Every morning on my way to work I pass the Shelby Farms Dog Park with its acres of open fields, three lakes, and trails through wooded areas. It’s a magical place where dogs can run off-leash, socialize and just be dogs. You can always tell which cars are headed to the dog park by the canine ears flapping in the wind from the window or sunroof. This morning it was a pooch psychotically turning circles and barking in the back of the SUV in front of me. I thought to myself, I know how they must feel.

Yes, routine is safe and secure with familiar smells, people you love, your favorite comfy spot and an ordered schedule. But at the dog park there are no leashes. There are new smells, new friends and new experiences. If you feel like chasing your tail you are free to run in circles until you can’t stand. You can express yourself with a woof, yelp or a deep long bay. Or maybe you’re the silent type and enjoy a swim or a relaxing roll in the grass. At the dog park you are free to express yourself and just be you.

What can we learn from our canine companions? Everyone has responsibilities and commitments. It’s just part of life. But we also all have something inside us churning to be said, danced, shared, drawn…a self-expression of our creativity. Sharing your inner self is essential to being your own individual and fully knowing yourself. We all need to lose the leash from time to time and indulgently express ourselves. Everyone may not understand or even “”, but if they care they will appreciate the real you. After all being a remarkable person begins with being different.

Don’t get me wrong, leashes are important but sometimes you just need to be off leash.

When I tell people I am a graphic designer I usually get a puzzled look and then they ask again, ” what do you do though?” So then I say we can do everything from web design and development to collateral material…(you wouldn’t believe how many many business people don’t understand what collateral marketing material is…) So then I go into my list of things that we actually produce and the fog start to clear.

Funny how all our lives we are surrounded by graphic design and never notice it or give thought to what it took to design it. Every web page you look at was designed, the coffee cup from Starbucks, the box of dog biscuits you reach into for your pets favorite treat, the icons you touch on your phone, the magazine you flip through and the billboards on the interstate…all graphic design.

Below is the definition of graphic design from the American Institute for Graphic Design

What is graphic design?

“Suppose you want to announce or sell something, amuse or persuade someone, explain a complicated system or demonstrate a process. In other words, you have a message you want to communicate. How do you “send” it? You could tell people one by one or broadcast by radio or loudspeaker. That’s verbal communication. But if you use any visual medium at all—if you make a poster; type a letter; create a business logo, a magazine ad, or an album cover; even make a computer printout—you are using a form of visual communication called graphic design.”

Designers create, choose, and organize these elements—typography, images, and the so-called “white space” around them—to communicate a message. Graphic design is a part of your daily life. From humble things like gum wrappers to huge things like billboards to the T-shirt you’re wearing, graphic design informs, persuades, organizes, stimulates, locates, identifies, attracts attention and provides pleasure. “

In a nutshell – we are VISUAL COMMUNICATORS – we choose the right typeface, with the right treatment, the right colors for the design based on the audience and the desired response, the right images, whether it is illustrated or photography, we lay it out in a particular way and we position all that with just the right message and information to ENGAGE the viewer and COMMUNICATE a message.

We DO NOT use Microsoft Word, Front Page or Publisher – we use design software specially created to allow us the freedom and creativity to give our clients the best performing communications that we can.

Ok – now we all know what graphic design really is…any questions?

In general, the number zero did not have its own Roman numeral, but the concept of zero as a number was known by medieval computists (responsible for calculating the date of Easter). They included zero (via the Latin word nullus meaning none) as one of nineteen epacts, or the age of the moon on March 22. The first three epacts were nullae, xi, and xxii (written in minuscule or lower case). The first known computist to use zero was Dionysius Exiguus in 525. Only one instance of a Roman numeral for zero is known. About 725, Bede or one of his colleagues used the letter N, the initial of nullae, in a table of epacts, all written in Roman numerals.

A notation for the value zero is quite distinct from the role of the digit zero in a positional notation system. The lack of a zero digit prevented Roman numerals from developing into a positional notation, and led to their gradual replacement by Hindu-Arabic numerals in the early second millennium. On the other hand, the lack of positional notation may have prevented the Romans from developing a “zero”.

Zero is the great numerical invention of the Arabs and the Maya. The Maya and related peoples had zero as an independant discovery.   The Arabs use of zero created a revolution in mathematics that the Romans, and even the early christians, didn’t know about. Europe was a zero-free zone until the Arab culture crossed paths with the Hebrew and Chrstian cultures in the melting pot of Spain.