Making Junk Useful
Published on 13 September 2008

We all get junk mail, it's just a normal part of life. I always recycle the junk mail I get, but sometimes I go one step further and reuse it instead. Such is the case with the mail I get from Veer.com, a creative design company. A few months ago, they sent me a giant poster with a dark pattern on one side, and a catalog on the other. I didn't find much use for the catalog side, but the pattern side made great wallpaper. Their most recent mailing, however, found life in a much more useful function.

Their most recent catalog came in a more traditional book form, but was printed on heavy paper. As a college student who is taking mostly online classes, I needed to find a way to keep track of the date. After failing to find a simple calendar I liked, I decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own. What I came up with was a series of 2inx2in squares, made out of the Veer catalog, propped up on simple mounts made out of some old cardboard. The first mount holds a square with the day of the week, followed by a mount to hold the date, and finally a mount to hold the month.

As you can see in the images above, I chose to make my calendar in French, as I'm currently teaching myself the language with hopes of being able to live abroad in a French speaking country someday. Each day, I change the squares to their appropriate values. Not only does this help me keep track of the date, but it also helps me improve my French. The unused squares are stored in an Altoids tin in my desk drawer, which holds them perfectly and provides easy access. Experimenting with your creativity and artistic abilities can be a great way to make use of items that would have otherwise been tossed out or recycled. I saved money, and I created a functional work of art.

Color Photography of the 1940s
Published on 9 September 2008

Many individuals imagine old black and white images when they think of any time period before the advent of commonplace color photography in the mid-1960s. Let's face it: Our planet turned color right around the same time Technicolor was created (and I'm not referring to the dreamcoat, that came later). Mental_floss, however, reports on the addition of nearly two thousand color images to the Library of Congress Flickr page, all taken in the 1930s and 1940s.

These photographs were taken by Farm Security Administration photographers (famous for producing many iconic images from the Great Depression), as well as Office of War Information photographers. These passionate photographers traveled around the country photographing daily American life, something that most observers thought was a waste of money. Their creations, however, have spoken more about life during this time period than any text can communicate.

These photographs, due to the fact that they're in color, seem to make the time period come alive. I personally can't overcome how beautiful these images are, and the muted saturation that the color film used for these photographs creates makes these photographs even more unique. Though I recently had to sell off my film equipment for the money, I'd take a fifty-year-old rangefinder over a top-of-the-line DSLR any day.

The detail and clarity in these photographs is also worth noting. In a sense, these photographs are timeless. The photograph of the crane operator below, for example, looks just like something one would find over at Strobist. These images also speak wonders about the quality of the cameras and optics made during this time. Optics these days, even on the most expensive lenses, just don't seem to have quite the same personality that many classic lenses are known for. 

These photographs ultimately paint a picture of wartime America that many Americans fail to appreciate and understand. The individuals in these photos weren't just distant grayscale ancestors. They were genuine human beings, just like everyone on our small planet. And though black and white photography has the ability to inspire, the degree of realism that color adds to these photographs creates depth beyond words.