How to design for $149

Yes–you too can learn how to design for just the measly price of $149. Because hey – everyone can be a designer, it doesn’t really take much to do it–right? All you need is a computer and this seminar.

Recently, I received a notice to attend a seminar on design. Usually, I’m very excited about new opportunities to expand my education and learn what ever I can or frankly, just be wowed and inspired by others in the industry and to push myself further. However, this seminar notice that I received, really just ticked me off. It’s a one day seminar that promises to teach you all the secrets of becoming a designer including working with printing vendors all for the low, low price of $149. Now, being a designer with 13 years of experience, a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Northern Iowa as well as being the president of AIGA South Dakota a national organization and one of the oldest professional organizations for design in the country – I’ve learned a little on the way and feel pretty passionately about what I do for a living. I was about to toss this little mailer into the recycle bin and it hit me hard. Darn it – I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today and this seminar promises to make others what I am today in just one day. This compromises the very basic nature of my livelihood. Why should a busines owner seek someone like me or my agency, BKG out over the general person that has a program like Publisher and thinks they can do layout because they’ve taken a one-day seminar? Why – because, this field isn’t something that can be taught in one-day. Design is more than just making things look pretty. It combines economics and strategy and in the end impacts the very way we as consumers act, think and feel. Great design and great business strategy gives your business the competitive edge. So, next time you’re thinking that you need to hire a designer, think twice about their skill set, there just isn’t a 10 step process to making your next brochure, it takes innovation, strategy and creativity.

Bat Boy, an obituary

Prophesize the ruin of the blessed Wall Street Journal under Rupert Murdoch, if you want. I write this obituary to mark the passing of a cult-rated standard of true brand-genius: Weekly World News, “The World's Only Reliable Newspaper,” will depart the sphere of dead-tree media with its 27 August issue. Saggy circulation (the tabloid’s, not mine) has killed my career-dream of writing truly ridiculous bullshit for its own sake.

For 28 years, this absurd little chronicle has delivered Nothing But the Truth on the world’s fattest alien babies, wicked deeds of dead celebrities, and Saddam Hussein’s secret heartbreak. But the discovery and continuing exploits of a particular animal-human amalgam gave this grocery store tabloid its most brilliant headlines and best-selling covers. And when WWN editor Dick Kulpa hit us with the chiropteran child named Bat Boy, a pop-idol of a different face entered our shared consciousness.

Bat Boy Bites Santa Claus! Bat Boy Leads Cops on Three State Chase! Bat Boy Endorses Gore! (And after graduating from a small liberal arts college in upstate New York,) Bat Boy Announces Run for California Governorship!

America’s Favorite Hybrid was everywhere. In an acclaimed off-Broadway musical. On stage in London’s West End. In a weekly cartoon detailing the life and times of the fanged grotesque after he resigned from the office of President of the United States (I’m not touching this one!). And, my fav-o, on the big screen in Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys.

“Elusive and reclusive, where he will pop up next is anybody's guess.” Don’t worry, American Media tells us, you can still read all about Bat Boy on-line! He Lives!

But those hours in the grocery store queue just won't be the same.

The Torment of Perfection

More on the subject of creativity, its value and its mystery — which, when it comes to copywriting, could be no mystery at all. Clarity is the game, according to British copywriter Bill Hilton. The assignment is to communicate, and that takes discipline, rigor and practice.

On the other hand, as Hilton's excellent insight reveals, there's a paradox in suggesting that clarity in writing is purely mechanical:

"Copywriting – all writing, in fact – is the only skill that gets harder the better at it you become. Forget recognition and paying work. The day you’ve become a writer is the day you find yourself staring at a ten-word sentence for over an hour, fretting about whether it’s as precise and elegant as it could be."

So clarity does more than simply communicate. At best, it brings beauty to light.

It is the primary means by which William Carlos Williams astonishes in this example I love, Pastoral (1917), after the jump:

The little sparrows
hop ingenuously
about the pavement
quarreling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest them.
But we who are wiseer
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.

                Meanwhile,
the old man who goes about
gathering dog-lime
walks in the gutter
without looking up
and his tread
is more majestic than
that of the Episcopal minister
approaching the pulpit
of a Sunday.
            These things
astonish me beyond words.

It's All A Mystery

"I don't know where the sun beams end and the star
Lights begin it's all a mystery."

Thank you, Flaming Lips, for reminding me that the magic in life, and yes, in this business, is something a lot of us may never understand.

Couple days ago I was listening to "Fight Test," the opening track from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and this lyric just blew me away. Go back and read it -- or buy the album -- and think about it.

So this post is dedicated to my friends here, here, here and here who spend a lot of their time somewhere between sun beams and starlight.

Despite all the process, spread sheets, time lines and meetings, we can't always know where the magic comes from, we can't always control it. Which is why it's so precious.

Just as beautiful, by the way, is the second half of the chorus:

"And I don't know how a man decides what right for his
Own life - it's all a mystery."

Do you agree?