Oh but I have been bad about posting. So before the guilt gets the best of me, I’ll just write a quick one before I go to bed. Most of us (well, a lot anyway) have switched over the the new timeline on Facebook. If you are like me its a great chance to get all artsy and stuff by way of the cover photo. So if you want to make a cover photo sized exact, the pixel dimensions are 720 wide by 266 tall.
Hope a few find this helpful.
nighty night all!
This year I have decided that once I make a resolution, I’ll keep it. That way when 2013 rolls around I will have full satisfaction knowing I didnt break any of them. So in the interest of making my resolve public I present my 2012 New Years resolutions…
- I wont start smoking crack cocaine, meth, whippets, or sniffing glue.
- I will not gain 600 pounds.
- I’ll stay way from Steroids
- I’ll hit the Gym, trying not to scrape my knuckles on the concrete wall.
- I won’t pull a Joanquin Pheonix, pretending to give up my promising acting career then make a lousy documentary about it.
- Nor will I star in the sequel to Battlefield Earth
- Scientology won’t be allowed to recruit me.
- I’ll continue to make every attempt not to let food touch each other on my plate
- Diet Coke will remain my drink of choice.
- Randomly I’ll make a point to tell a few bad puns. Ok.. A lot of them.
- I’ll doodle
- The important things in life will be prominent, such as naps and making pointless posts on Facebook
- I’ll be sure to add several items to my list of things to eventually getting around to doing, such as writing a best selling book and putting out a number one hit song
- I won’t actually write a best selling book or a number one hot song.
- most importantly though I will play with my kids, love my family and life, plus no matter what, try to maintain a positive outlook and quirky sense of humor regardless of what gets throws at me.
Resolutions are great. I think I can keep these. What’s your list look like?
When I’m “on the clock”, and talking to a potential new client, I am pitching my design work. As I explain my process and methodology I emphasize that there is a huge difference between “art” and “graphic design”. Technical skill wise, both have the same core - strong use of creative eye, hand skills, use of balance, contrast, etc.
One crucial detail however, separates the two into completely different entities. As a graphic designer, I am visually communicating someone else’s message. As an artist, I’m visually conveying my personal emotion. Anyone who knows me has seen my design work. I’m a bit shameless about flaunting it 
. Not many have seen my art though. Recently I started a set of posters. Sort of a way to “deal”. Here is the first of the series.
One of the things that the Graphic Design industry is facing right now is a plummeting on the perceived value of what we provide, mainly due to the availability of software to the general public, and to offshore outsourcing. This isn’t just effecting Designers, but also other parallel industries such as photography. Anyone can go to Best Buy and purchase a nice camera for under 1500.00, and snap a good shot. I did – anyone who follows my posts know I love taking pics of my kids, and other random things. I’ve been told on several occasions that I should become a photographer professionally, based on what I post.
However, I always have the same reply to this. I’m a good amateur, and that is vastly different than a trained professional. As a good amateur photographer, I can use the equipment I have an make something look great under the right circumstances. In other words, I get lucky. A trained professional though, can not only do it consistently, but has the training and experience to know when to use what tools in the right situation.
As an example, a new company needs a logo, print ads, a website plus photography to sell themselves to the world. They can go two routes. There are several pieces to this that only a trained professional will know to consider:
Design (the three design specialties may overlap into one person [shameless plug for me BTW ], but I’m breaking it down for the example)
The Identity designer will know that the logo must be appropriate to the audience, and boil down the key thoughts into an easily remembered graphic, that will produce will at any size ranging from business card to bill board, from print to web
The print designer will consider the ad size, whether it’s black and white, again, who will be looking at it, and even the paper it will be printed on.
The web designer will consider Browser compatibility, accessibility for disabled persons, and the appropriate technology
Photography:
The photographer will consider the audience (yes this is a reoccurring theme lol), lighting source of the photo location, how it will be displayed (print, web, etc), and photo composition, etc. Finally be experience in potentially working with the designer/art director to ensure it flows with the design.
