davidthedesigner

this made me smile #64

this made me smile #63

Double (or should it be triple?) take.

this made me smile #62

THE BROKERS WITH HANDS ON THEIR FACES BLOG.

(via I can't remember where. Sorry.)

it's a new day. and i'm feelin' good.

david = loser

this made me smile #61

Exsistentialism, obviously.

succinct and to the point

this week, i have mostly been...

...appreciating pantones 304 to 309 (coated, of course).

it's liza with a zee

Do you have a design dilemma?

If so, you have two choices (or so it seems to me): either you can ask Ben to ask Matt Dent; or you can write to Liza. She's always full of sound advice to the creatively challenged among us. Take Star Designer from Milano, for instance:
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Dear LoveLiza,

I am 43 years old and a very talented designer, my whole family gives me tremendous support and are great admirers of my design work. This gives me the push to send my work every year to national and international competitions, but I never win, why is it that none of the judges see my talent?

Star Designer, Milano
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Dear Mr. Talent,

Why don’t you try getting your mother to be part of the jury, she seems to have the talent of being very convincing. Has she ever considered talent spotting as a profession?

LoveLiza
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Or Trendy from Amsterdam:
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Dear LoveLiza,

I am the 30plus type, hip and trendy graphic designer from Amsterdam. I have designed several typefaces of which some have been published. As of late I seem to encounter a lot of problems with legibility. Everybody presented with my typeface designs complains that they cannot read them. Of course I could change it and make my designs more accessible for the greater public, but I do not want to loose my reputation as a hip and trendy designer. Should I just ignore the criticism?

Trendy, Amsterdam
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Dear 30plus,

May I remind you that illegible typography was hip and trendy 15 years ago.

LoveLiza
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Go on, drop her a line. She'd love to hear from you.

profundity don't come for free

On the one hand, it's good to be back. On the other, though, it's a struggle. Two weeks with what passes as my brain being in neutral (at least as far as blogging goes) and I'm finding the process of turning random thoughts into meaningful words has all but deserted me.

Kevin (one of my guest bloggers this past two weeks) emailed me some very nice words about his experience '...for me there is this mental block that fluctuates between "blogging is annoying" and "blogging is easy," if that makes any sense. So, to see you blogging day in, day out, no matter your mood, the weather, or outside time constraints, is very impressive. And it appears you still have a lot of fun with it so it doesn't seem that you ever think of it as a job.'

Well, that's true: it's not a job, simply because it doesn't earn me any money. But it is a very important part of who I am as a designer (as opposed to what I do as a designer). I had a discussion with a good friend a while back about why I did it, and what I could do to start generating some income. And she said that I needed to direct it to potential clients: to start writing the things that they want to read about. But that's really not the point, is it? (At least for me it's not.)

Because the reason I do it is to connect with the wider world around me (albeit - maybe - the design world). And that's demonstrated by the team who very kindly stepped in to take over this blog when I was supposedly away. Look: New York, Arnhem and Edinburgh. That's an international mix that's been made possible simply through these daily noodlings in my little corner of the WWW thingy.

And I wanted to say something profound about that, but the words won't come. Because I was reminded about that bigger world that we belong to by two very disparate things.

This is Michael Rosen (and I've written about him before). I came across this lovely observation from Michael on The Guardian website. And that's what it appears to be, doesn't it? Just an observation. But actually it's a poem: and that was brought home to me when I recounted to my wife what Michael was saying. Because my explanation was at least five times as long as that poem. Watch it a second time, and you'll soon appreciate that there's not one single spare word. Clever, that.

But back to the message: and here's another thing.

Shipping containers. They're changing the world around us: as explained on this little BBC video report.

The Box is an ambitious and unique year-long project for BBC News to tell the story of international trade and globalisation by tracking a standard shipping container around the world (or so it says on their web link - you see, two weeks away and I'm reduced to cutting and pasting other people's words).

So there you have have it: david's 'thoughts for tuesday'. And, if you have been, thanks for reading.