Life in a small design studio can be tight. Close quarters, hot opinions, divergent musical tastes, serious pressure and ridiculous hours together. You pass the brother/sister phase pretty quickly. You either love the people you work with or they drive you berserk. Packed deep in the woods of central Colorado, a small band of us toiled away making beautiful work and occasionally scrapping it out. The studio had giant windows, letting in a constant changing light source. Color correction was a hot button issue. A few of us took it probably a little too seriously. I can remember arguing about yellow with the nicest guy in the studio. It was impossible to agree, of course because our eyes are all different. So, take the X-Rite Color test. See if you really see what you think you see. And then make your friend take it too. Quite fun.
[UPDATE: VICTORY FOR CARRIE KROLL (www.carriekroll.com) and her husband John Kroll as well, on May 12, 2012. It was a true pleasure to help these two smart, brave people run for office and win as well.]
Carrie Fontana Kroll, a local voice for children, is making a run for School Board. Hopefully this brand will help set her apart from the seas of political signs. The real selling point is Carrie herself.
[Maurice Sendak, 83 years old joins the Wild Things Finally
When I wrote the post below about the inspiration that Maurice Sendak has given me over the years, I didn't realize he would die so soon. What an amazing legacy to leave. As he stated he wasn't a writer for children. He was a writer for all of us flawed humans together. Please enjoy this article and tribute by Fresh Air correspondent, Terry Gross.]
Inspired by the Strangeness of Childhood
Children’s literature is still an amazing, magical world for me. Often, while reading to my children, I am once again transported to my blue bedroom with the dark windows, miles from nowhere. I am so pleased to find that my kids sometimes fall in love with the same authors or books that grew my and my life for illustration and literature. Maurice Sendak is one of those writers/illustrators. Here he talks about his own obsessions with authors and the mystery of how writers do what they do.
He compares the act of creating art to jumping off a cliff, into the unknown. You either do it and survive, or crack your head. I have cracked my head many, many times. I’m in agreement with him on this imagery, but feel that is more often a SERIES of cliffs. Sometimes you have the courage to shop for work, or to pitch a job that might seem out of your league. Other times you are taking the risk at doing something new or different. Stepping out to be an individual designer, rather than living under the wings of an agency was my Vesuvius, but some days can often feel like jumping off the high dive into an empty pool. (picture Bugs Bunny looking down into a teeny tiny pool below)
He also addresses the idea that many of his works are not considered “appropriate”. What the heck is appropriate? And who says? Yes, Micky from In the Night Kitchen is naked. Not strange, creepy naked. Just exactly the way kids love to be naked, say in the kitchen, while baking. (or maybe my own kids are the only weirdos that think it is perfectly normal to parade around in nothing but an apron?) My children loved it and wished that they could dive, commando, into a giant cake pan, mold the dough into an airplane and fly away. Since I don’t allow most of their fun fantasies, they have to live through books written by people like Sendak.
One thing about Sendak that I can truly relate to is the distinction that he is merely an illustrator, as if that is a put down. He is so much, much more but also exactly that. A fabulous illustrator, author, relationist, dreamer, realist, curmudgeon, wild thing.
Great, light article about his life and personality as he was turning 83, after the death of his long-time partner, and the upcoming production of Where the While Things Are into a movie, from the New York Times.
Additionally, here he is, interviewed by Stephen Colbert:
The description is of a book filled with colorful illustrations that will appeal to toddlers with the corresponding PMS colors on the opposite page. [See a few pages on the Amazon sales page]
Understand that I am a true Pantone goofball, worshiper. I LOVE fanning out the colors and agonizing over choices. I don’t use paint chips on my walls. I match to Pantone.
But, I admit, this book makes me feel a tiny bit icky. Grownups can slurp their tea in their Pantone cup, but isn’t this application just advertising to little kids? I know it isn’t a Big Mac, but it sure seems like a cheap shot to me. What do you think? Would you buy this for any toddlers you know?
We all suffer though poorly written emails, tweets, texts, IMs and ads. Every Day. And don’t even ask about a hand-written letter. They are quickly disappearing as a true art of care and thoughtfulness. It takes real time and concentration to sit down with paper and pen, to consider the subject, the right tone, the meaningful engagement, and set it to paper without mistakes. Try doing that while you’re driving. I cherish the letters that my friends and family write me, such that if the house burns down, I’m grabbing those and some photos. Period. Well, maybe a few other things (in case those who care about the STUFF read this).
When I stumbled upon this lovely little site, Letters of Note, I was instantly hooked. Sign up for their feed and you will receive a little gem with backstory and usually the original letter, along with a translation if the handwriting is hard to read. There are hundreds of archived letters as well.
The most recent article is a great letter from C.S. Lewis to a fan about how to write well. Enjoy!
