Elevator Speech

Going on the air with ELPO - ELPO stands for Emeralda: Learn Printmaking Online—a project that has been years in development. Now there’s a chance to give an elevator speech on the radio, and the concept designer tries his hand at writing text for the team’s great, idealistic notion. 268 Words. sp100210. ©2010 Bill Ritchie.

Sunday Paydirt

Hitting pay dirt in a game - It seems to him like he’s hit pay dirt at last. “Pay dirt” comes from the gold rush days, when you find gold in your diggings. Digging into a casual game to find clues in making a printmaking game, the author comes to a mini game that seems to be useful. 334 Words. sp100131. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Boring Games

Boredom sets in this time around - His self-assigned task is to play a computer game out to its end, but it gets tougher and tougher because the games follow the same form. Halfway through the game he’s had it, but there is still work to do—which is to come up with his own printmaking game. 684 Words. sp100121. ©2010 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Flash EATC

Searching for a use for a Flash ecard - He’s searching for a way to replace his old, kludgey, time-and-labor intensive Artist Trading Cards with something that can be both virtual (or digital) and also made into real paper cards quickly and cheaply. Text on a flash e-card website helps him out. 475 Words. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. sp091107. full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Baby Picnic

An invitation to a new printmaking world - The author puts himself in the mind of a complete babe in the woods so he can imagine what it’s like to know nothing of a virtual world of learning printmaking online, picturing two people he would like to invite to an online picnic in a kind of 3-D blog. 1231 Words. sp091018. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Press Party

Face to face social networking around a Halfwood Press - It feels like a flash of genius when the author (and designer/builder of an etching press he calls “Halfwood”) considers finding someone to host a press party. In this essay, he tries to outline how it works, and why it’s a benefit to those who attend it. 868 Words. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. sp090908. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com

Fifth Logline

Keeping it short and simple - A logline is a short elevator-speech version of a movie script or screenplay. It’s what you say when you found yourself in an elevator with someone like Steven Spielberg or George Lucas twenty years ago. That was then; now there’s a virtual world instead.
503 Words. ©2009 Bill Ritchie. sp091008. Full text by email request: ritchie@emeralda.com