I wrote this over a year ago, but for some reason I never posted it. Since writing this, Creative Suite has been released for Intel Macs along with the Multi-Touch trackpad for the MacBooks.

As I work on my four year old G4 I can’t help but imagine that graphic designers are becoming useless to the likes of Apple and to a certain extent Adobe. I can think of very few software or hardware upgrades that were made in the last couple of years that have made our job significantly faster, better or easier. Sure we will be able to work faster when Adobe comes out with software that is ported for Intel machines, but do we really need anything much faster? When it seems that iTunes takes up about as much processor speed as Photoshop, I realize that it is not designers that are driving the technology anymore. So what industry is driving the market for faster computers? The obvious answer is video.

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While we designers talk about new logos, bad kerning, bad business practices, etc., we seldom talk about being a decent and active human being. We tend to celebrate the abrasive celebrity designer that bucks the system and the over-worked people that neglect their family and friends. The design profession also needs to look at what is healthy for the average designer.

The first part of this post speaks of greed and consumsion. After meeting so many designers that are over-consumers it was great to hear some reason from the Stefan’s (Stefan Bucher and Stefan Sagmeister). These two fellows are proof that you can be a nice person and an amazing designer.

I recently went to go hear west coast Stefan (Mr. Bucher) speak at Concordia University and he said some great things that we all need to hear. At one point in his talk he made a quick little recommendation about the new sin of today … DEBT. He talked about staying out of debt so we can remain free to be creative. How can we be creative if we have no choice but to take any and every freelance project that comes our way? We need to be free to make decisions that aren’t completely based on our wallet.

My encounter with east coast Stefan (Mr. Sagmeister) was through his new book. I recommend that any and every designer should get the book, or at least look at Sagmeister’s recent work. It is a great reminder to be a good person (to yourself and others). One phrase in Sagmeister’s book is that “Money doesn’t make me happy”. I’m assuming that with all his success, he knows that from experience. We can all go through life without re-evaluating our priorities. Don’t hesitate to make some course corrections and make some changes in your life.

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As we approach the final post here at Be A Design Group I have been reflecting on how I have changed as a designer since my first post here four years ago. As I strive to be a better designer, the list of attributes that I try to emulate are things that on the surface don’t have much to do with design. Here are some characteristics that don’t normally get mentioned on most lists of designer skills…

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by Kyle Heinemann

Many yeas ago, when I was 15 and working in fast food….if you would have told me “Pay Attention!” since I would be learning valuable life lessons, I would not have believed you (to put it mildly). That job was purely income. Not for socializing, not so I could eat the food, not to be popular, just money. Today, many years later, I can see where I learned customer service: back at Dairy Queen.

Customer Service, to me, is one of those areas of work that everyone says “well, duh” it’s important. To really excel at it, translates to a big payoff. You can learn to serve your customers/clients so well that a) at the end of a project, they get what they really wanted, but maybe not what they initially asked for, or b) so happy they will tell their friends and colleagues, or c) so happy they congratulate your manager–and your manager remembers to compensate you accordingly when it’s bonus/raise time (wink wink).

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*by Drew Davies*

On behalf of designers everywhere, I am writing you this letter with a very simple request. My message isn’t particularly novel –¬†in fact, you may have heard something like it before. But, it’s become clear that it’s time to say it again as clearly as possible.

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I made a quick stop animation of our magnetic inspiration wall at work being created. Enjoy all 13 seconds!

To start off, I thought this little video I shot would be the best way to show you the design of The Learners.

I have to admit that since I first learned that Chip was working on a follow-up to The Cheese Monkeys, I have been eagerly waiting to see layout, kerning, and typeface decisions weaved into a work of fiction again. While there was plenty of graphic design geekery to be enjoyed, the emotional and psychological aspects of Happy’s life are much more in the spotlight. Having previously worked at several small ad agencies it was very entertaining to follow the politics of a similar size office of yesteryear. The domineering boss, the talent that should have moved to the big city, the eager newbie, the burnt-out hack copywriter … they are all part of the ensemble.

While there are plenty of basic descriptions out there on this book, here is my two sentence summary (the summary from the publisher is more clear). After Happy has graduated from State he goes out to find his dream job at the firm his (de)mentor Winter Sorbeck, worked at. We follow Happy from his interview, to his first weeks and subsequent perils of dealing with clients and the things they promote.

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A commenter on the last story recommended I read Don’t Make Me Think in response to the previous chapter in my story. Instead of listing my response to his response in the buried comments section, I thought I’d give my official position on Don’t Make Me Think right here: it’s the same as my official position on Hey Whipple Squeeze This: Stay away from it if you want to retain free and rational thought. I’ve seen people read and subsequently abuse the information in each book as a substitute for creative and original thinking. In the case of Think, it’s “people are used to using websites a certain way, ergo all websites should look and function in this way.” I saw it at my last job and it obliterated my ability to seek new and creatively intuitive ways to design for the web. Like Whipple, in two years it will be outdated anyway. Stick to A List Apart.

When we last left …er, me … I was in the death throes of my last website.

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The Task: Design a poster for a Chip Kidd (why do I always want to spell it “Chipp?”) that will hang in bookstores and comic shops around Omaha.

The Complication: Must appeal to the common man and woman, not the design community. Book and comic book enthusiasts who have no familiarity with the design world and who, indeed, probably have no idea who Chip Kidd is.

The Challenge: Complete this free gig in 4 hours or less.

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Starting your own business is a hellacious challenge. Very intimidating, scary, ulcer-inducing, that can contain a sort of panic that freezes you to the core of your being. I find the Fear to be interesting in that regard. I mean, once you look out a window and see umpteen thousand Targets, Wal-Marts, Starbucks’s, Home Depots and Burger Kings and realize *those* were all started by *somebody*, a lot of that fear dissipates. Every business started somewhere, by some yay-hoo who thought they could do it better than somebody else. And in design this is no different. When you choose the road to self-employment, you’re doing nothing different than what the people you used to send resumes to did five, ten, or twenty years ago. And that, again, is a bit of an empowering thought.

And what happens then but we a run out and screw up the very first step: the name.

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