Small Places : Nick L Belardes [66 of 128]

• Twenty-One.
• I'm told that within three days I have to design an ad that can be torn out of a magazine and folded into the shape of a wireless device.
• Thinking back, I remember youthful days ripping apart cereal boxes for their intriguing back-of-the-box army diagrams.
• I always folded the cereal box army tanks hoping for truly magical war machines with big boxy cannons my plastic army men could straddle.
• Never failed. My army tanks would look like swans. Now my boss expects me to design fold-outs that engineers would love on their desks.
• Milt: "Nothing too goo gah now. I just want a wireless device people can fold together, fill with sand and place their pencils in."
• Me: "Sure you don't just want me to design a drawing they can tear out and color?" Milt: "These are engineers I'm talking about."
• The FAO Schwartz toystore is abuzz with Star Wars laser beams, action figures as tall as elves and Barbies looking like TV show rejects.