Finally:
In any of the above cases, they will know the right people to bring in if needed. Writers, programmers, marketing specialists, project managers, etc. They will also know how to establish schedules and take your ideas and turn them into requirements.
So why am I posting this? A friend of mine (at least I like to call him that 
) Jeff Fisher who is a legend in the identity industry, posted about the Department of Interior crowd sourcing their new logo. Crowd sourcing is when you post a project, give it a budget, and invite anyone – literally anyone to submit an idea. The winning entry gets 1000. What this means, is random submissions. No requirements gathered. No consideration to the message. How it will be used. No context. It won’t be tested in different situations.
In other words, a major government division is sidestepping an acknowledged industry for their brand development for a budget that would pay – literally - pennies per hour for the work required to do this right.
The creative industry has something very big working against it. We develop soft products, whichis not a tangible thing that you can hold. This makes it easy to think its not worth as much. So here is another why to think about it:
If your car breaks, do you hire a kid who just bought a tool kit?
When your pipes burst, will you rip open the walls yourself right after going to Lowes even though you have never plumb’d?
Would you cater a wedding with a boxed cake?
I’d hope not in any of the examples here
So anyway, there is a petition going around right now that will be presented to the Department of Interior. I would invite my design peeps to sign it. You can find it here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/us-department-of-the-interior-stop-the-us-department-of-interior-from-crowdsourcing-a-logo
And, for my non-design friends, there is a great website that has been put together that discusses a lot of this. Great source of information. It’s at http://www.no-spec.com/
Thanks for indulging my little soap box
A friend of mine gave me this recipe years ago and is still one of my favorites. Great winter recipe. Its a recipe for Russian Borscht, with a few of my own twists on it. If you make it I Hope you like it! (note - this makes a lot… about two stew pots worth You might want to half it
Ingredients:
Head of cabbage
2 lbs beef stew meat
5 cubes of beef bouillon
5 Potatoes
3 big carrots
1 large onion
large bell pepper
Head of garlic, minced
2 cans of beets (or 2-3 fresh diced)
12 oz can of tomato paste
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- Shred all of the vegetables to bit size pieces
- Throw all of the ingredients in a stock pot (or two, if you are making a full recipe) Cover with Water, then bring to a boil
- Reduce heat to low, simmer for as long as you can (i simmer this for 8 hours). You could prob. transfer to a crock pot as well. The longer the simmer, the more the flavors blend together.
- Test about every hour, adding a bit of salt as needed. - Serve with a spoonful (dollop) of sour cream plus a sprinkling of shredded Parmesan cheese.
This is pretty much a complete meal, so for a side, I just served with banquette slices brushed with olive oil, rubbed with a garlic clove and topped with cracked pepper, a little sea salt and fresh shredded Parmesan, toasted
So tonight I got a few prank calls that came up as coming from my home phone number. I’ll admit, I was impressed. Not so much by their pranking itself though. After the first call, I checked my house to make sure no one was there. After that it went down like this:
*ring ring!*
Me: Hello?
Them: Hello Steve. We’re in the house.
Me: No you’re not. I checked.
Them: Yes. We are. We’re in the laundry room. Think about it.
Me: I’m in the laundry room dumba$$.
Them: Oh.
Silence….
Me: You’re not very good at this are you?
Them: *something unintelligible”
Me: Dude, if you’re going to insult me, at least enunciate. That means speak clearly by the way.
At this point my friend who is there is dying with laughter. He asks loudly - “are they drunk?”
“No, just a couple kids who are up past their bed times sitting around in their grrranimals and superman under roos. Mommy will be checking on them soon I’m sure.”
Them: Really, we’re in the house
Me: You already tried that and we’ve already established that you’re not. *sigh* Tell you what. I want you to think of some new material and call me back. I’ll let you know what I think and how you did. Anything else?
More silence….
Me: Alrighty then. Well, have a good night.
