The reason Heller can’t appreciate blogs is because he is threatened by them. I think it is telling that he said he hates design blogs. He isn’t threatened by the other kinds of blogs. Heller has been trying to corner the market on design writing for so long that when voices other than his own speak about design, he doesn’t know how to react other than to attack them. Isn’t it amazing that the author who arguably has contributed the most writing to the design community is trying to lessen the importance of design discussion on the internet? Is it any wonder that Heller’s contibution to the blogosphere recently was “If George W. Bush were a typeface, he’d be ITC Garamond.” That makes me wonder if he even writes his own books. He accuses blogs of being self serving? Like the 50+ books he wrote were all for the good of mankind? Please!

I am not surprised that Heller or any of the celebrities on Design Observer would try to lessen the impact of blogging. The blogosphere isn’t the place for a celebrity for the same reason that you will never see Oprah at the supermarket comparing labels on the back of cereal boxes. What would Oprah or Steven Heller have to gain from a public dialogue with the little people? The power of the internet and of blogs is not the power of a few famous personalities. The power comes from the collective network of likeminded consumers. The impact is felt by corporations that can no longer mislead their customers. The impact is seen when bloggers expose corrupt news organizations trying to influence elections. The people who want to ignore the cultural impact of blogs are the people who have the most to lose from its rise in power. I will take a breath now and get a few more thoughts in as the discussion develops.

Adrian,

I think you are being a bit harsh on Heller. Two of his main concerns with blogging are concerned with his own obsession with them. I’m sure that he realizes that blogs can only be beneficial in terms of more designers reading and participating in the discussion. Sometimes it may be hard for him to see what he is going to get out of blogging. Although Heller has his critics, you cannot deny that he has had a positive influence on the profession. As a professional writer it has to be a bit annoying to see people using incorrect grammar and uninformed comments, but he still participates in the discussions at times. I haven’t read either of these articles, but once I do, I’m sure I will have a better view of what these authors were trying to say.

WARNING: Shameless name-dropping that might be construed as ìself-servingî coming right up. When I was talking to Beirut I was curious to what he got out of blogging. He obviously isnít in it for the fame or the fortune. He said part of it was giving back to the design community, but the main reason I found very interesting. He said that in his professional life he never sees a project from start to finish. There are so many people working on his projects that he canít say that any one of his design projects is completely his. With his articles on Design Observer he can have an idea, an intro, a body, finish his post in one nice package, put his name on it and call it his own. He also mentioned that unlike an article for a magazine that shows up three months after he writes it, an article on his blog actually gets designerís responses and feedback.

For myself I think this blog has not just given me a voice, it has given me an additional perspective. It has made me more aware of my surroundings. It can be a bit overwhelming in the way that I am always thinking of things to write, but I enjoy keeping my mind turned on after I leave work.

I think the two quotes I pulled from Heller might give his article a more blatant feel than the full article has. You should really read the whole thing. He makes some good points about dependability of information and his article concludes with:

“So maybe I don’t really hate design blogs. I just think they have a long way to go before they achieve true credibility.”

One of the critiques Poynor makes is that BLOGS are not as collaborative with other perspectives. He’d like to see more interaction between those inside and those outside of deisgn. I agree with him, that this dialogue is deeply needed and past-due in design.

I participate (from time to time) in this blog because of a few reasons. Reading/responding/writing keep me thinking of broader design issues—not simply tasks that affect my current employment. This blog acts as a sort of design current events summary. Connecting and sharing thoughts, tips, techniques, ideas, rants, and raves communicates our need to always keep learning.

I’m going to sound off in Adrian’s camp a bit this time around - Among the many experiences I’ve had with Heller’s writings (which I tend to really relish and enjoy) and the experience I’ve had of Heller and of certain editorial policies he seems to enact (saw him give a lecture on “From Merz to Emigre” in Philly, and watched what happened to a faculty member at Tyler when he targetted a piece of their work in the “Seperated at Birth” featurette he publishes in the opening pages of Print), I’m left with a really mixed picture of what his goals and motivations may be.

