Business Critical: Bring Back Reading Rainbow, RIP Massimo Vignelli, Apple Buys Beats Music
By Ryan Parlee
Bring Back Reading Rainbow
Take a look, it’s in a book, A Reading Rainbow… It’s coming back. Already having launched an iPad app, creators LeVar Burton and Mark Wolfe are launching their campaign on Kickstarter.The video starts out with humor but quickly gets into the heart of their goals. Reading Rainbow started as a television show but sadly ended in 2009. Burton and Wolfe are seeking to bring Reading Rainbow to the web, create a specialized classroom version of the content and materials, and provide free materials to classrooms who are struggling come up with the funds.
With 33 days left in the campaign, as of May 30, the show has already exceeded its goal of $1,000,000, at over $2,500,00 and rising as you visit the site. If you have never seen “live kickstarting,” it’s exhilarating. The effects of this coming to fruition are to be seen, but I can only imagine that education and literacy rates will increase exponentially. Check out the Kickstarter campaign and pledge to help them do even more. Let the butterflies in the sky, fly.
Check out their campaign over on Kickstarter.
RIP Massimo Vignelli
“If you do good work, you get more good work to do, and conversely bad work brings more bad work.”
On May 27, 2014, the world lost Massimo Vignelli. While he will no longer be with us, his works and words will carry on forever. With such iconic work for the New York Transit Authority, Bloomingdales, and St. Peters Church, Massimo established himself as a premier force in the design community. Striving for design that was “visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless” was a statute around the Vignelli offices.
Vignelli was revered for his fount of design wisdom. Not only was he able to communicate his philosophies, but was able to implement them in his design to a tee. Many have been influenced by the works and words of Vignelli and it was no more evident than when Vignelli’s son, Luca, reached out to all designers to flood him with letters of appreciation and story. The outpouring of love and appreciation for Vignelli was overwhelming with every imaginable designer creating letters, physical and digital.
Read Fast Company’s article.
Apple Buys Beats Music
May 28th marks the day Apple purchased Beats music for $3 billion. This could be a play by Apple to move into the streaming music game, but there are still unknowns seeing as they already have their own Itunes Radio and Beats Music lack of a successful following, with only 250,000 subscribers. Each company will benefit from this purchase, as Beats will retain its name and receive strategy help from Apple, and Apple will profit.
Apple’s senior vice president Eddie Cue and Beats Music CEO Jimmy Iovine, were interviewed at Re/code Conference, where little was spoken about the benefits Apple receives from this purchase. Cue stated “everyone who buys a phone around the world upgrades to good headphones.” Apple seemingly will be calling on their 800 million existing users to leverage success for their new acquisition.
Whatever this means for the success of either company, one thing that may come from this is the death of the Apple earbuds, which may not be such a bad thing.
For more on the story, check out Fast Company’s article.
