What the credit crunch means for designers..... ?*

About now you are starting to realise that the credit crunch is going to effect more than just bankers. Yep, unfortunately the greed of a few, as history dictates, effects the majority. This case being no exception - we designers can not hide behind our pretty little pictures. This is a steam train heading towards us. And yet unknowingly and more so ignorately we continued on merry little ways for so long, only ever too happy to knock the ways of the top, as long as the conversation did not expose us to the truths of a system where our gain was due to this few. We will now happily point the finger while we sit back and watch our annual budgets slowly dry in the economic wind, for as designers we are powerless to stop them, for even billion dollar bail outs are sucked into this void.

With a little hope few of us will survive. Fright or flight mechanisms will kick in, the tough will get going, and the those do this for the love will see out the cold winter, even if it mean that their salary has to be supplemented with the horrid and unthinkable work to that of the underpaid, under-skilled and under-noticed barkeep. Those who do this for money will find themselves in a much deeper predicament. One where no amount of bdm's can save the day. Business will sit of the line of red and black, waiting for that last client to pull there savings for self preservation in the impending drought, and they will be maid to decide on the worthiness of key staff that where productivity has no value, until that question hangs above themselves.

Wow, I did not know I could write so darkly. I apologise for providing such a grim outlook, I was attempting to sound poetic.

In the short of it, I believe this recession will last about 2years before we see it start to turn and warm up. In the mean time, a lot of the new start out businesses (4 out of 5 fail – to no fault of our own) that provide design studios with a decent cash flow will not get the capital needed to get off the ground unless they are actually offering a product worthy of investing in.

Other smaller fully operating businesses will continue as normal, tightening luxurious budgets such as design on marketing collateral, ephemera, annual reports and the like.

Firms with a decent kitty and savy marketing managers will need to justify budget decisions with hard tangible data, and hence will move more traditional print spends into the digital trackable world of web. Design firms will need to sure up there web abilities, (which they should have moved towards years ago), and be able to offer all of the emerging internet technologies so as to gain access to a larger customer base. If a company can do this they will find themselves cruising.

If there was substantial growth in the past few years there maybe a bit of trimming come this winter drought but as an individual if you have hit targets and solidified yourself as a main production engine with your firm you should fine.

As a freelancer you should be persuing every available option, and with any time off, working on perfecting the be all folio, and increasing your skill set will hopefully ensure little time off.

You never know that bar job could be just what you need to find a little lost passion. Good luck.

Wasssssup!!! for Obama

These are the guys from the Bud wassup commercial that received some solid recognition within the ad world. This piece is equally as funny, but resonates as a more potent communication piece for it is javascript:void(0)not pushing an everyday product.

Directed by Charles Stone III, one needs to consider the production value of this piece, and where the funds may have come from. Obama - doubt it. Budweiser - interesting?

v v cool. modern grassroots activism.

I truly feel that this encapsulates the essence of the modern day energy towards political change. No poster or song alone, even when if good as they could possibily be, could never match the emotional power one feels from an audio visual piece such as this. Simply mix with the viral power of Youtube and Facebook and there grass roots communication that no 72 year old could ever dream possible.

How could OBAMA lose with designs like these?

the US presidential nominees on the Environment.

Been a bit slack lately. Putting together my new folio, and focusing much of my procrastination on worrying on the us elections. Here are the two candidates on energy and the environment. One references nuclear power with personal experience. Hmmmm - interesting. The other seems exceptionally knowledgeable on the matter. I wander who the world is hoping for?

interesting imagery.

the best stats you will ever see

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

why we should all take drugs.

http://www.imetthewalrus.com/

from the man himself.

hmmmm?????

bp3.blogger.com/_aU06Cz57694/Rko7MpZpCCI/AAAAAAAAAOM/-iC6wCPDu-0/s1600/Save-Humans.gif

Truth.

by Frank Chimero.

Why do we do anything we do?

Designer Environmentalism

An elephant in the corner of the studio you say? Never*. Why is it that all studios self promotional rhetoric, involves hearty phrases like positive persuasion and altering attitudinal change, but when it comes to the largest crisis facing humanity, the industry suffers from heaving lethargic fits of nothingness?

Is it because the thought of a green graphic designer conjures the terms oxymoron, hypocrite and contradiction? How can the same person creating high street logos for mass consumerism simultaneously believe in joining the fight to save the planet? Because there is no option - this is the most severe threat to humanity and biodiversity the world has every seen. Any body operating within the content creation practices such as us designers, have a key role in increasing momentum and disseminating knowledge about environmental awareness. Understandable it is very difficult for us who are directly involved in the promotion of increased business activity and indirectly environmental degradation to see a possible role to play especially when considering the added environmental lethargy one may feel as the worlds four largest emitters China, India, Russia and the US are yet to take to cohesive action. But if every single one of us in the educated part of the western world works to educate all everybody else, we will slowly and surely start to see positive change.

