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.

I have to admit that I love new technology and software just as much or more than the next guy. But many times I agree with those nay-sayers that argue that we don’t need software beyond Photoshop 7 and InDesign CS. Unless you are in the market for more filters and better drop shadows, what have we really gained from the last several Adobe upgrades?

So what can these companies do to generate a little more need (as opposed to sheer want)? As you might have gathered from the above graphic, I am hoping for iPhone multi-touch technology in the next generation of iMacs. If Apple takes away the mouse and keyboard and truly connects the designer to their computer, then the designer demand will be unstoppable. Then we will all be closer to feeling what the early twentieth century typesetters felt when they physically locked up that type in the chase. I know Apple wouldn’t be the first to have touch screen computers, but as they have proven with the iPod, you don’t have to be the first … just the best. Wasn’t it Malcolm Gladwell that pointed out that the originators and extreme innovators usually fail? Sometimes the market isn’t ready and primed for a certain innovation. For example, the Newton.

Since Apple appears to have mastered the multi-touch technology, when will we see it in their computer line? Jobs did make a special effort to note that this technology was heavily patented. Is it time that Apple starts paying a little more attention to the loyal designer base and work with Adobe and others to deliver a truly innovative product? Here’s to “pinching” instead of (command) + (+) or grabbing that antiquated old magnifying glass.

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.

This is the part where I speak to the perpetual workers out there. Those of us that always find some way to fill our time with design, even if we do leave at 5:00 from our day jobs. While doing design outstide of work is a good thing, it is also good to remember that there are more important things than perfect kerning, becoming a famous designer and getting into CA. Just remember that friends, your spouse, family, sleeping, adventure, church, road trips, hikes and reading are going to be more fulfilling and help you grow as a person.

Over the last eight years of working as a professional designer, I’ve also had the weird fortune of working normal hours at every job I have held. I can probably count my late, late nights working on actual agency work on two hands. I have to admit that a couple of my agency jobs weren’t rock star jobs and some of the work probably wasn’t up to the standards of the work-horse 80/week agencies. But . . . I did have a life, learned things outside of the agency walls and I’m not completely burned out on design. I now have a job where I work 40hrs/week and get to work on amazing projects with amazing people. These jobs do exist. I see my friends near and far (especially those in larger cities) being overworked and disastisfied. For some reason our profession finds it acceptable to sacrifice so much for fame and small fortunes. It is time we as designers, art directors and especially creative directors stand up and start managing a better office. If we don’t stand up for ourselves and our fellow designers, then no one will.

So as we at Be A Design Group say good bye, just keep in mind that although design is very important, we as designers are much more so.

Curiosity
You know the kind of person who seems to know a little bit about everything? No, not that know-it-all who always wins at trivial pursuit. I am talking about the kind of person who can have a meaningful conversation with anyone from a surgeon to an olympic athlete to a trash collector. A curious person asks intelligent questions and can pull comparisons from diverse and relevant fields. Designers are always working with different people and it should be obvious how valuable it is to be genuinely curious about our clients and their lives.

Patience
Design is a frustrating business. I doubt there is a perfect client and teaching and explaining will always be a part of our job. Software will always have bugs and computers will crash. If you can master the art of being patient you will have an advantage over the designers who are always complaining about clients/bosses/software.

Kindness
An true act of kindness comes from sympathy. I am not saying that we should feel sorry for everybody, but if we can learn to sympathize with people’s situations then good things will happen. We all care about design, but if our insistence on good design overshadows what our clients or co-workers care about then we aren’t doing our job. An atmosphere of kindness will breed good design.

Humility
Being the best designer in the world is a tough burden to bear. The hardest part is continually convincing people how great you are. Sometimes it is hard to find the time to do an interview. If you don’t toot your own horn a little bit, your monograph might get lost in the shelves at Barnes and Noble. Perhaps the design celebrities can get away with this kind of arrogance, but the rest of us could benefit from a more humble stance.

Communication awareness
Don’t you just stand in awe of great communicators? I think there is a raw talent aspect to great communicators that most of us will never attain. For those of us without natural speaking ability, the best we can do is be aware of how we communicate – good and bad. Try to sense how people are reacting to what you are saying. As you listen to people’s response notice how their words affect you and respond (not react) in a manner that hopefully they can connect with. Do you speak with lectures when a brief response will do? Do you use marketing language that sounds like hot air? Are you agreeing, just to be agreeable? Do you know when to speak up and defend your work? By being sensitive of how you communicate you can only get better at communicating.

