Jorge Lamora started drinking cafe cubanos at the age of three in his hometown of Miami. Where caffeine may have stunted the growth of the average child, it seems to have given Jorge an impressive knack for great design. His first project came as a teenager when he “re-worked” the design of a job application to gain underage employment at a drugstore. Since then Jorge, has broadened his skills considerably, creating award-winning work in digital and print for a wide range of clients.
Jorge is currently a senior designer at Cactus, but he's been quite busy freelancing for some fun clients around town like Masterpiece Deli, the Squeaky Bean and others — and now he's created an amazing way to showcase it. Jorge partnered with freelance developer/designer
Drew Dahlman to bring his new portfolio site to life. "I wanted to create something that would serve as a completely updatable portfolio site — minimal but still dynamic — and also something that would be fun for Drew to code," said Lamora. "So we threw a handful of color and type variants into the framework. I also don't love the idea of giving myself a logo — so I gave myself many (and I'll keep adding as I go . The idea being that every time you visit, you'll get a different set of all. Of course, you can still set it up however you like and view away."
With his impressive new site and book of work, today we add Jorge Lamora to our
List of Recommended Designers. Want to be considered as Recommended Talent for what you do by The Egotist?
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LONDON, Feb 23 (Reuters - Britain, which is planning a radical overhaul of its medicine pricing system from 2014, already has some of the lowest prices in Europe, according to a government report on Thursday.
The findings were seized on by pharmaceutical companies as evidence that existing voluntary price-control measures were working well and that the state-run National Health Service (NHS was getting good value for money.
Health minister Andrew Lansley, however, sees room for improvement. From the end of 2013, he aims to switch to a new system of "value-based pricing" - a concept that has so far been only sketchily defined.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI is due to start detailed talks on how the system will work in late summer 2012.
Drug prices are under growing pressure across Europe as governments tackle ballooning budget deficits and firms fear the British changes might lead to direct price controls or further obstacles to launching new therapies.
The current Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS , which companies would be happy to retain, controls the prices of branded drugs by regulating profits they are allowed to make on sales to the NHS.
In its latest report to parliament, the Department of Health confirmed that the PPRS was, by and large, doing its job.
In particular, British medicine prices in 2010 were found to be lower than those in any of 10 other comparator European countries. U.S. prices were on average more than 2-1/2 times more expensive. (
The picture was slightly different, however, when average exchange rates over the last five years were used. On this basis, prices were still significantly lower than in the United States and also lower than in
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Sweden, but not as cheap as in Finland, Spain and France.
Despite low prices, British drugmakers, including GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, argue that patients still struggle to access new medicines, with use of new cancer drugs 33 percent lower than in the rest of Europe.
The increasingly tough environment for drugs is a growing concern for pharmaceutical companies across Europe, some of which have started to relegate the region when it comes to developing new medicines.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said in a report on Wednesday that harsher conditions at home also meant Europe's big pharmaceutical firms had been faster to tap into new emerging markets than their U.S. peers.
Something weird has happened now that
I'm going to be, OMG, a grandmother -- I've started shopping. Or feeling compelled to shop. It's kind of scary because I do not like to shop. I'm not talking about buying the crib and the bedding, that's a given -- I'm talking about the urge to buy every cute onesie on the face of the earth. How many onesies does a baby need? Apparently Johnny Mac Pippin needs them all. And a whole lot more, to boot.
I blame Michelle, my 22 year old who works at Target. I was FINE until she forced me (literally to come into Target to look at the PERFECT onesie. She was right; it was perfect and I bought it and everything would have been fine. But onesie shopping is addictive and it's also a gateway shopping drug because I haven't stopped shopping or feeling compelled to shop ever since.
After onesies and footed sleepers, I started buying books which is ridiculous because Johnny Mac Pippin hasn't even made his appearance in the world yet but he's well stocked with children's classics. (Like
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
and
Bread and Jam for Francis
and
Katy No-Pocket
and I could go on, but you get the picture, right? And I bought some
Indestructibles because I've been trying to find the indestructible, washable books my kids had when they were tiny and come up empty. These seemed to be similar and they're very cute -- but I'm still searching for THOSE books my kids had and I guarantee you if I find them, I'll be buying those too. I haven't bought the
BabyLit board books, yet, and I did stop myself from purchasing a book that will be perfect for
Johnny Mac Pippin when he's 10, I do have some self-control.
But not much.
We were at O'Hare last week, picking up Michelle and waiting for her luggage to come around on the carousel. As we stared at the opening of the baggage claim belt, a box came out. I peered at it. I peered at it some more. I probably said "hmmm" out loud and I felt TW glaring at me. I looked away from the box and into her eyes and she said, "No. No. Johnny Mac Pippin does not need a scooter." Which is true, he doesn't -- not right now. However, some day soon, he will definitely need a scooter and that one looked interesting. I must research scooters, so I'm ready to buy just the right one for Johnny Mac Pippin.