What he produces often stands as solid exposure to insightful thoughts and considerations of design and its pursuers, as well as often bringing to light areas of the practice, history, specific pieces, and people who have been overlooked in one way or another.

Editorially, it seems like his ego may pose a stumbling block on many occasions, and I suspect that the blog debate brushes against this in a lot of ways.

The blog definitely strikes me as the land of the groundling - that wonderful slice of the public and the common man standing on the muddy ground in the middle of the Globe theater that Shakespeare wrote for with equal fervor as those in the comfy seats sitting above them.

We’re in the trenches and on the streets, while also being in the offices and on the upper floors as bloggers - it’s a place where all voices can pitch in and stand an equal chance of being acknowledged or ignored. The blog wonderfully removes the possibility of deleting anything that’s been previously said and presents the opportunity to put whatever’s floating around in our collective brains out there…

Poyner nails the knowledge that what’s generally limiting about a lot of topic-specific blogs is that they attract almost exclusively those faithful to the topic - those outside of it quickly get sick and tired of listening to a bunch of fan-boys sit around and whine about the minutae the particular topic, and those in love with that topic whine along with the other post-monkeys…It’s a question of whether enough contrary voices insert themselves in the midst of the cooperative ones to keep the debate lively and robust.

Good and bad voices will arise in equal portion within these blogs, and we’ll get used to opening our ears / eyes to some while closing them to others - while it might not amount to celebrity and fame, it will likely amount to scrutiny and affinity for certain bloggers while resulting in disdain and annoyance at others…

Heller lives the life of a consistent writer, publisher, and editor, and clearly feels within that the benefits and detriments of holding a position that enables influential public exposure - so maybe he’s a little jealous, or maybe he’s just a little perturbed that blogs aren’t hiring editors to corral and shape them…

Maybe he’s also feeling a little trepidation at what the future might bring for magazines, a medium he dearly loves, supports, promotes, and utilizes - will we still subscribe to the product that he helms when we can simply log onto one of these feeding troughs and sift through the feed for ourselves? I suspect we will, and that we’ll blog right alongside it, but maybe we will reach a point where having something in a monthly printed form will just seem sooooo outmoded and outdated and possess none of the credibility and authority of blog-fresh voices/writings…

There’re innumerable power plays occupying the edges of all of this, and they’ll influence the way things progress and develop to be sure. It certainly seems that the authors of “Cluetrain” have a sniper-like sight on the ripe potential and exploding influence that web exchanges like this are having right now. Pretty exciting stuff all in all, though…

I need to reread your postings more closely - I think you already answered this in the “It is a threat to a celebrity that doesnít want to be seen as a human being” line…

So are celebrities inhuman or is celebrity inhuman?

Just to tap a little bit of the undercurrent that most reality programs ride and either succeed or fail as a result of: Is the Internet actually the ultimate in reality programming, complete with the fulfillment of Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame? (All the hail the technology that’s allowed us to see the Star Wars Kid, to experience Whistler Tips, and to understand All Bases Are Belong to Us)

Do we blog so that we have the opportunity to be read like the big shots? (Those voices which are broadcast whether we like it or not…)

The Internet just offers a venue to enter international public attention virtually without any one specific individual holding the keys to the kingdom - no Hellers to decide what we can and can’t say, no FCC to regulate the terminology we choose to say it with…

I’d argue that celebrity is only humanized if we view the Internet as the realm of common humanity and devoid of celebrity, which is a remarkably un-human way of looking at things - we’re always looking for those lights that shine so bright that we get caught in their glare. It confirms that it’s humanly possible to attain such a level of brilliance / success / influence / attention / talent / ability / luck / etc., but once someone has it, we’re human enough to want it and human enough to want to knock them off the pedestal to make room for the rest of us.

The blog can be an international open-mike for wunderkind hopefuls as much as it can be a quiet smoking lounge for friendly familiars to talk shop in - the challenge is that the door into the blog is not only unlocked, it’s immensely wide open.