…and I hung up. They haven’t called back since. In a way I wish they would. Someone needs to mold these young people. Really; who teaches kids how to prank call now days? It must be a dying art.
I should be working right now, but felt the need to post this. Before Dawn and I got married, she bought a Jade plant. We named it Frank. Over the years, Dawn, and her amazing green thumb made Frank get much bigger. Eventually Frank looked more like a tree. So, her and her mom cut off a small portion of Frank and repotted him. We put the cut off part in my office and named him Frank Jr.
Over the years Frank Jr. got huge and full of leaves (or what ever you call a Jade plant’s foliage.) Then of course last January things went crazy around here when Dawn went to the hospital. During that time the plants all suffered including Frank. Jr. After Dawn passed away in February, all of the sudden just surviving and taking care of the kids took all of our time. I put the plants in the basement, and usually remembered to water them about once a month. I put Frank Jr in my bedroom, out of sunlight, and not always watering him.
I started to come around I suppose in May. That’s when I started to notice the neglected things around the house. The piles on the dining room table, the living room mantel that was overflowing with papers, movies and toys, the piled up take-out and pizza boxes laying around. Most of all though, I noticed Frank Jr.
You see, as silly as it sounds, we had our little “things”. Call them symbols, or even in-jokes that only we got. I suspect a lot of couples have these, but Dawn and I could take it to a higher level. A lot of you have heard about “Lilly the Lamb”. But, there was also “Albert the Alpaca”, “Mr. Song Pig” the bus-driving pig who always got lost, and the list goes on. Yeah, we could get pretty silly. We would joke that there was probably a good kids book in all of this.
There was also Frank Jr.. Since I work alone we decided he was my office mate, and would help out on important decisions. When I saw him on the bedroom floor though, out of the sun, dry soil and generally forgotten about, he was different. The full leaves he had once had were in a strewn pile around his pot on the floor, and his spindly branches were getting brittle. Frank Jr. was about gone.
Sure. Frank Jr. is just a Jade Plant. But that that moment it was much more. So many things had gone wrong. So many things out of control. There were a lot of things I couldn’t change, but I could try to get our plant back to health.
So over the past several months, I worked on Frank Jr. I got him in a spot that would give him the right amount of sunlight, rotated him once a week to get all sides full, and researched how much water he needed. Slowly but surely Frank Jr came back, and now is green again. It will be a while before he’s as full leaved as before, but it’s happening.
The reason I posted this, is well, life can be pretty rough. There’s a lot of things we can’t control, a lot of big things that kick us down. This time of year we wish we had money to buy big gifts for our family or could go out with our friends all of the time. If you let it (and I certainly have many times this year) it an overwhelm you and get you pretty down. But no matter how bad things are there is probably something you can do to make yourself a bit happier, and there’s a good chance it’s one of the little things. Play with your kids, walk in the park, try a new recipe. Maybe it’s taking an afternoon off, unhook the phone, and just reading a book or taking a nap. Have supper with friends.
Or just resuscitate a Jade plant.
I’m on Facebook a lot. Way to much really. Since I work at home by myself in front of two 27 inch monitors I tend to have a window up with Facebook up at all times so I can talk to all of the other freelancers, stay at home parents, and office workers who have mastered the art of instantly minimizing their FB window when someone walks by their desk. Its also on my phone, and on my IPad.
Seriously, you do not want to know where I might have replied to you from.