And then, last night, Jenn sent me a text with a picture of a cute
sailor suit onesie that she was looking for -- I found it and planned to buy it which led me to think about baby shoes. Johnny Mac Pippin would need some cute shoes with that onesie and I planned to surf baby shoes today. Good thing I didn't buy that onesie, Jenn bought it while I was asleep -- she also found
infant Sambas (just like his dad wears while I was asleep (damn her, I wanted to buy them!
I tried making some
Pinterest
boards to help control the urge to shop, but pinning cute things isn't quite the same thing as buying cute things. Pinning has been useful in other ways though. I'm trying to decide which cloth diapers to send and because cloth diapers have changed an awful lot since I had babies, I posted a couple of options and asked which were better. I got some feedback. That's good, Johnny Mac Pippin needs the BEST cloth diapers. Pinning has also kept me from taking a wee detour into the brand new
baby super center, Wonder, that opened by our house last fall. I'm afraid of what might happen if I go into that store.
Onesies are a gateway shopping drug. Someone take away my credit card -- wait, don't take it away yet. Tell me what the smartest, most awesome little boy in the world NEEDS his grandmother to buy for him. (Oh, and my daughter and son-in-law, the parents -- do they need any of those new baby care gadgets?
~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Life. Flow. Fluctuate.
We Love Pharma, courtesy of CDM Worldwide
The pharmaceutical industry gets a bad rap. To listen to the critics you’d think pharmaceutical companies are in the same sleazy category as oil, finance and tobacco companies. But pharmaceutical companies invent life-saving medications, not to mention countless other psychoactive products that many of us enjoy on a recreational basis. Pharmaceutical companies get blamed for fraud, kickbacks, and research deaths, but they never get the credit for oxycontin.
That is why I was thrilled to see that GlaxoSmithKline is sponsoring the prize for the
British Medical Journal
‘s annual
Research Paper of the Year. Sure, the pharma-bashers will whine like infants at the
BMJ’
s decision to brand a medical research prize with the name of multinational drug company, just as they’re whining about an American editor’s decision to re-locate a leading bioethics journal to the Texas headquarters of a
stem cell tourism clinic. These people just don’t get it. This is not about propaganda or corruption. It is about developing innovative medications for diseases that we didn’t even know existed.
In that spirit, my nomination for the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK Research Paper of the Year goes to a ground-breaking article about GSK’s very own antidepressant, Paxil, which was published in the
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
. The title of the article is “Efficacy of Paroxetine in the Treatment of Adolescent Major Depression,” but seasoned pharma-watchers know it better as
Study 329. The data behind Study 329 showed that Paxil didn’t actually work in adolescents – that, in fact, it was
no better than a sugar pill. However, as any marketer understands, bad data cannot be allowed to interfere with a good paper. By the time Study 329 appeared in print, GSK had used the magic of biostatistics to transform the raw data into a gleaming advertisement for Paxil. As a result, when FDA eventually decided that Paxil had a few minor side-effects,
such as suicide, Study 329 had already done its work: getting a GSK product into the hands of troubled teenagers. And wait, here’s the beauty part: although the published version of Study 329 was “authored” by leading academic psychiatrists, it was actually
written by a GSK ghostwriter.
Of course, the pharma-bashers have been complaining about Study 329 for years. Some of them even want the journal to retract it. The lead “author” who signed the paper, Martin Keller of Brown University, has been
beaten up by the Senate Finance Committee,
harassed by the New York attorney general, and vilified in the press, all because he put his name on a ghosted article and forgot to report
half a million dollars in pharmaceutical income. To which I say: stand strong, GSK. Ignore the naysayers and the nitpickers. It’s about time you gave these good people some public recognition. Yes, it’s true that Study 329 is eleven years old, but you’re paying the BMJ over $47,000 to
sponsor this prize. Surely they can bend the rules, just this once.
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Avant-garde publisher who challenged the Lady Chatterley ban
Barney Rosset, who has died aged 89, was the most influential avant-garde publisher of the 20th century. He was also one of the boldest, in his willingness to question the laws governing censorship. His decision, as head of Grove Press, to challenge the ban on DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1959 led to the novel being published legally in the US for the first time, a year before the British edition. Having won the battle, Rosset immediately set about bringing Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer to American bookbuyers. Another trial involved William Burroughs's Naked Lunch.
Among the first authors to be signed by Grove was Samuel Beckett, in 1953. As well as supplying the publisher with novels and plays that would sell in great numbers, Beckett also provided a moral example: "I hope you realise what you are letting yourself in for," he wrote in reply to Rosset's expression of interest. His novels had proved unsaleable, his plays unperformable. All were difficult in ways "which I am not at all disposed to mitigate". The same intransigence emanated from Miller.
Rosset was born in Chicago, the son of a banker whose bequest to his errant son was to prove instrumental in the shaping of modern literature. Having graduated from the University of Chicago, Rosset served in the US Army Signal Corps. Afterwards, using $250,000 of family money, he made a feature film, Strange Victory (1948 , which was a commercial flop.
