I've been working in the design and advertising industry for nearly 20 years. So, I am used to seeing trends come, go, and come back again. Whether it's skeuomorphic design, vernacular typography or neon color schemes; I've seen 'em, used 'em and maybe even abused 'em. But I never anticipated the antiquated technology of the GIF to rear it's ugly head again — in a good way.

Like any agency, we use a fair amount of stock photography. It's abundant, affordable and easily accessible—unfortunately, most of it's also crap. So what do you do when you have a small budget, but the image you need either sucks or doesn't exist in the countless stock libraries? In our case, it's time for a ghetto photo shoot.

The latest internet sensation is the Flying Dutchman, Jarno Smeets and his "Human Birdwings" project.

In his videos, you supposedly see him take flight with large flapping wings of fury—a modern day Icarus propelled by personal drive and innovation.

Occasional Creative team, co-directors and friends of Traction, Sausage films, have just released their music video for the Sons of Science track "Motherfucking Bike."

It is brilliant. We love it.  And so should you.

History proves that everything must come to an end—that is just the nature of things. It's a universal constant. Species go extinct, tools become obsolete and empires fall. Though until the last hundred years, successful technologies traditionally had a much longer lifespan.

We are not a sentimental lot.

But as the holidays are here again, it only seemed fitting to look back at the last time this dark cloud that is the "merry season" descended upon us.

I didn't think it was possible that we could find an infomercial more ridiculous, offensive and as wrong as the one Adam found for Sheet energy strips—until we found this one.

Good taste be damned! Let's drive these bad jokes into the ground until everyone groans. (sorry, I couldn't resist)

One of the joys of having office space near SF Civic Center, is having people wander into our offices on a weekly basis and ask us what Traction is all about. 

So we gathered the team and made a video to answer this persistent question—in our own special way of course...

Every good agency, design house, marketing company or interactive shop does some kind of strategic thinking. Whether they are transparent about it or not, this thinking is integral to creating work that is successful.

Yet so many clients consider outside strategic thinking as "fluff" work that is costly and irrelevant. Oh how wrong they are.

A while back, I started a comic strip to entertain myself.  Most of the work is  indulgent, riddled with inside jokes, off-color humor and vulgar language.  In other words: it is brilliant—or at least I think so.

So I thought I would share my "brilliance" with all of you.