The Wired article sounds fascinating on title alone - if you find a copy of it anywhere (even if you find out it was in a back issue), let me know…

Frankly, Adrian, we’re all made up of the words we use here and the thoughts expressed - celebrity and groundling alike…This goes back to some of Beirut’s discussion of the participation of anonymity and identity within the blogging environment - we could as easily be playing a text-based version of “The Sims” in these dialogues as we could be faithful / true to who we are on the other side of the keyboard and screen.

Warhol, it seems the more we talk about it, would clearly have had an absolute heydey with this medium…

Do we need celebrities or role-models?

How do they each relate to formation of a community and to participation in that community?

(Pretty kick-ass paragraph closing that last post, Adrian!)

For me, Clint, Adrian has his finger on our pulse in the sense that we are putting the spin on this particular rolling stone one nudge at a time in each comment and concern that we drop off in this little chat pool.

If we contribute conspiracy theory to the puddle, and it’s met with cooperative / collaborative conspiracy theory from other buckets, we’ve filled this up with / built this up into a major lake of it…Whatever we pour in remains here (until Adrian, Bennett, or whoever the server janitors are comes along and sweeps away a sampling of the posts that exceed the walls of our particular little digital storage unit) and contributes to the identity of this resource.

Also along Adrian’s thinking, this is a place for our voices to mingle with other voices which may be heard or ignored by other more recognized / more established similar ventures / venues…Any of us may be a Steven Heller in infancy at the moment, or any of us may fade into the relative obscurity of a single voice on a Heartland design blog.

Right now, the crazy-cool thing about this whole venture is that it’s technically located on the same street as the “bigger shops” / bigger blogs like Observer - someone could as easily walk into this door as they could into that one…Influence generates as content provided becomes perceived as increasingly relevant - the more eyes and minds that collide / collude with what we leave here, as well as the more fingers typing and the more voices voicing, the more we grow and the more we influence…

As to how Graphic Design / Illustration become an influence in the culture at large (which really picks up what seems to be Poyner’s larger concern about blogs), it’s with equal pursuit of relevance - Typographic design “mattered” / was relevant in a significant public way during the whole CBS memo debacle because the public was exposed to the issues that studied typographic scrutiny / expertise had the ability to reveal about those memos.

My hope is that we’re sharpening our knives with one another here - trying to cut away one another’s chaff and hone our evaluative skills in order to be even more expert in our presentation of / application of our skills. We’re all considered at some point in our work credible practitioners and at least reaching towards some expertise in regards to our craft - I firmly believe that the expression of and application of that expertise within an environment of co-practitioners / co-conspirators pushes it ever further towards full realization.

I love and admire the power of grass roots efforts, Clint - they build relevance / influence when they are pursued with two principle shaping goals:

1. Passion and dedication
2. Clearly delineated objectives that build strategicly over an extended period of time.

Let me toss the ball back: how do we develop relevance or acrue it within the practice of design?

Hope the rest of the community doesn’t mind the two of us monopolizing things as we hopscotch across these discussion threads and chat with each other!

This is exactly the sort of interaction / interfacing / development that this medium facilitates, Clint - I, as a person on the other side of my screen and keyboard, don’t have an extensive sense of who you, as a person on the side of another screen and keyboard, actually are, but our ideas / product / writings are obviously having direct impact and effect on one another. Our brains are both sharing an apartment together in this particular arena, and our stuff is getting mixed up and recombined into really excitingly new forms!

You’ve sold me on the Frascara book, but you also touch on what I feel like my graduate education (also to through an experiential confirmation onto your grounded supposition) tangibly encouraged me in recognizing what is good design and the ways it’s considerably different from an attractive stylistic housing (sort of a critical deficiency that I come up against every time I open up a “Design” annual from Print, CA, or the other top sellers).

The challenge, I’ve found, is that good design is something that’s appreciated via use, application, and long-term experience and that attractive stylistic housing looks more exciting in photos and print-outs. Style lacks inherent relevance (there’s Sagmeister’s “Style=Fart”) - design cultivates relevance by dwelling extensively in the details of what its being applied to.

