Making it Good with Fire Marks
Another bitterly cold morning. It’s hard to imagine that spring break is only two weeks away when it’s still -5 degrees out. Yesterday was a crazy and happy day. I have survived yet another launch day. This time the client was a big one who probably sells you some kind of insurance. The website/app that I have been laboring over for a month now was a blast to build. It was jam packed with some fun real-time gizmos (technical term) for employees to communicate with and compete against each-other. After launching it early yesterday morning, and then watching the first people in the New York offices begin to use it, a damn big sigh of relief went out and a gargantuan weight was lifted as the numbers started rolling in and nothing was breaking. One of the things I enjoy most out of this line of work is the instant gratification you get after you design and build something. It can’t be beat. The only worry came around 2pm as a critical mass of users started hitting the servers. I think I could hear the little guys whining and moaning and they labored to push out pixels and data to the hungry hoards. But even in that I could find a bit of masochistic joy.

Working with the client over the last few weeks, I had the chance to discover their fairly extensive collection of Insurance Fire Marks. Fire Marks are relatively small (usually about 10” by 10”), nicely designed, solid steal plates that use to be affixed to buildings when they were built. The mark would display the name of the company who was responsible for insuring that building. Thus, if and when the building ever burnt down, they could find the Fire Mark in the remains and know who to go to in order to get paid. The typography on the Fire Marks alone makes me want to start an instant collection. If it ever warms up here in Minnesota, maybe I’ll hit a flee market or two and see if I can’t find a couple.