A more economical investment was Grove Press, which he bought for $3,000 in 1951. For the first two years, he specialised in reprints before moving on to literature in translation. At the same time as bringing Beckett to Grove – named for the firm's original address in Grove Street, Greenwich Village – Rosset signed Jean Genet and Eugene Ionesco. Others whose work appeared under the imprint include the poets Frank O'Hara and LeRoi Jones, the playwright David Mamet and the novelists John Rechy, Alexander Trocchi,
Alain Robbe-Grillet and Marguerite Duras. Together, they formed if not a school, then a trademark that was perfectly matched to the anti-authoritarianism of the epoch.
The brand reflected Rosset's personality. His first publishing venture was a newsletter called Anti-Everything. He said he was attracted to Miller's Tropic books not so much for their literary quality, nor the erotic content, but because they were "anti-American and anti-conformity". Like the French publisher Maurice Girodias, whose Olympia Press was an abundant supplier to Grove (Miller, Beckett, Genet, Trocchi and Burroughs were all first published there , Rosset liked the risque element – sex was anti-conformity, too – but the enduring Grove titles are those that were artistically daring at the same time.
Publishers have always loved a banned book. Rosset stood apart from his peers not only in his willingness to challenge prohibitions, but in being able to fund the action. In his posthumous memoir, The Tender Hour of Twilight, published in early 2012, Rosset's second-in-command, Richard Seaver, wrote: "Everyone knew that Barney was rich, but never knew to what degree." At one stage, he sued his father over the restrictions imposed on his inheritance. "And to the consternation of all," Seaver wrote, "he won."
Seaver joined the firm in 1959 at the time of the Lady Chatterley trial. ("Why not join the fun?" Rosset asked him. In his memoir, he outlined the simple strategy for publishing forbidden books: print them, ask shops to take them (often a vain effort , then wait for the law to call. When readers could get to the books, they sold in huge quantities, but the tolls were expensive. Seaver called the chapter on Lawrence's novel "Lady Chatterley's Lawyers".
Literature was not Rosset's only interest. Grove also published film scripts, and commissioned several of its leading authors to write original screenplays, which were then produced on television. Under this scheme, Beckett wrote Film (1965 , starring Buster Keaton. Duras's Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959 and Robbe-Grillet's Last Year at Marienbad (1961 were cult films that became cult Grove Press paperbacks. The house magazine at Grove Press, Evergreen Review, contained photography, graphics, screen-stills and jazz criticism. Published in the same format as a floppy Grove paperback, it still seems like the essential literary magazine of the time.
Several events at the end of the 60s conspired to bring Grove Press down from its peak. The first was the curse of many successful businesses – overreach. From 20 or so employees in its heyday, Grove was employing 150 by the end of the decade. Having never lost a yearning for the screen, Rosset acquired a cinema and bought films to show in it. The only commercially successful one was I Am Curious (Yellow (1967 , which landed the Grove team in court again, followed by I Am Curious (Blue (1968 , which was neither a hit nor a profitable scandal. At around the same time, the firm moved from its cramped but cosy premises in the Village to a set of plush, custom-built offices. Meanwhile, Grove's early roster of Beats, drop-outs, drug experimenters, sexual outlaws and anarchic playwrights could only gaze upwards and wonder.
Another destabilising force was the changing nature of sexual freedom. Male-directed free love, incorporated in the works of Miller, was being challenged by the imperatives of women's lib. Preoccupied with legal matters and the shapely forms of Grove secretaries, which turn up with amusing frequency in Seaver's memoirs, the firm's leading players had failed to notice. In 1970 Grove was unionised behind the bosses' backs and suffered occupations by radical feminists. The heady world in which art and love joined hands to challenge the status quo was never to be the same.
Rosset retained independence until 1985, when he sold out to George Weidenfeld and Ann Getty, on the understanding that he would remain in charge. He departed within a year. The name now survives as part of the publisher Grove-Atlantic. Later adventures included Blue Moon books, which published a range of erotica (as well as a late work, Stirrings Still, by the ever-loyal Beckett , and an online version of Evergreen Review.
In 1949 Rosset married the abstract-expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, while the pair were resident in Europe. Mitchell wanted to return to the excitement of New York. "She said, 'Who's going to carry my paintings – they're big!' I said, 'I will, but only if you marry me.' Big mistake! She said okay." He complained that her family never accepted him. "To them, I was a Jew. My Irish-Catholic half didn't count." The marriage lasted three years. In 1953 he married Loly Eckert, a sales manager at Grove, and the couple had a son, Peter. Three subsequent marriages produced three more children: a son, Beckett, and two daughters, Tansey and Chantal. Rosset's children and his fifth wife, Astrid Myers, survive him.
• Barney Lee Rosset, publisher, born 28 May 1922; died 21 February 2012
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