It also, as you’re laying out, picks up relevance by its performance on / in relevant arenas - Kyle touches on this in his great little piece about signs, and how irrelevant the look of one would have been if it simply told him how to escape the traffic nightmare he was stuck in. There’s an exercise in this sort of design that Chip Kidd presents in the midst of “The Chees Monkeys” that I’ve wanted, rather perversely, to foist upon my own students at some point - He writes the Winter Sorbeck character hauling his small class of students out into the snowy fields and highways on the outskirts of Happy Valley, PA armed only with posterboard and markers. He tells them that their objective is getting a ride back to campus, their means are what they have on hand, and that their success will be graded as follows: An “A” if they’re picked up immediately, a “B” if it takes two attempts, a “C” if it’s three, and an “F” along with a ride back to town if they fail altogether.

Chilly relevance in the midst of a snowy Pennsylvania field - I absolutely love it!

Thanks for waiting for me.

The talk radio comparison is interesting and somewhat appropriate. Like blogs, talk radio is changing modern culture (just ask a democrat). It mobilizes an otherwise stagnant population. Clint, I am not sure what tangible results you would like to see from a blog or from graphic design for that matter. I think this need for measurable and tangible results is related to Kadavy’s thoughts about design as inferior to Architecture. It would be woderful if we could map it out and say “Thanks to the designers at Be A Design Group, we now have a cure for cancer,” but we don’t have that luxury of clear-cut results. We also don’t have the luxury of an architect who’s work yeilds enormous structures that outlive their makers. The only way to overcome the inferiority complex that graphic design suffers from is to recognize that what we do isn’t trivial, it is monumental. The world is better because of design whether we are recognized and praised by the rest of the world. Kyle doesn’t have to be sitting in the rain looking for signs. I don’t have to quit my job and become a doctor to feel like I am changing people’s lives.

That is my theory, but there is a different one that I don’t agree with. The other approach is to say that design is only relevant if it is attatched to a social issue. As if by simply being associated with a campaign that promotes (insert issue here), then design has achieved something more important than if it were applied to the traditional business model. I guess you could point to Bruce Mau as the extreme example of Design disguised as social movement. The example I am actually thinking of is the First Things First Manifesto. Follow that link and you will find a less scattered version of what I am trying to say here.

It seems like we are sketching out some big concepts here that have potential for taking form in a powerful manifesto. I would love it if we could polish our ideas into something that gives an optimistic alternative to “Style=Fart,” “First Things First,” Steven Heller, “Cheese Monkeys,” Design Education, and anything else we might think is pushing design in the wrong direction. Then we would have a tangible document to show for all our blabbering. I know design doesn’t deserve to take a back seat to architecture or any other seemingly more respected trade. In a way, this is really design project. How would you redesign your profession?

At the base of so many of these questions lies an entrenched one that we’re just paving over:

Are we trying to make a living doing this work or trying to make a point doing this work?

There are precedents for individuals who have successfully pursued and realized both of those goals, but most of the hemming and hawing we’re engaging in here at “Be A” is rooted in our perceptions about which of those two goals is really of merit.

Ideally, we work for the latter while accomplishing the former, and let the ethics and standards of the latter affect our execution of the former. But realisticly, we will only strike that rarified balance in the perceptions and assessments we make at the breathless end of it all - someone who comes after us may make quite a case for the way that we made a point with our work (or, if we’re really savvy, we’ll make that point ourselves first and then people will rally around it later - why let someone else cash in on your original success anyway…), and someone else may make a bloodily effective case for the ways we were just money-grubbing mercenaries all along.

If we’re able and content to pay our rent doing something that doesn’t involve our creative and intellectual rigor, we can make time to pursue activities that awaken both and allow both to reach idealistic goals while not directly impacting the bread that does or doesn’t arrive on our table. America has simply sewn two natural goals together in its foundational nationalism: you can support yourself and your ideals with the same pursuit(s) - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness all rolled into the same tax bracket…

Pull them apart and they may be more cleanly / less hypocritically pursued, but they may also make you so schizophrenic you can’t stand it.