A recent blog post from Letters of Note
From the letter:
“What really matters is:–
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”
The 126th birthday of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was today. The effect he had on our architecture, great urban centers, lifestyles and culture is still a guiding force in design of all types. Even though he didn’t complete college himself, his ability, leadership, confidence and innovation made him not only a supreme force in architecture but also a teacher of generations to follow him. His belief that “Less is More” shaped the direction of design, architecture and culture from top to bottom. It is hard to imagine someone asking for “more fluff”. It never quite comes out that way. It is more often, “Can you add a few stars?”, “It needs something to POP.” or “Is it too simple?”
I always try to remind myself of that credo of Less — stripping away the unnecessary — with each project I begin. Fighting the urge to layer on imagery that doesn’t add to the concept is a constant exercise. But thanks to van der Rohe and a handful of other visionaries and outsiders — we all benefit from the space and clarity that he brought to our society. Next time you are in Chicago, Houston or New York visit one of his buildings.
The Mies Society is a great starting place to start learning about this amazing personality. Wikipedia also has basic facts about his life and accomplishments.
A complex set of skills and offerings and a vague understanding of her concept with the general public, brought Jennifer Lazar of Help Your Structure to BigStar. She needed an updated brand and web presence to better express the whole-body healing that she facilitates. Her comprehensive approach to massage and body work is a calm, thoughtful process, so her message needed to pass that on. A vertical representation of a body out of alignment give a subtle but clear visual representation to a sometimes complex message.
Viewers will see experience a calm, informational message on the site, that will carry over to their interactions with Jennifer and her space. Jennifer’s style of education and therapy is conveyed throughout all her marketing materials. Email or call her to experience it!
I’ve always known my profession to be somewhat of a boy’s club. Or at least a club of highly driven, no sleepin’, pushing to the nth degree peeps. And as you get to top of the club, there aren’t very many women playing. There is a reason it is called Mad Men. Celebrations, publications or blogs about current and past male greats are on every news stand and in deep Google searches. But try to find a good compilation of great female designers. Not very deep. In honor of International Womens Day here are a few neat-o stories and publications of some wonderful women.
Ruth Ansel — Bazarre, The New York Times Magazine, House & Garden, Vanity Fair and Vogue. Think that is enough? Not for Ansel. She just keeps going. Too many awards to list. She’s featured in a new book, Hall of Femmes: Ruth Ansel, designed by Swedish studio Hjarta Smarta. I love her site. Clean, modern, clear. Just like so many of the publications she honed.
Good Design — top 25 female designers. Click to find a great list of contemporary designers of all types. They are inspiring, inventive and fresh.
Hall of Femmes — enjoy a short pub on different influential female graphic designers.
Tomorrow, March 1, 2012, Google will again change their privacy settings, greatly affecting their user’s experience. Google states that these changes are to enhance the user experience rather than to gather even more seemingly private information. There are some good ways to protect your information through some pretty minor steps. Without procrastinating, check your current Google privacy settings and get ready for the big changes tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this great info graphic from Tony Shin on the current state of internet privacy, who collects your data, who steals it and how it is used. This might motivate you to get a move on it. You better review your other social media sites while you’re at it.
Corporate charity has something of a tainted image. Is the message the company giving that they stand behind that particular issue, or are they quietly giving money to political PACS in the background that might not be in the same vein. Are their business practices in line with the marketing message? After the bombs being thrown at Apple about their Chinese factory standards many companies must be taking a closer look at that issue.
However, many corporations have built their corporate story around their culture of giving and it seeps into all aspects of their marketing as well. Patagonia is one of those companies. I’m always inspired by their beautiful campaigns, continued use of amazing photography and consistent message. And, as I’m always looking for new musical inspiration, I was pleased to find this link to another of Patagonia’s charities. Buy a song, donate the artist’s cause, all sponsored by Patagonia. Pretty creative.
Check it out. Sample the songs. You might not have a big wad of cash to send out to your favorite cause, but I bet you have a dollar or two you can spare. Get a great song, give a little too.
This site brings together designers and the music that inspires them. Free to sample. Is this even legal? Legit? I’m not sure if it is, but in the meantime, I’m going to find out what gets other designers inspired. Some are serious, others are not… check it out:
One major perk of freelancing is setting my own thermostat. That might seem trivial, but instead of having to wear a sweater to work in the middle of summer, I can actually put some of my wool to use in the winter. Sipping tea all day, bundled up and basking in the glow of pixels, while the inspiration comes to me is a joy. Watching the winter through the window, or sitting down to work after an icy walk, helps keep the passing time in check. I truly feel like a kid again on a snow day. This winter has been a complete bust so far. Seriously. It is hard to get excited about the coming summer when the temperatures hover in the 60s most of the time. So, as I love to do, I’m using music to trick my so easily distracted psyche. Enjoy some lovely winter tunes. Call in sick. Crank up the A/C if you have to. Sip hot toddies and read some Russian novel about an endless winter. It will make the coming heatwave a little more bearable.
And here is an amazing stop motion video shared from Andrew Cutraro of snowfall in Washington, D.C. set to White Winter Hymnal. I can’t figure out why it is so mesmerizing, but I think it’s just the speed, the low light… it reminds me of laying by the window at night, watching the snow fall and hoping school would be closed.
