JabberWocky!

I was at You Tube this week and discovered that you can send greeting cards now. This may be old news for some but very new for me. I don’t know if this service will be available in the future or if it’s only for the holidays.

When you send a video via a greeting card you can choose between a few wrappers, write a note with it and of course add your name to it so that the person knows who it came from, (always helps)!

Anyway, I sent 2 off this week, but before I did, I sent myself one just to see how it looks, after all, I don’t want to look too bad when I send something to someone!

As it turns out they are actually quite nice…good job You Tube!

For those of you that have been readers for a while, you will know that HDW has been doing our Friday posts on his series on Art and Design. But unfortunately you are going to have to be dealing with me yet again on Fridays for a couple of months. HDW is going to be very busy until then and his time is going to be very limited.

Although I know we are all going to miss him very much maybe we will be able to muddle through it together until he returns to his regular Friday postings.

With me you can expect my regular fun postings on Fridays to lead us into the week-ends, as goodness knows I would never attempt to fill in for him on Art and design!

So, that’s about all of the news that’s fit to print today for me! I hope you all have a great week-end and hope to see you back again on Monday for some 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

I’ve always been a fan of learning from the mistakes of others. In that light, here is Jakob Nielson’s list of the top ten mistakes in web design. Go check out the list, I’ll wait…

Cue annoying elevator music…

The list can be broken down into a couple of simple categories. “Poor site functionality”, “poor readability”, and “otherwise annoying the reader”. Here’s how that works. If the site doesn’t function correctly or as expected, the reader leaves, or worse, doesn’t find your site at all. If it’s difficult to read, because of small text, use of PDFs, or any other reason, the reader leaves. If you annoy the reader for these reasons, or any other, the reader leaves!

So think if these as the three commandments of web design, and you’ll stay away from these mistakes.

1. Thou shalt make the site function properly
2. Thou shalt make it easy to read
3. Thou shall not annoy thy reader

I see that two of the sites on my blogroll have taken a similar tack today. Go check out Baekdal and Thoughts on Design.

I think it is safe to say that we all know I am not Lois Lane…or even Brenda Star for that matter!! But sometimes something comes to our attention that is so obviously not as it should be that we have to stand up, take notice and report it to someone! Which is what has happened to me and that’s what I am doing!

Last week-end I was sent a funny e-mail from a relative of mine that had found an item on the Internet, thought of me and my sometimes strange sense of humor and sent it to me knowing I would find it funny and ironic.

It was pictures of a car that had rolled off of a pier in Ireland and into the water earlier this month, a crane truck was called to pull it out and lo and behold the crane fell into the water! Yet a second crane was called to pull the car and the first crane out of the water and That one fell into the drink!

The 2nd Questionable Crane

The first time, I glanced at it, knowing I would go back again a little later to get a better look at it and I did indeed think it was funny but something just didn’t look right, but it was early in the morning and I had just woke up and was reading my e-mails so I did not think much more about it. I promptly wrote a thank you note for sending it to me and went about my business of finishing my e-mails for the morning.

I later went back, a couple of times in fact, but could never put my finger on what seemed just not right about the pictures. Until! Monday.

Monday morning rolled around I wrote an e-mail to a friend or mine, HDW, The High Desert Wanderer, and told him I thought he would enjoy the photos and sent them to him.

He wrote back to me after looking at them and the only words on his e-mail to me were:

“Very funny, though the last one looks photoshopped”

I KNEW IT!! I knew then and there that the “something was not quite right” that I kept feeling about the photos, the last photo to be exact, was real!

I wrote back to him and ask him how he could tell but of course, him being the meanie that he is, would not tell me! Instead he gave me a made up “PhotoShop Quiz” about it, with tips and hints so that I could work it out myself!

A while later I was able to e-mail him again and tell him all of my findings to see if I was correct. He informed me that my findings were the same as his and what he had seen and thought also.

My findings were as follows:

1. The Small Boat in the background was in the first few images and then left but miraculously reappear in the final photo…not returning from a cruise, but rather in the exact same spot that it had been in, what must have been a few hours before!
2. The Cars. The last photo has the exact same cars in the exact same place as the first photos, which in itself is not unusual, BUT!! Upon looking at the natural progression of the photos more and more cars have come into the other photos and there are Many cars in the penultimate photo but a few short minutes later, which would have been the natural progression, all of the Many cars were gone and the original few were back in the picture!
3. The Spectators, virtually the same as the cars, more and more spectators and the last photo the exact same spectators in the exact same spot as in the 5th photo, including the man in the white t-shirt crouching over!
4. The green crane and the water splash is exactly the same as the orange crane and splash in the 4th photo!

I’m sure there are some other “give aways” but I think I have sufficiently made my point.

Now with HDW’s encouragement I am writing this post on what Some could consider a “Photo Hoax”!

Upon doing considerable research for this post, it appears that we were not the only ones taking an interest in these photos, especially the fake one at the end, that has undoubtedly been PhotoShopped or had some other type of image editing software used on it.

It seems to be the “talk of the town”, or at least the Internet!!

Many Websites are carrying the “real” photos snapped by Nicholas Griffin and the “fake” photo at the end Snopes.com seems to sum it up best for me with the “real” photos and the “fake” at the end if you care to take a look.

Notice how all of the photos are acknowledged as being taken by Nicholas Griffin? Except the last one of course!

The bad part about it is, that generally the “fakes” are usually created without the original photographers knowledge, thus leading people to believe that it is the photographer instead of someone else that is “doctoring” the photos. This could, of course, lead to the photographer getting a bad name in the business and thus affecting his/her business in a negative way!

So for all of you out there thinking of doing a little “doctoring” yourself with some photos that you have picked up from somewhere, I implore you to…think again and think what it might do to someone else’s career and would you want the same thing done to you and your possible livelihood?

Now there is the question of, is this photo really a “hoax”?

Well true enough, no one that I can see ever said; “this is real” or “this is really what happened” or “look at the funny thing that really happened the other day”. But on the other hand, no one bothered to say it was a “fake” either! The photo has just been added to the end of a series of photos with no explanation, but a “hoax” is said to be:

To trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

So is it really a “Hoax”? I think so and as you can see I am not alone!

To end this report there is still something Very Important that seems to be missing in ALL photo sequences, “real” or “fake”, on ALL of the Websites that I have seen…do you know what that is?

No one has ever shown the Orange Crane pulled out of the water successfully…I would have like to have seen that! So if anyone knows where I can catch a view of that photo please leave a comment and let me know where it can be found!!!

That’s all for me today and I would like to thank HDW, The High Desert Wanderer, very much for all of the research that he helped me with, our conversations about this subject, his “hints” & “tips” that he taught me on spying a “fake” and of course his encouragement and faith that he always seems to have in me, No Matter What!!

*Special Follow Up*

On a post that I did on September 21st about Good Old #756, the ball that Barry Bonds hit to break Hank Aaron’s Home Run Record.

All of the votes are in on whether to Bestow It, Brand It, or Banish It

And the winner is…

BRAND IT! (Permanently brand the ball with an asterisk before sending to Cooperstown).

Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow when HDW will be here posting his next in the series on Art and Design only at…