At the end of the day, designing a logo is relatively easy. Being a good person is the real challenge. I believe that it isn’t enough for a good designer to just do good work. A good designer must also be a good person. What are some virtues that you believe help make a better designer?

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).

In my high school job, I learned through repeat encounters, and at the guidance of the manager, to listen carefully to the customer and anticipate what they need. If I messed up on something, I would admit it, apologize, and offer them something in return…so they leave happy and return their business. Another thing I learned was to “repeat the order to ensure accuracy.” These are simple concepts. Yet, valuable to put into practice. Imagine going to an initial meeting, you listen to the client, go back to your desk, do some first drafts, only to present them at the next meeting and realize you and the client had a misunderstanding–you missed the mark. It happens.

It would be easy to let some lower-priority jobs slip, and focus on the priority jobs. Yet, it’s the communication about job status to that lower-priority client that shows them you still value their business. This is easy in theory, but can be hard to do on a regular basis in real life.

Now that I’m over 31, I feel somehow qualified to share this unsolicited “wisdom” with you. (And I’m nowhere near retirement!) The experiences I had over half my life ago have formed who I am today.

–

Farewell, BADG readers and authors. Thank you for the constant feeding of design “current events.”

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.

In the course of owning and operating my own design firm, I regularly encounter persons and companies looking for design services. The most promising of the set send an RFP, ask us to sit down for an initial meeting, or ask us to make a presentation regarding our capabilities and qualifications. This is a fairly traditional practice, and in general, it works quite well. We certainly don’t engage in speculative creative work, but I am always happy to explain to someone what I believe to be the value in hiring my firm, and show them a range of our previous design projects.

Quite often, prospective clients like yourself request various documents and proposals, so you can learn about anything from our process to our experience, our price estimates to our ballpark timelines. Typically, the process of developing this paperwork is relatively time-consuming, but it’s something I enjoy doing. It’s always nice to be able to tell our story, and look forward to the possibility of working on an exciting new project.

Here’s where you come in. When you request a customized proposal or an in-person presentation, you have a responsibility. Quite frankly, it’s your ethical obligation as a human being. You owe the designer or firm from which you received this information a direct and timely response.

No 20-minute phone calls or five-page explanation e-mails required. Just a simple note to say “thank you for your time, we’ve decided to go a different direction.” It’s a basic professional courtesy that every person requesting a proposal from another should extend when they’ve selected a different option. But you’d be surprised at how frequently that response never arrives.

I don’t know if people simply assume that somehow designers — straddling the line between art and business — can’t handle rejection. Perhaps this problem is endemic to the complete range of service industries. Either way, let me make this clear: not only can we handle it, we appreciate it, and we expect it. Every designer wants and deserves to know where they stand in a potential business transaction.

You’d be surprised to know how many times I’ve made presentations, or sent proposals, only to receive complete silence in return. After half a dozen unanswered e-mails and voice mails over the following month, I can usually assume we didn’t get the work. Which is completely understandable; we can’t win them all. But not taking 30 seconds of your time to inform us of the decision is at best rude, at worst cowardly.

So, I’m making this simple request. When you ask a designer for a proposal, extend them the same courtesy you’d expect: let them know if they didn’t get the work. If they’re a professional like you, they’ll thank you for your candor, and you’ll both move on. And then you’ll be able to stop avoiding my phone calls.

Thank you kindly,

Drew Davies
Owner/Design Director, Oxide Design Co.

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.

The design of the book itself is much more understated than The Cheese Monkeys. No scanned textures or printing on the edge of the pages and covers. But as always, Chip has a few tricks up his jacket (sorry). If you get the book, don’t forget to play with bending the pages over and also look for intentional ink bleed through from the back of the page. The diagonally cut book jacket is also a fun touch on the cover, and it also might reveal a little about the off balance nature of what is inside.

If you listened to Debbie’s recent interview with Chip (I would wait until after you read the book to listen, I think they reveal too much about the book), they talk about how much darker this book is than its prequel. While this is true, I finished The Learners feeling much less depressed. While The Cheese Monkeys was a fun ride, I finished the book a bit confused and almost angry. The ending of it was like a David Lynch/Spike Jonze ending tacked onto a Cameron Crowe/Gus Van Sant movie. While this sequel was a more depressed journey, I felt there was an interesting resolution.

