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I’ve designed a ton of fonts. I’ve designed a ton of icons. I’ve designed only a few logos.

I always lump logos into the other categories, because I take the same approach to their crafting: get to the core of the symbol/s’ purpose and express it basicly, purely, and fundamentally. Then build on that solid core into something that resonates, based on feedback and outcomes.

The problem with logos is that, unlike those other categories, they demand an immediate connection to an extremely specific audience: namely, the client.

Who is the client? Good question. The client is not an anonymous user of creative output. The client is not a disconnected associate with little to go on when evaluating your work. The client is a stakeholder in your value as a professional creator. The client needs your work to “work,” because if it doesn’t, the client has problems that you’re responsible for.

And the client is always right. Which means you can’t expect them to see things the way you do. They’re paying money.

The client anticipates glitz and glamour out of the gate. They immediately compare raw sketches to a fully armoured cavalier, repleat with plate armor set in golden trim smelted with golden trim acquired from valorous raids. They want it to look Las Vegas.

This is how it goes whenever I take on a new logo project, which is why I get so stressed out whenever one lands on my doorstep. On the one hand, nothing makes me more satisfied as a graphic designer than to see my designs “in the wild;” i.e., actually used by the client and viewed by people I have never met. I see that as an enormous responsibility, that if fulfilled, validates my self confidence as a bonifide designer.

On the other hand, there have been so many cases where I’ve poured my heart and soul into something I know is perfect, only to find out that the client hates it, or worse, doesn’t even notice it before it’s even left the gate.

I guess all I can do is to try different approaches. I look at work done by insanely talented people and wonder how they evaded these trysts. I can only conclude that they didn’t evade them, but instead learned from them and evolved into producers of content that appeals to the public they’re trying to reach. That’s what I’m trying to do.

So psyched I won; I really busted my butt on these, and I’m glad it paid off. So happy to be involoved with such a cool project as WordPress:

http://wordpress.org/development/2008/11/the-results-of-project-icon/

This spring, I’ll be teaching my age-old 2D Graphics course. Every time I teach it, I spend waaaaay too much time wondering what I should include in the course content. I change it every year.

Adobe is the go-to graphics software company, and that hasn’t changed since they bought Macromedia long ago.

I started off in 2001 with one of the best books ever written on this stuff, Luann Seymour’s Design Essentials. 

Not sure what Luann is up to these days, but it isn’t, and hasn’t been for a long time, making awesome books. Unfortunately, the text stopped updating after a few years of said awesomeness, and as much as I’d like to keep assigning it, Adobe has moved on. Last spring, I assigned the closest thing I could find to Luann’s Masterpiece, and it fell waaayyy short. My course ratings dipped lower than ever.

So I’m back to my age-old question: What are 2D Graphics? How do I teach students about 2D Graphics? What book should I assign; or do I have to write my own book?

So I spent the night getting the basics down of wordpress theme customization and as I figured it is easy, but there were a few hurdles. It was definitely easier than Drupal, and I think this will be my focus of study for a while…

Great show. Loved the sax, and seeing it live made me realize how hard it is to pull off solos like they did in the 80s. Not enough people there, which is a shame. We’re lucky they keep coming back and should support one of the most notable, iconic sounds out of that era.

As soon as I was considering life after high school, I had my heart set on Cooper Union. I wanted to make “cool looking shit”, I was good at it and CU was where the best in the world did it. Plus it was in Manhattan, my favorite place in the world and a 45 minute train ride. Plus it was free, and that to me was everything.

I could have afforded to pay for Pratt, or SVA, or RISD; I applied and got into all of them. My parents told me I could go anywhere; and considering my sister was at Amherst College, one of the most expensive schools in the world, and my brother ended up at Harvard, they weren’t kidding. But for me, it was the street-cred that getting into CU, where only 5% of the kids who think they’re good at making cool shit get in, that was so alluring.

I remember attending the info/interested students day thing, sitting in an auditorium, being handed a packet of instructions on cool shit I had to make to prove my worthiness, and hearing the MC, and oldish white dude who was probably pretty good at making cool shit, send us off with a “now go work your little butts off!”

Something about that rubbed me the wrong way. I got it; me the the hundred-odd other art nerds were a bunch of wannabees  and CU owed us nothing. I looked over the packet when I got home, and saw 5 or 6 assignments: draw the plans for a new invention that tells time, paint an interior space with only solid black shapes, render an object as it morphs from one thing to another, and a couple others.

And I let it sit there. I had no inspiration to do it; it felt forced, and I kept thinking of that asshole treating us like sheep, as I had come to think of him. Days flew by as they do, and the deadline was in a week. I panicked.

It must have also been a very hard time in my life, and other things were causing me stress—my brother Matt was a constant source of disruption, I was trying to make state qualifying times for the 50yard freestyle, I’m sure my romantic heart was being torn up by a variety of love interests, and none of my friends from the previous class were around at school; they were around though, distracting me with all the things we loved to do and no island of school time in common to do it. I missed classes and my grades suffered.

So, staring at the pile of assignment sheets, and in a fit of white hot frustration, I punched my bed. I thought I was punching the mattress, but that was just the sheet hanging over the wooden railing. I shattered two metacarpals in my right hand—my art hand. The cast that ended up there shortly afterward prohibited any of the deftness and agility I relied on in my making of cool shit. I did the best I could with my left, but the results were hurried, shaky, and incoherent.

I took the train in and dropped it off a few minutes before CU closed on deadline day, although I knew I was wasting my time. And I was; the rejection letter, probably written by the asshole MC, came a few weeks later. It’s been a source of regret my whole life.

I ended up at a variety of SUNY schools, sometimes making cool shit and sometimes blowing it off, but never really feeling like I was in the right place. Eventually things worked out, once I connected with the right people and found faculty who didn’t put up with my bullshit, and inspired me to actually work. Still, any time I see CU on a resume, or meet people who’ve gone there, I’m confronted with feelings of immense respect, burning jealousy, and nagging curiosity: why were they able work their little butts off when I couldn’t?