I’m on twitter as well, but not nearly enough. Usually only when I see all of the cool kid designers and social media gurus doing it and start to feel guilty that I’m not tweeting about my business enough. I also have a linked in account that I check in a great while, plus a Google+ account that I’m sure has some purpose. The Google+ account to me is sort of like an “as seen on TV” kitchen gadget. It looks cool. So I got it, used it once, then put it in a drawer and pretty much forgot about it. Kind of like this thing
One of the things I do is randomly post silly responses to posts. I don’t set out to, but its a bit of compulsion, I can’t help myself. Sort of like setting a blind three legged cat in front of a hungry dog. Anyway, a few months back someone posted the ol’ “how did we meet? Tell the story but lie”. When I saw the post, it was like cybercrack to me. The sweat started pouring and I attacked my keyboard… I vaguely remember the flurry of typing. Below is what I wrote. Just think of all the useful things I didn’t get done writing this…
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I remember it like it was yesterday. I was working as a street mime on the mean streets of Sheboygan, everyday wiping the pretend sweat off my brow, trying to earn an imaginary dollar. It was tough for mimes back then. Hooligans new darn well they could mug us freely, as our pitiful, silent cries for help would fall on deaf ears.
So we banded together. When one of us got in trouble, the rest acted. Some would throw up invisible walls, while others would lay out land mimes; all in a concentrated effort to protect our pantomimed turf. Grizzled, street-hardened mimes we became. Out of all of us though, Rob was the best. The silent assassin they called him. A real white face-painted devil. But to me he was a pasty faced angel.
How I met Rob? Well, I had just completed my last performance of the day, when a renegade pack of girl scouts surrounded me. They had missed their cookie sale target quota you see, and were willing do do anything to make up the difference. Even if it meant bringing in a fist full of stolen coins carried with hands that had knuckles covered in white face paint. I fought them, but the two of them had numbers on their side. i was quickly overwhelmed in a sea of merit badge laden sashes. Darn you 12 year old demons!!!!
Just then though in my darkest hour, Rob appeared in a burst of chalk-complected justice! Without any effort he ripped through the mimed walls of my piece of sidewalk, mouthing the words “LEAVE THAT MIME ALONE!” i can only imagine the fear it would have struck in their cold little hearts if it had volume. Then, out of nowhere he whipped out an imaginary fishing pole, cast a line at them, and started reeling them off of me!! So convincing was it that they crawled his direction. Futilely they tried to fight Rob, but it was like the man had an arsenal in his back pocket. He swung a bat that only he saw… but only they felt. Thrust a pretend knife so convincingly that you could feel the air slice.
it was over in less than a minute. Such a non-beating he gave those Girl Scouts from hell, their beanie hats were still spinning on the ground by the time they were a block away. Beaten, confused, and scared, I just looked at my savior in fear, not sure if he would work me over next. Was the trauma truly over? I cringed as he quickly whipped back his arm, but was gratified to find he was only throwing me a rope to help me up. In his wise ways me knew I was to weak to perform an elevator routine to get back to my feet.
i climbed that imaginary rope, not just to safety, but to friendship. As I got to him, we shook. Our sweaty hands mixed in each other’s white paint. It was in that tender moment that we became mime-brothers. From that day forward the girl scouts never again tried to roll mimes. Instead they whispered in fear and reverence the name of the white-faced devil, defender of those who have no voices.
Rob and I went on to have many grand adventures. I was the Tonto to his Lone Ranger, the Bucky to his Captain America. Eventually though, life took us in different directions. However, he knows though that all he as to do is call me up when needed, and I will be back at his side.
When that day comes though, I just hope he calls me on Skype. Mimes don’t do well with regular phone calls
Hmmm. Somehow I thought my first post would be a bit more profound… This is a silly sketch I did of a corny superhero. I wish I could say that I did this in highschool. But sadly no, I did it last night.
Well, I finally did it. Got a blog up. It shouldn’t have taken this long really. Being a graphic designer / techy nerd I thought I would design a cool looking front for it, configure all the best plugins, etc. But, when it was all said and done I realized all I really wanted was a place to post my random thoughts.
You see, I’m pretty good at random. Its kind of my life. I think random, write random, take random pictures, draw random doodles. Random.
So whereas on my “official Steve the amazing designer” site I have order, meaning, and focus, I think this is where I’m just going to “be”. Maybe people will read this, maybe not. In the end its just a place for me to sort out stuff. And if you happen to come across this and spend a few of your precious time wasting moments reading it, I hope it was worth it
- Steve