if this telling of it is any indication, publishers simply don’t have much of a strategy and are publishing everywhere, not addressing the problems of their core business model, and refusing to make decisions. there’s a deep undercurrent in this piece of “we were lied to,” which indicates that publishers are waiting for someone to show them what to do. won’t work.

photo by flickr member dullhunk.

I’ve been, like, sitting around for days now trying to figure out if I have anything to say about Paula Scher freaking the fuck out on Imprint a couple of weeks ago.

I love it when Paula flips out in public. She’s one of the fiercest proponents of design’s necessary balance between service and artistry, and does a really good job defending that position. But this freakout seemed more reactionary.

Paula didn’t read Justified’s submissions criteria very throughly. That’s clear. She decided early on in her interpretation that because AIGA is now asking designers to point to ways they think their work’s effective, that effectiveness will be the only criteria for judging. That’s never said anywhere in AIGA’s admissions request. continued

cheryl bowles in the chicago tribune's features department, from trib social media manager amy guth.

The web as a disruptor of commerce has been a really curious thing. On the one hand, it’s been a huge boon to industries which rely on a promise of high sensory input after a sale. Things the purchaser can envision, and really really want, are easy to sell.

Porn was one of the web’s early adopters for just that reason, and its commerce engines pre-dated banks. In 1997, I wrote a comparison between Chisel’s purchasing methods with Visa’s (which were, at that point, nonexistent). Chisel (it’s out of business, stop Googling, you pervs) looked a lot like some of the purchase forms we see today, but with a bonus: a recurring purchase you’d be too embarrassed to cancel by phone. All in good fun!

The entire Chicago restaurant market seems to practically live on Twitter, Facebook, and their blogs, endlessly congratulating each other on every successful plating, and basically advertising in small text-based bursts on a 24-hour basis from our star-studded community of chefs. Sales? Plenty enough that they’re willing to throw money into monthly publishing and social media budgets. continued

u.s. soldiers touring an army research laboratory, from flickr member RDECOM.

Since the last post a couple weeks ago, I’ve been stewing over what exactly I think is missing from a design curriculum which would adequately prepare young’uns for a new career. More importantly, I’ve been looking at other trades to figure out why the discrepancy between our training and trade exists.

Lawyers, it turns out, have the same problems we do; law schools, like design schools, are terrified of being perceived as trades which can be learned through experience rather than professions requiring university-level training. That’s a reasonable fear, as both situations are actually true. It’s technically possible to pass the Bar exam without a degree in law. It’s really hard, but it’s possible. Likewise, in visual design, we have practitioners who piss everyone else off by effortlessly sweeping aside everything we’ve collectively learned to redefine what it means to communicate professionally—without a college education. continued

designers makin' bank at a renegade craft fair booth.

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times the other day; you toddle along and pretend to read it and I’ll wait here for you. continued

image: flickr member anonymous9000

Watts Martin explains what gets him twitching about #protest #hashtags on Twitter, and I would actually expand that to surround my own reasoning for not wanting anything to do with the Occupy protests: they are often used and performed from a point of total naiveté. continued

Visual communication is one of a few canaries in the coal mine of social change, but I’ve never been one to believe that it brings about social change. But having watched the Arab Spring and Occupy protests spring up around the planet, I begin to wonder how cut-and-dried that thought is. continued

I am just sick to my teeth of client work. I’m not even sure any more if it’s the right way to work any more. A couple of things have led me to that. continued

So I had a bit of a think about last Friday’s entry, in which I asserting that your best plan of self-promotion is to own your identity and presentation rather than joining a portfolio service. I should probably clarify why. continued

So, a couple of unrelated conversations—one with a client, one with a friend—got me to thinking about how designers are being more or less corralled into pens to display and move their work around the web.

There are several places designers are usually encouraged to display their work—sites like Bēhance, Coroflot and Dexigner, all easy-to-use, requiring no detailed technical knowledge to host a portfolio, all with a pretty robust set of social tools surrounding the artist.

That seems great upon first look. But the reality of the net is that it’s a brand game. continued