Geyrhalter & Co. has an ideal location on Main Street in Santa Monica. It’s close to the ocean which makes for a perfect lunch hour. Walk two sunny blocks to the beach, take your shoes off, and eat your lunch. A true “sandwich,” as it were.

The lunch choices in our neighborhood are plentiful. Within a few-block radius we can choose omusubi or seitan and pico de gallo or pancakes. But with too many choices comes indecision.

How to break out of the office-lunch doldrums? When my co-workers and I can’t decide where to eat, we leave the decision to a cavalier roll of the dice. This practice is aptly called, “Lunch Dice.” (The term works like the word “Google” does. Nothing sounds good today? You can “use” the Lunch Dice or, you can “lunch dice it.”)

As I am sure by now you are riveted, you’re asking, “so what happened next?” It’s pretty simple really: we posted our fave lunch places on the sides of some blank dice and around 11:45 we fish one out and let it ride.

The only rule is that you can’t overrule the dice. The dice is gospel.

Here’s how to make your own:

1. Pick up some blank dice
2. Write a different local lunch place on each side of the dice
3. Roll the dice and go

Lunch dice aren’t for everyday, though. Some days, we know we absolutely must have a carne asada burrito, and some days we just need some Me time and we don’t order lunch together. But let me tell you, some days those dice get us out of some sticky situations. We’ve even seen hilarity ensue.

I illustrated or photographed each piece and was in desperate need of a great looking old wheel for the calendar’s cover. Down the street from where I lived in Santa Monica there it was, in a shop window. A strange shop it was as it was never open to the public and no one really knew what exactly was being sold. I caught an old man opening a side door and that’s how I met Parke Meek. A remarkable man who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames, and who let a young Mr. Geyrhalter shoot his props for that calendar and shared his stories with me that fine day.

Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times announced that the little shop, Jadis, will be open today at 11:00 AM to the public to sell its vast inventory of curiosities, which were mainly rented by studios as props. In true fashion it was not yet open by 11:45 AM when I swang by to see if I could purchase that wheel as a memory of Parke Meek, who passed away in January at age 86. Thanks to the LAT write up, people lined up around the block. So instead of being in line, I opted to share this article about a great man, and some shots of my 2000 calendar with you:

Link to the Los Angeles Times Article

Pictures of the shop

Why is it that the more prestigious the design competition, the more it costs to enter?

Prices for a single entry can be around $120. But once you are selected to either receive an award, or be published in the awards annual, which after all is part of the exercise, there will be an additional fee of $280 – $400. And that is for just one single entry.

Sure, we play along. Sometimes. As we see fit, and for projects we feel deserve to be honored. But we too draw the line.

Let’s not forget that we are an agency, we have a PR budget and cash flow. How about all the students, freelancers, micro design firms, nonprofits and other entities that may have the big, creative, genius ideas that we should all be drooling over? The ideas that really look different because they come from folks that may not have ‘corporate’ breathing down their necks, or they do it for free, out of passion and just for fun? Isn’t that often when truly great ideas happen? They will never be in any of the ‘big’ award books showcasing the best, the brightest and most amazing ideas. The books that design students get for christmas, that turn into their text books of what they ought to measure their own creativity with, are lacking to showcase just that, the unconditionally best creative endeavours.

Like with any business, a contest revolves around having a budget. The more prestigious, the more funding it requires to produce the top quality books and award statues, to get the great judges, to do the office work and drum up the necessary PR. Fully understood. But in my eyes these contests should not be limiting creative entries based on an individual’s, or a small firm’s, cash on hand. Instead they should find a corporate sponsor that wants to be seen as a forward-thinking-creative-problem-solving-type (Hmmm, not sure I can name a single one of those?) and eliminate the entry fees.

May the true talent win…and give the sponsor a shot at creative bliss while you’re at it.

…meet BCBG catalogue, Spring ’09:

I hope you two get along.

Looks like you might, since you share the same style.

At least on first glance…let’s see what happens when you actually get to know each other a little bit.

If I recognize this on a plain ‘consumer’ level, I just wonder if anyone else does as I won’t be the only household receiving both of these within months of each other. Peculiar.

(11.17 Addition: Just had to add this series of ‘dog lamps’ I found today to the mix.)