JabberWocky!

We’ve probably all heard of a city by the sea and indeed it has probably been the dream for many of us to live in one of these beautiful little cities and absorb the atmosphere that they have to offer but how many of us has ever given thought to living in a city On the sea?

As many of you probably know Dubai is in the midst of building Island Cities even as we speak. With these self sufficient cities we will never have to worry about running out of room on land to build on.

Now on the drawing board, so to speak, there is an architectural concept of a “Lilypad” floating city that takes advantages of today’s “green” technologies. Power would be generated from the sun, wind and water and the “Lilypad” would produce zero emissions from it’s residents.

The “Lilypad” is not under construction now or even planned to be under construction anytime soon, but it has been said that since Dubai has its “Island Cities”, real estate just many start branching out into the oceans as soon as the next decade!

“Lilypad” Floating City

That’s all for me today, hope to see you back here again soon for some more…

If you are interested in learning Photoshop then check out video sites like YouTube and MetaCafe. They offer video tutorials on Photoshop basics, photo effects, layers, photo retouching, tips and tricks, Web Design and much more where you will be able to see the techniques actually being done which is great for learning quickly and for dummies like me where you actually need to see something in order for it to make sense!

Use YouTube to Learn Photoshop

That’s all for me today! See you back again tomorrow for more…

3,000 rooms of hideously ugly. It’s the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea, where the world’s 22nd largest skyscraper, (105 stories), has been vacant for two decades and is is thought that it is likely to stay that way … forever!

It is so bad that the Communist regime usually covers it up by airbrushing it to make it appear open or cropping it out completely.

Architects started building it in 1987. North Korea has poured more than 2% of its gross domestic product building it and 21 years later it is still unfinished & unoccupied.

A bootleg video of the tower was made by a very brave videographer that somehow escaped without being arrested…or worse! That in itself remains a mystery!

Ryugyong Hotel, North Korea Pyongyang

Maybe if it were not in North Korea it might, no matter how ugly, stand a chance but since travel to North Korea is limited, to say the least, who can go there to stay in it even if they wanted to?

I guess it may stand a chance…someday, after all the Eiffel Tower was once viewed as one of the ugliest structure ever built and it’s been around 109 years and loved by millions…I guess sometimes they just have to grow on you don’t they?

That’s all for me today! Hope to see you back again tomorrow for more…

Not exactly true, but I’ll explain. In my opinion, a formal design degree however isn’t required. I think a good education is important, but the subject of this education isn’t as important to me as it is to most. To me, it’s important to get an education because it teaches a person how to learn. Knowing how to learn is important in any profession.  The design field is continually changing though, making this aspect more important that some other fields.

While I don’t think a design degree is required however, I do think studying some aspect of art is a good idea. While a lot of design and art talent is innate, there are a lot to be learned as well. Software, hardware, and various tricks and techniques of the trade. This training is necessary before you can really be a fully functional designer. Learn it in school, learn it at home, or learn it in some for of internship, but it must be learned.

So is a degree required? No, definitely not. There are a host of professional designers with little in the way of design school. Make no mistake though, they are often well educated. Education doesn’t end with school, prepare yourself for a lifetime of learning. There are always new things to learn in design, and the best thing you can be taught, is how to learn.

This post falls into the better late than never category. This was supposed to be another of my weekly posts on Art and Design. Rather than missing this post altogether, I thought I’d try to salvage something here. Time. More specifically, time management, is a huge part of the business of design. Take today for example. My regularly scheduled posts for both here and my own site got pushed aside because of work deadlines. They were innocent victims of time management. So go take a look at a few sites that do have new content. This is a few sites from my personal list of favorites that I call The Creative. Go take a look at my sidebar for the full list.

• 456 Berea Street
• A List Apart
• A Word In Your Ear
• adaptive path
• Andy Budd::Blogography
• ARCHE BLogGER
• Baekdal
• Brisbane Creative
• CascadeExposures
• College of Visual Arts
• ConverStations
• Craig Photography
• creativebits
• David Airey
• Derek Powazek
• Design View
• DesignNotes
• E is for Erik
• E.Webscapes Blog Design Studio
• Fine Art Photography
• Fresh Squeezed Droplets
• freshly{blended}
• frogblog / frog design
• gapingvoid
• Jarrett Fuller
• Jessica Claire Photography
• John Cox Art

Until I have more time…

HDW

Asking questions is very underrated. How are you supposed to learn anything if you don’t ask? How would anyone know that the answer to the Ultimate Question is 42 if nobody had dared to ask? Of course we still don’t know what the Ultimate Question is, but that’s just because the people asking the question were interrupted before they answered.

What does this have to do with art and design? Maybe nothing, but everything about becoming a designer, and being a designer. While a lot of designers go to school, a lot of them don’t. They find the people who have the knowledge they want, and they ask. At first, they ask the wrong questions, and probably the wrong people. Over time though, they learn what, and who, to ask. And they learn.

Once they’ve started working, then the real questioning starts. I spend hours a day talking to people, and asking them questions. Defining what it is that they want, so that I can do my job. It often takes more time, sometimes significantly more time to define a project than it does to actually do the work. Most people think a designer sits alone in the dark with a computer, and sometimes that is the case. We are also though, the people who have to talk to everyone, to ask the questions that define a project. Our work is defined by the questions we ask of our clients.

Asking questions is the key to learning. Sometimes you have to work to find the right authority to ask, sometimes to find the right question to ask. Your task for today, is to go out and find the answer to something you’ve always wanted to know. It can be silly, or irrelevant, but figure out who you need to ask, whoever that person is… and ask. Good luck.

HDW

A while back I touched on the subject of design resources, and now I’d like to expand on that a bit. There are an incredible number of tools and resources available to a designer these days. Everyone and their brother seems to have something to offer. Which tools do you use? That’s a difficult question, much more so than it might appear.

