I have an announcement before I wrap this up.
Here is my announcement: Today's Layer Tennis has come to a close. To vote for a winner, just enter a Twitter message that includes #LYT and your favorite's name with the "hash" sign in front of it. So, #LYT plus #vit or #potts.
Got it? Okay. Good. Now we go to the wrap-up, and to Sam's final layer.
Some people will tell you that the hallmark of good design is simplicity. Others will say that it is a balance of form and function. Still others will tell you that the best design eludes our conscious mind and tunnels straight into the part of our brain that senses order and disorder in the world around us. Amazingly, all of those people are in the room with us, and have been since the Layer Tennis match started. It's amazing that Sam and Armin have been able to do anything with all the chattering. Pieter, the guy who thinks good design is a balance of form and function, is probably the worst. His voice is like that sound that you hear on the morning after it snows, when neighbors more industrious than you are putting the scoop of their shovel against the frozen pavement. When he says anything, even "hello," it's intolerable. Listening to him is like being kicked in the groin. Anyway, that guy, Pieter, just stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. Finally, a moment of peace. I'm going to go over and shake Armin's and Sam's hands and congratulate them on the match. Hold on. Back in a second.
Okay. I'm back. Pieter is still outside, still smoking, and from where he's standing he can see the bridges of Brooklyn -- not just the Brooklyn Bridge, but the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge. We have three bridges here. When he stepped outside and I went to shake Armin's and Sam's hands (slightly sweaty, but can you blame them? look what they've been through!), I thought of Pieter and how much I despise him. Then I had a twinge of conscience. He came here only last year, from the Netherlands, where he was cruelly dispatched by a woman he loved. "Kicked to the curb," he said, as soon as he learned the phrase. Back in the Netherlands, he worked for a firm that produced the publications for the three bridges project in Heerhugowaard. Those three bridges, from what I know of them, are beautiful. Brooklyn's bridges, less futuristic, are no less beautiful, at least not when you think about their function as much as their form. They unite people. They bring people from Manhattan to Brooklyn and vice versa. Soon, Pieter will be leaving here, leaving Brooklyn, to return to his home in Manhattan. it will not be soon enough.
Sam's tenth and final layer ties together all these strands: outcasts and inside jokes, connections and disconnections, the black-and-white of history and the bright color of product (in this case, Jell-O). With so much plot having passed through this match, so much water under the bridge, he makes no attempt to recap comprehensively. He simply hints, and we get a kick out of that. Overall, there has been a welter of styles and ideas today: instructional diagrams for athletes modern and ancient, stark origin stories, colorful maps, Mephistophelean horizontal photo strips meant to strip away the meaning of Photoshop. Today's designers really made a racket. And as we know, you can't play tennis without a racket -- or, for that matter, balls.
Play by play commentary for this match is provided, as it happens, by Ben Greenman.
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Congratulations to Mig Reyes, Layer Tennis Season 3 Champion.
Thanks to all the players, commentators and fans who made Season Three of Layer Tennis a big success. And thanks to the crew at Goodby Silverstein & Partners and all the folks at Adobe Creative Suite for making it possible. Watch this space (or sign up for Season Tickets or follow us on Twitter) for news about some special exhibition matches being planned and about Season 4.
Cast your votes on The Championship Match. Both Finalists will receive invitations to play in the post-season tournament for Season Four.
Here's how the voting works. Decide who you'd like to declare as winner and then simply tweet their first name following a hash mark. Either #mig or #noper and, this is important, also include #lyt in that tweet. We'll leave the voting open all weekend and announce our Season Three Champion on Monday.
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