Running The Ladder is the company blog of Bainbridge Studios, a tiny runt of a design practice based in lovely Tacoma, WA.
So what's the deal with the fish?
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So What’s The Deal With The Fish?
Monday, July 26th, 2010 | Tom Carmony
Why is there a fish in the header of this blog? And, come to think of it, why is it called “Running The Ladder”? I mean, seriously, it’s not smart to try to run up (or God forbid) run down a ladder. It just doesn’t make any sense, right?
It’s all about the metaphor.
This most recent redesign of the Bainbridge Studios website has been in the works for more than a year now, as we’ve circled back to work on various bits and pieces as time allowed. With our move from Seattle to Tacoma back in January of this year, we also wanted to make a concerted effort to play up a bit more of a local connection in the style of the site, giving a nod where we can to characteristics of the Pacific Northwest.
In revisiting our on-again, off-again, back-on-again company blog, we wanted to bring some of that regional flavor here as well. While past versions of the blog tended to focus a bit more of tech-related topics, this time around, we want the overall theme to focus on small business – specifically, sharing some of our trials and tribulations (as well as successes!) in navigating the waters as a tiny, two-person design practice.
Navigating the waters… there I go. With the metaphor.
Surviving as a small business is an uphill battle… a struggle. Much like (cue the horns!) a salmon struggling to return home to mate. As soon as the notion of writing about small business experiences (along with the obvious nods to design and our day-to-day minutiae), the vision of the spawning salmon came to mind.
For those unfamiliar with the path that the salmon takes, salmon are born in freshwater streams and rivers (including many throughout the coastal Pacific Northwest – Washington, Oregon and Alaska). As they develop, they migrate from their freshwater birthplaces to the ocean, where they continue to grow and reach maturity. Once ready to breed/spawn, they return to their freshwater birthplaces (sometimes traveling hundreds of miles to do so). They literally swim upstream, battling the current the entire way to reach their home, spawn and then die.
This return for spawning is known as the “salmon run”, and in certain areas, there are structures and other apparatus in place to facilitate their migration. These are known as “fish ladders“. The salmon literally move from “step to step” up these ladders to aid in their return.
Thus, the concept of “running the ladder”, battling against the current to reach a goal (in our case, the ability to sustain our business and become/remain profitable), seemed like the perfect fit for the types of experiences we hope to share as one aspect of this blog.
Hat Tip: The lovely salmon illustration above is courtesy of Canadian illustrator J. Derry and can licensed via iStockPhoto.
Crunching Numbers
Monday, May 24th, 2010 | Tom Carmony
We may have to hire this one to do our taxes next year.
“Know Hope” Featured In New Taschen Book “Design For Obama”
Friday, November 20th, 2009 | Tom Carmony
I just got my hands on a copy of Taschen’s new compendium, “Design for Obama: Posters for Change, a Grassroots Anthology”. It’s based on the website DesignforObama.org and features a poster design I put together for the project. The book, which features more than 150 poster designs that were submitted to the Design for Obama website during last year’s Presidential campaign. The selections for the book were curated by Aaron Perry-Zucker and filmmaker Spike Lee, and the book also featured a forward by Steven Heller.
My selection, “Know Hope”, was a hat tip to The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan, who (despite being a lifelong conservative) took up the torch of championing Barack Obama as the best hope for progress domestically and to repair America’s image internationally. “Know Hope” was Andrew’s constant refrain.
You can check out a few sample images (posted to my Flickr account) of the book below.
Buy Taschen’s Design For Obama at Amazon »
Happy Holidays and Time for a Break
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | Tom Carmony
I just wanted to take a quick moment to wish all of our clients and happy and healthy holiday season. Thank you immensely for your business here in 2008 and we look forward to hopefully providing you with even more great design services in the coming year.
A quick note on holiday scheduling: The Bainbridge Studios office will be officially closed beginning Wednesday, December 24th for the Christmas and New Year’s holiday. I’ll be checking email regularly and will be doing some minor work for a couple of ongoing projects (you know who you are), but won’t be maintaining regular office hours during that time. I will be back in the office as usual on Monday, January 5, 2009.
Happy Holidays!
Please Pardon the Mess as We Dust This Off
Thursday, December 11th, 2008 | Tom Carmony
Welcome back (or welcome, if this is your first time here) to Anything+Everything, the Bainbridge Studios blog. This blog has seen it’s share of fits and starts over the past two years and today’s post is the beginning of a significant revamping I’m undertaking to get the blog relaunched, along with an expanded, completely redesigned Bainbridge Studios company site (the current single page format will make way for a new website coming in January).
In the meantime, the return of A+E is one of the first steps in a larger marketing plan for 2009. As new posts go up here over the next few weeks, you may well see noticeable differences in the site’s design. Considering it the Internet equivalent of living in your house during a renovation.
That said, I’m really excited about where this blog (and the site as a whole) is headed in the coming year. I want A+E to provide a unique perspective on the small business experience, alongside design happenings, updates on our latest work, and more. I hope you’ll find what we’ll be offering of value.
Cheers,
Tom Carmony
Principal/Lead Designer