas stations and smokes seem to go together better in MI than in CA.

An in-store display for Pillsbury products. Press the button on Pop’n’Fresh’s belly and he emits his signature giggle. A nice and simple touch that extends the brand; links the merchandising to the ads. And is fun, of course.

Our ISP, and especially this blog, is under some sort of comment spam attack, substantial enough to hamper system performance and making this site and others at the same host difficult to reach and use.

The ISP has forcibly shut down comments to this blog. I will expect this to be a very short-term measure, otherwise I’ll have to look for other hosting.

Update: despite being told they had done this, they now say they have not done this but will temporarily do so during attacks. So confusing! At least if you see things behaving weirdly here you’ll have some idea why…

• More dictator chic: Target pulls marketing campaign featuring Che Guevara
  Haven’t seen an image yet, but reportedly this was put on CD cases, showing Guevara with “an iPod-esque set of earphones” — critic says “The stores don’t have pictures of Osama bin Laden or Adolf Hitler’
• Walmart Sells Nazi Skull Tshirt – Consumerist
  An SS image ends up on a shirt at WalMart – they apologize and claim they will remove it but it’s still on shelves

• TV ads with a slight amount of context – a technological solution
  Details seem scant, it allows a few choices, presumably human directed. Ads in a football game will vary in dialog based on the situation in the game at the time of the commercial.