Love to Write

I just thought, "I would love to be writing in my blog right now..." and, instead of doing something else more 'productive', this is it. This is productive. It's about aligning your life.

Today I listened to Anything You Want, 40 Lessons From a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers, who created CD Baby. The books is packed with amazing advice, like the Hell Yeah! factor: don't do anything unless it makes you go, "Hell, yeah!" That's your indication that whatever you're doing is worth it.

He also reminded me that you should do something to BE something, or someone. As in, don't do it for the result, do it for the incarnation. Like, I am a writer. So I write. I write because I am a writer and, to be a writer, I must write. For some reason, this focus on being, and on doing to be, provides the space and freedom to do it without any expectations. Just doing it to be... lets you do it.

I'm driving down to CA on a long road, and have stopped in Ashland for a little bit of beauty on this long, dull trip that I know so well. I was going to cross over to Highway 101-- and there's my lesson. That would have been a Hell, Yeah! moment, whereas this ten-hour drive down I-5 is a watery "done it". My focus right now is the ocean. I need to get back to it.

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Vintage Labels from the Oregon Fruit Company

Oregon Fruit Company, from Salem, Oregon, has these amazing illustrated labels on their fruit.

The vintage look on them reflects their vintage history-- they were started in 1935 and are still running in Salem, Oregon. It also adds power and believability in the freshness and quality of their fruit. It's amazing that hand-drawn can translate to higher quality in the mind of the viewer, but here's how they do it:

There are rich colors, and with the darks and lights, you can really control the viewer's focus. The black makes the reds in those cherries pop. The red also has more power and strength, which translates to hearty and good quality cherries. It's somewhat reminiscent of the dutch painter Clara Peeters:



Also, the hand-illustrated labels are different from all of the other fruit labels, which have photographs of the fruit on them. The photographs can look kind of gross, the fruit is all shiny, and the viewer knows what they're getting right away. Shiny bits of fruit. With these labels, there's a weighty power and still a surprise element. Though it looks really good, the viewer only has this strong anticipation. The fruit is still to be unwrapped, as it were, and revealed, like a gift.

There's also a pride element to the name, and the prominence of "Oregon". It seems like high quality, Oregon goods. People identify with it, with the beauty and strength, and want to be a part of the label. WE are OREGON FRUITS.

Ha.