The trick is to know what you need. Not which software package or online resource, but what final product you’re trying to produce. Maybe you know what this final product should be, and how to produce it. Congratulations then, you’re well on your way. If you don’t however, it can be a daunting task. I’d suggest working backward. Start with the final product. Define that as much as you can. Set up a series of specifications that this product has to meet. If your product is produced with the services of some outside agency, get their specifications as soon as possible. That’s you starting point. If you don’t use anyone else, you’ll need to create these specifications yourself. Think about the project, and start narrowing your focus.

• Do you need to work in CMYK, RGB, or some other color mode?
• Do you need the ability to print separations?
• Do you need extremely sharp detail?
• Single or multiple page documents?
• Small documents, or hundreds of pages?
• One photo in a document, or hundreds?, thousands?
• Update old project files often, rarely, or never?
• Is each project unique, or do they share similar or identical themes or graphics?
• Are you going to work alone, with a few others, or with a large group?
• Is your entire project in-house, or are you outsourcing some parts of it?
• Vector or raster graphics?

Once you have a final product or products defined, you can start to narrow down you prospective list. Does the project you intend to work on require vector graphics, or are raster graphics the better solution? Sometimes the answer is both, and that has to be taken into account too. Some design software uses one, and some the other, but it often requires a design suite to use both with any fluency.

Efficiency is a factor that is often overlooked in this quest for the right design package. One product might be able to do a given task, but another can do the same task in a fraction of the time. Again, the answer is to look at the final product you want to produce. If you’re going to do a lot with raster graphics, getting design software that is strong in that area is important. If you’re going to do very little with raster graphics, then a token bit of software that gives you minimal raster ability may be all you need.

The correct tool for the job is one you can easily use. Don’t get a tool just because you want it, but don’t skimp on the ones you need either. One rule I live by I call “The first rule of carpentry”. It goes If at first you don’t succeed, get a bigger hammer“. While a bigger hammer isn’t always the right solution, having the right tool is. Maybe your software “hammer” needs to be big, maybe small, but either way, take the time to make sure it’s the right hammer for the job.

More I’ve written on this subject:

• Designer, Know Thy Tools.
• The first rule of carpentry

For a number of years I’ve watched a trend towards informality in my field. A trend towards a much less professional appearance in designers and other computer professionals. While there is nothing wrong with wearing jeans to work. At some point though, you need to draw a line. What’s professional, and what isn’t? Where do you draw the line? Jeans to work is OK, but pajamas and bunny slippers are bad?

You also have to take into account your clients. Everybody in your office knows how good you are at your job, but does the client? If their first impression of you is in bunny slippers, are they going to treat you like the professional you are? It’s not good enough that you think you are a professional. Your client needs to think you are a professional. You need to be the professional that your client wants to see.

There’s always room for personal style, especially with designers. We’re expected to be at least a little eccentric. That doesn’t necessarily mean casual though, and it definitely doesn’t mean sloppy. How a person dresses makes a statement about how much they respect them self, and their profession. If you don’t seem to respect yourself, or your profession, how’s a client supposed to?

What’s the alternative? The alternative is being a good designer who takes their job seriously, but loses clients, because the client doesn’t share this opinion.

At least they should be. Everyone who works in the design field should be critical of their own work. Not in a negative way, but honest, constructive criticism. I’m personally my own worst critic. I always see things that I can improve. I don’t let it take away from my successes, but I always try to see things that I could do better. As you will have noticed on my own site, I try to review the work of others to help refine my critical eye. By reviewing other designs, I improve my ability to break down my own work, and to improve it.

Take a look at your work. What do you like, what don’t you. Break it down into manageable pieces that can addressed separately. How’s the color work, the layout? Don’t just think in terms of your preferences, but in other ways too.

• Did the client like it?
• Did the audience like it?
• Did it work?
• Did it fit the context that it was used in?
• What would I improve?
• What should I keep for next time?

When a project is wildly successful you should still be able to see thing that you could improve upon. Even when a project is a spectacular failure (it happens) you should be able to see things you did right.  Make note of these things. They are what  will make you a better designer.

Look at the work of others, both the good and the bad. Look for the reason why. Why does it work, or why didn’t it? How would you do it differently?

Not every designer is a critic, but they should be. They should be their own worst critic, and their own biggest asset. They should be able to take an honest look at their own work, and use it to make themselves better.

Is your design safe, or are you pushing boundaries? Do you use what you know, or do you always push to learn new and better techniques? There are two schools of thought on this subject, and they’re both wrong.

School one plays it safe. If something works once, never change it. While I can see their point, this removes all changes for improvement and innovation. A design business based on this principle will eventually stagnate and die.

School two goes to the other extreme. Anything new is embraced 100%. If you can use a new technology, you must use a new technology. Not just a little either, all projects must use it as much as possible. This philosophy too is flawed. Pushing technology that is too new causes technical issues which must constantly be fixed. It’s labor intensive, and expensive. There is a problem with the design work produced by this school too. While often on the cutting edge, it tends to be short lived. Fads don’t have long term viability, that’s why they’re fads.

The real solution here, as you probably guessed, is somewhere in the middle. You need to learn and grow, try new things. You will of course fail from time to time, but there’s nothing wrong with that. You need to learn when to push the boundaries, and when not to. When some new technology comes out, take your time to learn it properly, and add it to the skill set. Some projects need new and innovative solutions, this is when you pull out that new technique that you’re learning. After you’ve used that technique a few times, see what you think. Should it be added your bag of tricks permanently, or chuck in the trash where it belongs?

So, when it comes to your design, do you play it safe? There are two schools of thought on this subject, and they’re both right.

Until next time,
HDW