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Work is good when it’s used as an agent of self improvement.

Media queries are firmly established methods for serving custom experiences based on the media being used to access content.

However, there’s no way to an experience based on the context being used. How crazy would it be would it be if this were possible?

Imagine some code that went like:

@context (currently-traveling:yes AND role:driver) 
{ * {display:none;} } /* hide app from a distracted driver }

That’s some scary stuff, privacy-wise, but you know if it were possible people’d be writing it. But just think of what you could do with

environment:outdoors

or

noise-level:loud

You heard it here first, folks. The next big thing in cutting-edge design is hereby being dubbed “chubby” design.
What is chubby?
Bursting at the seams
Easy/inviting to touch/rub
The opposite of all this hyperthin helvetica apple rolled out with ios 7
Get the first unapologetic chubby design today – the chubbies icon font: https://github.com/field2/chubbies

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.

We see because of light reacting with our crazy eyes and ocular nerves and brains.

But there’s a lot to learn about where that light’s coming from. It’s either being emitted or reflected.

The primary point of emitted light, for most of our existence on this planet, has been very hard, even dangerous, to look at. I’m talking about the sun. Other points are intriguing and inspiring: fire, candles, fireflies, stars, lightning, but they’ve been fleeting. We’ve never stared at them for more than a few moments, dreaming of things.

Our eyes were always concerned with reflected light. Light that revealed the skin of those we loved and feared, the places we lived and travel to, the words that formed our literature. The light that reflected off gardens that enveloped us and blades that killed us.

Our eyes now focus on emissive sources. We’ve harnessed the power of the sun and stars and flames and can represent those things with a single binary point of light. We call those points pixels, and they can be as big or small, bright or dim, red or blue as we want. They can be wherever we want them to be, and change according to our magnificent instructions. They constitute our stories.