There are many little things one can do to play a positive role in saving the planet. Like doing heavily discounted / free work for those do-gooder charities we admire so much (publiczone.co.uk, oblong.com.au, and of course inkahootz.com.au are a few examples of designers doing good). Using personal work as a way to promote positive change within the environment. Being a martyr for your cause; such as refusing to work for or on a project due to the environmental damage it may do - e.g a flyer for the coal industry. Understanding, when creating packaging that less in actually more (just look in your bin - so much wasted crap).
Then there are the obvious things such as limiting the amount of proofs one prints. Turning off machines at night. Ordering your boss a get your studio a recycle bin. Even choosing to opt out of getting another LCD monitor you don't really need (the production of lcd screens let off harmful pollutants that are having a dramatic effect of the ozone). Recycling those harmful little ink capsules from the printer. Convincing clients that they do not need a print run of 5000 to save save on unit cost. Using highest end of Post Consumer Waste stock. Perhaps considering an online DM campaign instead of a print run all together.

One of the big things we little graphic designers have up our sleeves is that we are directly involved in the development stage of any new product or service. It is here that there maybe the faintest of opportunities to influence a new business model towards having a greener tinge. Obviously the larger and older the organisation the smaller the probability of anybody taking note of anything you say beyond your specialised design prowess. I don't think Dell's Chief UK Marketing Exec would have liked to have heard my thoughts on their distribution chain model and how its currently effecting the habitat loss of polar bears, however enjoyable it would have been to see his reaction. If you are thinking of influencing your clients decisions (and why wouldn't you?), firstly make sure you know what you are talking about, or at least make sure you seem like you know what you are talking about (Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers and George Monbiot Manifesto For a New World Order will help).... Secondly, have a stock pile of light-blinding green business case-studies at the ready (Innocent Fruit Smoothies are awesome). Any hard nosed business manager is going to need a some serious coercing with a few cold hard facts. And if this if none of this works, go to 'plan D'- do up a poster of a few crying polar bear cubs with the copy 'going going gone' and send it too there kids.

Go get them!

cool green design

Here is a bunch of very interesting green com's I stole from varying sources of the www. I apologise to anyone if its your work. But then its advertising, and you are meant to be the anonymous creator - lets face it you are no artist.

social design - it is possible.

surfing is all about the sets 'd-u-de'.

Some of the best sites for staying in the know I know.


http://ffffound.com/
- pure images. constantly updated for all those extra long lonely lunch breaks

http://design.alltop.com/
- an aggregate site of all different blogs. this is the design section but just look back at alltop.com - awesome. this design section is so big you won't be coming back to my blog.

http://popurls.com/
- another aggregate site, but of all the big ones. it simply takes an rss feed from the latest and most popular articles. you will know everything about everything. dinner party silences no more!



go forth get lost!!! (and learn*)

Bless those Oxfamites

Oxfam full stop. (why arn't the charities in OZ producing the same standard of work?)

Beyond the 'D'

Design is Adobe. For the rest of your life you will be sitting in front of a computer, putting together other peoples dirty work with other peoples dirty work. The problem is that all this dirty work is so incredibly clean. Once upon a time you worked in a busy little place called a studio - a magical fun place where you could make all the mess you ever wanted. But with every impatiently waited astronomical techmogaget jump we delve deeper into the realm of being a glorified office worker. You might not have to wear a suit, or even a collar, but like every body else you are shackled to your desk bounded by the strongest of all human made substances, time.

Alas, a new breed of designer is emerging from the crevices where once magnificent studios were plastered over, bringing with them a new hand crafted aesthetic that does not happen in an office. William Morris eat your heart out. This stuff goes beyond the dimensions of clean Adobe created trends of vector or grunge, and actually involves the most gutsy of tools - a steady hand, one false move and you are starting again where no 'ctrl z' will save the day. Illustration, amateur photography, collage and sculpture are all areas within the visual realm making a comeback in a big way.
Art directors everywhere are leaving their desks and looking beyond Adobe for different tools for solving design problems.

Unfortunately for many, unless you can convince your boss that handicraft exploration is required for the betterment of human kind, or the budget is large enough to cover your mess, there is little chance that you are going to be given anytime to explore yet alone master this forgotten realm (tell them to look at the latest orange or nokia campaigns - uk). So like all great things of the design world, its going to be up to you and your own time, but at least its away from the computer and those darn stock libraries.

- all you have to do is think about it.


www.monaux.com
www.chrissiemacdonald.co.uk
www.siscottstudio.com
www.psyop.tv/main.php

"Bomp" "Bomp" "Bomp" "Bomp" "Bomp" "Bomp"

Brillance! Lets all take note - this is how to make saving the planet cool. Go Oxfam!

created by www.goodbysilverstein.com/main_site/main.html

clap clap clap.

Good oil addiction

A great animation on the state of oil usage and the general state of the world from goodmagazine.com. Sure the same old rhetoric but its animated god damn it. For those of you who didnt know animation = cool. P.S starts well but loses punch towards the end.

The new facebook has stepped into the past.

The old facebook design was the wheel. Why try and reinvent it. Because unfortunately our society tells us that everything will oneday be obsolete, and hence can be improved upon. This has obviously not been the case with the new facebook. Thank god (through some miracle) the same stylistcally inept people who approved the new design had some common sense not to put it online one morning with out warning, instead opting for a secondary url for where ones account could be accessed. Had they not surely it would have provided the largest ever case study as to how design directly influenced the complete inhilation of one of the webs greatest success stories (surely much to the delight of the fading myspace fanclub).

In the beginning there was ...

Click and sniff to start. I have decided that I cannot hold back any longer. It is time that I told you all what there is to know about what from the perspective of the buf.