Tag Archives: Design

I just realized

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That the reason I can’t relate to most designers and design blogs is because their bios start something like “Graduated LI School of Design, 2008.”

That’s a design person who is so much younger than me, having graduated from UofI in 1995 (or 94, I can never remember), that we barely speak the same language.

That’s a design person who might just look at me funny when I do some quick thumbnails, by hand (yes, even with my arthritic fingers, sometimes you just have to put pencil to paper), before sitting down at my computer for research and beginning layout.

This is most definitely a person who has never done all of their research in a library without an electronic card catalogue and from books and magazines.

Some of their ideas are revolutionary, true. And I can admire their work and I often share their work.

But I don’t think we could ever go have a drink and a conversation about design or much else.

It’s official.

Credit: School Cipart

Credit: School Cipart

 

 

I want the young whipper-snappers off my lawn!

What I’ve Been Up To…Company Wise

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I have recently volunteered for Organization for Transformative Works.

The what now?

The Organization for Transformative Works.

It’s an organization formed for the protection, promotion and predilection of fan work.

Fanfiction, fan vids, Podfic, etc etc etc

I’ve been a fanfiction writer for years. Stargate. Buffy. Supernatural. Avengers. Sometimes all mixed together. Always with love. Usually slash. Sometimes het. Occasionally…undefined, really.

And so when I was looking for something to do last summer, after we got back from California, and I saw OTW was looking for graphic artists, I signed up. And got accepted while in Cali.

So I’ve been doing it for a few months. Myself and a few others do the graphics for their blog/Tumblr/LJ posts. Usually for OTW FanNews. I tend to Tweet and/or FB them when a graphic of mine goes up. I’ve got one due next Friday, in fact.

Other than that, the company chugs along. Just got a new assignment from a previous client that will keep be busy the next week or two. Plus OTW, plus, it looks  like, a writing gig.

Of course I also still write for JUMP! Magazine.

And, as always, I’m trying to redesign the DTAT website.

So I’m keeping busy.

Although I’ve got time, if anyone needs a Graphic Artist?

The Question That Was Too Geeky To Ask At The Time

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This past week I attended a session of the Anatomy of Design lecture series as produced by the Northern Ireland Design Alliance. It was a talk by Mike Reed of Reed Words titled: Giving Voice to Ideas.

Mike is what he calls ‘a creative writer for brands’. Or, to the rest of us, a copywriter.

It was a great talk about collaborating with designers in creating branding that includes words as well as some insight into the best way to choose words for design.

During the Q&A Mike was asked what he thought the difference was between the way words were used 10 years ago and now. His answer was that the biggest difference was that people were more aware of words impact now than they were then.

And the geekiest question in the world came into my head. I spent the rest of the Q&A agonizing over a) if I should ask it and b) how to ask it without looking like the biggest geek in the world.

In the end, I didn’t ask it. So I’m going to ask it here, where I can plan it and edit it, and maybe if I tag Mike in my Twitter of this post, he’ll answer.

In Robert Heinlein’s Future History Universe, in more than one story, word science is mentioned. PR companies and Advertisers have created a whole science around the impact of words, to the point that some words are consider too ‘loaded’ to be used. That their meaning and  context were much to manipulative.

Not necessarily words we think of as un-PC today, but other words that might have sub-meanings or context that can be upsetting. Or influential to buyers and the like.

I wondered if Mike thought we might be headed in that direction. Towards a science of the impact of words. Or if we already have it to some extent.

God I’m such a Geek.