Check out the June 2012 issue of Nashville Parent magazine. The inside cover features a water safety education announcement from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, which includes Falstaff’s illustration of Champ, Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital’s mascot.

Since Henry Ford first uttered the phrase, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black,” Americans have rebelled. His statement contradicts everything modern consumers hold dear. Americans love choices. The more options the better.

A search for men’s shoes on Zappos.com results in a visitor’s ability to browse 14,072 items, while women have 33,710 options. Did you know there are 73 active professional wrestling organizations in the United States? My favorites are “Wrestlicious” and “Wrestling Association of Championship Krushers.” Check your local papers. They might be coming to a fairground near you.

Corporate history is littered with the bodies of dead phrases, such as “low-hanging fruit” and “mission critical.” (If these two aren’t dead, they should be.) Phrases that are quickly latched onto by the corporate world are typically repeated ad nauseam until they lose any meaning they once had and disappear after serving as a punch line in a Dilbert cartoon (goodbye “synergy,” it was nice knowing you).

One phrase that continues to cling to life, especially related to web development, social media, and email marketing, is “Content is King.” This phrase, referring to the creation of desirable, relevant content being the path to success, has a foothold that it doesn’t appear to be in any danger of slipping out of, most likely due to having actual meaning. Not only is good content required to engage your existing audience and attract new readers, but it is also necessary for the success of your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Falstaff is pleased to announce the completion of our first illustration in a series for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. The illustrations are of Champ, Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital’s mascot, and will be used in a variety of projects.

Searching the internet for blog inspiration sounds good in theory, but then a lot of things sound good in theory, like learning how to swallow swords, knitting a full-size map of the United States, or planting a garden, but what really happens is you puncture an organ, quit after realizing that even Rhode Island is pretty big, or discover that it gets hot outside and that there is a lot of standing up and squatting down required. Who needs that? Using the internet to generate ideas for writing a blog article can have similar results. Am I a little more educated for it? Yes. Am I a lot more educated about things I don’t need to know about? Definitely.