Here comes a wonderfully organic, clean but colorful, example of a melding of artistic and journalistic disciplines. Every day I receive several infographics (elaborate, often full-page, graphical illustrations), that show stats and figures, within the guise of a visual presentation. Here is one that really does it all very well… motion, facts, etc. Nice job: Another amazing Infographic from Tony Shin .
Two designers created Six Word Story Every Day in 2010 to explore language and typography. Throughout that year they [designer Anne Ulku, and writer Van Horgen,] provided one posting per day in collaboration, inspired by the work Ernest Hemingway “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” They opened the project up to the world in 2011 and just wrapped it up on 12.31.11. I am so pleased to have found this, though very late in the game, and even more thrilled to have placed a few stories in their archives. Thanks for the fun challenge Anne and Van!
The end of a relationship always leaves feelings of regret and anxiety about what the new future will be or what might have been otherwise. Those feelings are even more acute when the absence is caused by death. I knew that break was coming for my 4-year love affair with my Macbook Pro, but knowing that the end was imminent didn’t lessen the sting.
The display failure on our oven didn’t conjure up the slightest butterflies. Knowing that my clothes washer and dryer are both on their last cycles isn’t causing sleep loss. Not even the random freezing and thawing of the entire refrigerator of food has caused the denial, fear, and anger that I have experienced over the recent demise of my first laptop.
Possessiveness is relative when your machine is owned by the company you work for and managed by an IT team your options are limited. You can’t feel much empathy with a computer that isn’t truly your own. But the give and take between a full-time freelance designer and her Macintosh can be extremely important and fulfilling, setting off feelings of attachment and dependency that are seemingly unnatural. You can scoff all you like, but when your entire means of self-sufficiency and communication with the outside world is wrapped in a battered, scratched and dented hunk of mental, you can get a little weird about it. Any down time is a potential client lost. Tell me how long you could go without your phone, iPad, or email. Thought not.
When the mini-strokes started about a month (a usually foreign and remote possibility to a Macintosh user) ago I knew they were a sign of the grand mal seizure to come. My IT friend tried all the tricks and I made 1000 guesses about the cause, all in the hopes that what I was experiencing was a fluke. I was not ready to let my friend go yet. With a deadline looming and a week-long trip ahead, I needed that machine to work. So, it died. My denial was complete as I spent a night on the couch turning it off and on again, trying to will it back to life.
The silver lining on this little whine-fest is that in one short afternoon, I had a new machine, up and running, all programs installed, all settings adjusted or reinstated from the old hard drive, and a reaffirmed knowledge that the higher price is worth it for this special little machine.
A dear friend who truly gets my weird love of paper, office supplies, organization, order and the smell of pencils, gave me a year long membership to Rad and Hungry for my birthday. Each month, I receive a wonderful assortment of paper, office supplies and writing utensils from around the world, expertly collected and packaged by The first package arrived in a way that really got my attention and probably the attention of my effusive mail carrier too. I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you when you receive yours, so you’ll have to wait and see.
Get really brave and join their Pencil Pal club. Send and receive pencils from your Pencil Pals.
Get your membership today or give one to a similar paper geek.
This was fabulous - several notebooks, pencils and erasers
Spain!
Wonderful notes from RAH - TSA passport
outer packaging - also included a great square eraser
I’m a Generation X child. I was raised on 3,2,1 Contact, The Electric Company (now re-released) and Sesame Street. My first design concepts were surely effected by the amazing vignettes illustrated by the PBS shows. I would not be the type of designer I am today if I had not been parked in front of those programs. The Xer babysitter taught us to read, to feel, to care and to appreciate cool 70′s art.
If you want to blow that off as poppycock, check out this old animation for Sesame Street with music composed by Phillip Glass. Tell me you don’t recognize some corporate logo babies in there.
A sneak peak at the new S4 Communications brand shows a process that left a thrilled client and designer.
Sommertime Marketing hired me to build a brand for a telemarketing firm based in Houston, with a tight deadline, strong design ideas, and tight restrictions on colors, fonts and such. Jessica Sommer explained that the 4 principles of the company had very strong likes to go with their equally strong convictions. Along with a desire to avoid colors that were similar to the competition, they were adamant about having the four core tenants, Sales, Service, Strategy and Solutions, appear with the icon. The challenge of showing that much text and having it represent well in small situations meant devising an icon that could stand alone when the text had to be removed for size restrictions. The icon also has to represent an easy flow between those tenets. Oh, and they needed final delivered in 3 weeks.
Feedback: let me know if you think the mark was hit.
Thank you Steve Jobs. Your daring and creativity have touched so many in such a short time. WE will feel your presence for an indeterminable time. If not for your little company, I might be doing something different right now. Maybe accounting. Maybe HR. Definitely not digital arts. Thanks for a future and a beacon for the creatives. Without Jobs, I would NEVER have been able to illustrate this likeness.
Digital Illustration of Steve Jobs inspired by image on apple.com, 10.5.2011
