After 4+ years Be A Design Group would like to say thank you and good bye. We couldn’t have done it with out everyone’s input and support. We are putting BADG into cryogenic freeze, but unlike Walt Disney, there is the technology to reanimate us.

If you missed the retirement announcement, read here. We will make one more post on this site that we will update with news of our plans, announcements and updates. Look for something big from Adrian in the next month. He won’t even tell me what it is about.

A few weeks ago, Donovan and I had an off-air conversation about careers at Pentagram. Sure, you get work with some of the most amazing people in the industry, in really cool offices, for really cool clients, but how far can you go? You know you’ll never make Partner, because Pentagram partners all come from outside of the company. So in the end, we decided you just kind of languish in the Land of Super-great.

We must not have been too far off, because I opened up SpeakUp today to see that founder Armin Vit gave Pentagram his walkin’ papers as has left to handle Under Consideration full time. He notes it’s a little scary, and I’m sure it is, what with the ad revenues from SpeakUp, BrandNew (best site evar!), Quips, and Design Encyclopedia, plus a few book deals and being on good terms with 95% of the entire design industry, it probably looks like an uphill battle.

Well, from all of us here at BA, who have not quit our jobs to do this full time (yet), we say “good luck” and if anyone in NY has any freelance or overflow work, dude could probably use a hand-out.

The students at the W+K 12 school just released their own blog. It is brand new, so there isn’t much content yet. Our good friend Curtis Pachunka (a former BADCast interviewee) is one of the selected 12 err I mean 13.

Here is to hoping that W+K 12 gives us a peak into their world and that they will upgrade to something a little more custom than a Blogger blog.

There is a new section in our sidebar that lists the top ten commenters on Be A Design Group. It isn’t much, but I think it is important to recognize the contributions of these people as valuable members of our group. Most of our top commenters have their own websites, so click on their names and show them some love. Thank you to everyone who has left a comment here. If you are wondering how close you are to the top ten, here are the top 100…

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You probably have noticed the “four things” survey traveling through the blogs. Well, fellow BADG co-founder, Adrian Hanft, tagged me for this. Since I don’t really have a personal blog to share my list, I struggled to come up with a way to answer the questions. I decided to tweak the questions to focus more on the average designer’s perspective. I’m sure many of you will disagree with the answers on the list, but I had to start somewhere. Add you own thoughts, make corrections, or give me your entire list.

This is the part where I pass the torch onto the next four people. I’m setting my sites high. Lets see if our fellow Battle of the Ad Blogs nominees will answer the call. Design Observer, Speak Up, Cameron Moll and Core 77 … I would like to see your unique perspective on this list of questions. I dare them to put this random and viral material on their coveted and highly thought-out blogs. If Kottke can do it, why can’t they?

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Be A Design Group was recently nominated in the “Best Design Discussion Blog” category in the Battle of the Ad Blogs. Looking at the competition, It is a little hard not to feel like an underdog. Help us out by casting your vote for Be A Design Group! Voting ends February 10, so don’t delay.

A quick post to point you towards Armin’s latest post on Speak Up regarding the last issue of Emigre. While Armin doesn’t believe that blogs are responsible for killing Emigre, he gladly takes the credit. I would too if people were attributing Emigre’s demise to Be A Design Group. I think it is understandably arrogant for Armin to consider Speak Up and Design Observer as the only blogs with enough power to challenge an institution like Emigre, but I don’t blame him. Let me offer a couple counterpoints to Armin’s well written piece:

Did blogs kill Emigre? It sounds nice, and is kind of a trendy way to say goodbye to the publication. Blogs are getting blamed for everything lately, and we bloggers gladly take credit. Newspapers all over the world are near death and blaming the internet. Print-on-demand allows anyone to publish a book or magazine without any of the painful bureaucracy of the old publishing institution. Technology is constantly changing the rules, and that is usually a wonderful thing.

What I find disturbing about what is being said by those most upset about Emigre’s end is their negativity towards blogs. There is a good reason why blogs are replacing traditional print publications: they are better. The publications die because they would rather die than embrace the new system. It is their failure to embrace blogging that has caused their death, not the blogs themselves. As much as I would like blogs to be responsible for killing Emigre, the truth is Emigre just didn’t want to play by the new rules, so they stopped playing. It is sad really, because Emigre could have made a really nice blog.

One of the most tempting strategies for a website is to make something so cool that the whole internet will link to you. Who hasn’t dreamed of getting a link on BoingBoing and becoming the hottest thing on the internet?
Well, last week with the help of BoingBoing, MetaFilter, Engadget and Digg, my Lego camera infected the internet like some kind of virus. I would be lying to you if I said that the attention that my Lego camera received wasn’t awesome. When it comes to generating a buzz, the sites I listed are pretty much the best place to have a link. So as I reflect on my dream tour of the internet, I am forced to ponder this dreadful question: Does viral publicity equal success, or does it make me I a one-hit-wonder? I guess time will tell, but let me share the details of the past week with you and attempt to convince you that a website full of good content is better than viral success any day of the week.

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Be A Design Group has had an RSS feed since we started, but it is high time we promoted it. Despite all the hype surrounding RSS feeds, the concept is still a little tricky to understand for the newbie. Let me make this as simple as humanly possible:

By using any of the widely available free newsreaders, (I recommend NetNewsWire, Yahoo, or the new Safari) you can “subscribe” to any site with an rss feed. Simply enter http://www.beadesigngroup.com/rss2.php into your newsreader and you will have a subscription to Be A Design Group. That is pretty easy, right?

If you want even more RSS options we have some more feeds for you. Here are the addresses:

Comments RSS Feed
http://www.beadesigngroup.com/comments.php

Podcast RSS Feed
http://www.beadesigngroup.com/podcast.php

Atom
http://www.beadesigngroup.com/atom.php

RSS 2.0
http://www.beadesigngroup.com/rss2.php

As you probably know, Be A Design Group is powered by Movable Type software. Today Movable Type 3.2 was released, and our site has been upgraded to the new version. So far everything seems to have gone well, and I am enjoying the vastly improved Movable Type interface and features. If anyone notices any bugs, please let us know, and thanks for your patience.