the Designer as a person

Of course few (the few who actually visit this blog—yes, I am fishing for comments and reassurances) of you might have noticed I have been steadily slacking off on posts. I have struggled with bipolar disorder most of my life and in the past months it has been nearly intolerable. I am swinging into mania as I type and at least it feels good to have some energy. A little later I will expound a bit on the emotional state of designers and the process—the good, the bad, the positively ugly.

Thanks for your patience.

My kingdom for some junk

I waffled on whether to post this or not, it seemed so obvious. Anyway, This cd cover is at the front of a row of my cds and I see it several times a day, seven days a week. When I first saw it, I thought, "That's fine if you have a huge illustration budget." I could visualize a bunch of guys in the photographer's studio building this thing over the span of a few days, then getting the light just right, taking a bunch of different angles and making it beautiful. About $10,000 worth of beautiful.

Then the other day, I looked at the base of the assemblage. It looks like a small cafe table base, and it occurred to me that most of the stuff was junk that even I could find around here for under $100.00. Put it together, clamp it to the table top, making sure it is balanced, prop up the Cello behind everything and shoot away. There is a lot of duct tape and non-audio stuff thrown in. It must have been fun creating this.

The upshot is that it is an idea I would have dismissed out of hand as too time consuming, too difficult (after all, where would I get a Cello to tear up), too "out there" to be worth the effort. Another example of defeating oneself before you get started. I would have ended up with some series of flat cut-outs, overlapping, wild colors, boring but effective. Or should I say that the other way 'round?

Even the photographer must have had some input about lighting, color and placing the highlights, dropoff, everything. The photography merges the layers with even lighting so you can put a real Cello up there and "suspend disbelief" when the camera flattens the assemblage. I think I could pull it off for under $2,500. If I were a student, my labor would be class/grade driven and I could probably drum up a garage in which to shoot it, maybe having to pay a studio for a cast-off seamless. Or I could build a real cove. Then turn it into a skateboard ramp when I am done.

Putting a little distance between the creative burst and the execution allows the idea to gestate a little before you get into logistics. Creative execution is necessary too, but the difficulty shouldn't stem the creative tide before it has time to crest.

The single bright light of creativity

While browsing my email, I opened an update from fontbureau®. A news bit caught my attention.

I quote, "Cyrus Highsmith’s Eleventh Digit

No, Cyrus Highsmith doesn’t have an extra finger (although that might explain his prodigious output!). “The Eleventh Digit” is the title of a workshop Highsmith presented in Guadalajara, Mexico, in October. “The idea was to invent a new number that appears compatible with the others but cannot be confused with any other character. It gets the students thinking about the structures of glyphs, the role of handwriting in their evolution, and the design of a glyph as separate from its structure. It’s pretty fun.”
http://type101.fontbureau.com/ archives/114

Side note: Highsmith's font "Escrow" has absolutely gorgeous numerals.

While in school, during a creative problem solving session, our professor, Victor Papanak (google him) gave us a challenge. Gaining weight was an issue in 1970 too and we were to come up with as many ideas as possible to solve society's problem. The two that stuck with me were: letting wild (preferably man-eating) animals roam the streets; the other was four-foot high curbs.

While there were many in-between, (and yes, we did think of and discard potato chips that gave you diarrhea, and now we have Olestra®) we held on to a few of the most far-fetched ideas to help create a spectrum. It kept bringing us back to possibilities that really, were simply impractical but would work.

The more good, or at least, in my judgment, effective, design I see, I also see the free-for-all thinking that is necessary to get out of the obvious solutions and into creative outer space.

NOTCOT—a model for success

http://www.notcot.com/, a site dedicated to perpetuating creative thought via design references is a great source for what's what on the hipness front. In a universe of great ideas/less-great execution, it is a successful example of serious collaboration. So many sites are built on the foundation of an untested idea and someone who can get stuff up on a website.

Read NOTCOT's background and you get a feel for the level of dedication it takes to build, grow and maintain a spark of creativity. The marketing model is basic—anyone could do it. The success is the team behind it and their constant attention to detail and their adherence to their mission.

The answer to the question, "What has this to do with tips and tricks in the marketplace?" is, if you want a full-time salary plus profit from a web endeavor, be prepared to work as hard as this group has. There are no concepts on the web that simply go viral with no effort.