While I didn’t exactly “enjoy” The Learners as much as I did The Cheese Monkeys, it was a fascinating ride and I felt my time with Happy was too short. While it appears that Chip has grown as a writer, I don’t think I will ever experience the joy of connecting with a character as much as I did with Happy over five years ago. To follow a student and see his eyes open was like taking a trip down memory lane. While I can easily recall the early days of being the pee-on designer that Happy has become, it is hard to feel the depression, pain and guilt that he is experiencing. Instead of experiencing this bit with Happy, I just sympathize with his character and wish I could help.

I recommend getting out there and reading one of the very few fiction books that deals with graphic design. I would read it even if it was mediocre, but luckily for us Chip is almost as talented as a writer as he is a book designer. Here’s to seeing and reading Chip’s works for years to come.

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.

The part of the story I hadn’t mentioned yet was that while this tragedy was unfolding, I was doing some web design work with Donovan and was forcibly learning CSS in the most basic of ways. I was also getting my sea legs back when it came to web programming and HTML. Remember, I knew just enough to be dangerous back in the day.

So I went home and began sketching the new Vossome.com. I had the foresight to name the first site “ver. 1.0″ in the high hopes I would be doing exactly this in the distant, not immediate, future. I went straight into Wordpress, which was working fine for me, to see how to plug this baby into my own layout. Roadblock. Wordpress doesn’t work that way, or when it does, you need to pay for the privilege. Well I certainly wasn’t going to do that, so I walked right across the street to Blogger.com and set up my new shop.

At this point I definitely left the world of web-n00bz behind me, because the process of setting up the new site was, if not infinitely, then at least 100 times more complicated than the “register, choose template, blog” system of the last site. So here’s how it was done.

Sign up for your Blogger account and get your profile set up, all that standard first-day garbage you normally have to go through. Then, make sure you have a domain set up to keep you site on. I directed my new site to a testing area of my old, OLD site, and in the Dashboard, under Template, I selected a Classic Template (this is a must for creating your own site) and under Settings, in Publishing, I directed it to my testing area and told it to Publish via FTP. That sounds pretty easy when you say it like that, but it took me about a week of banging my head against a wall and frantic IM’s to Tom Nemitz and Donovan (my web support team, whether they know it or not) to figure it all out.

Then I designed my site using a combination of Photoshop and Dreamweaver (PS in the beginning, DW for the other 90%). Yes it’s essentially a great big table, but it’s a great big working table. When I was ready and had a fully-functioning webpage, I selected all of the source code (available in the Code View in DW) from Dreamweaver in pasted it directly into the HTML field on the Template section of my Blogger dashboard. This is the only way to get your site into Blogger. When you publish, Blogger will replace whatever index page you have on your site/test site with this HTML (took me a while to get that straight, too). Now that’s all well and good, but where’s my blog?

Blogger has “blogger tags” that work a lot like HTML tags in your code. This page tells you what they are and this page tells you what they do. Bookmark these pages because boy, I needed them about every two minutes. Unfortunately, I found the random and unrelated pages that describe how to use these tags to be almost completely unhelpful until I had spend a few days trying to hammer these into place. Remember, I know just enough to be dangerous, which is generally not enough to be useful. Eventually I plugged these things in where I wanted my content to go, and then I used my newly mastered basic CSS knowledge to style them.

This entire process, which included learning time and skill growth akin to Bruce Banner getting really, really pissed off, took me about three to three and a half weeks. The site went up onto the real webspace right before I left for Mexico for a week and my free trial of Dreamweaver (30 Days!) expired the next day.

Go check out the new an improved Vossome.com 2.0.

The header comes from ready-made code that can be found at A List Apart (love those guys) and randomly displays whatever I want it to. The content is blog posts on page one, as well as two additional webpages to fill out the site. These were created in DW and were not uploaded through blogger. I used CyberDuck, a free FTP software, to put those up, because DW was being fussy that day. The new site has downloadable PDF samples of my work and other fun stuff, though not all of it is online as of yet. This way I can always have a readily accessible portfolio for visitors as well as constantly update when new work comes in. When enough new work comes in, I can update my PDFs and roll right along.

There are a few downsides to this, however. Right at the end of this process, and I mean the day before I went live, I discovered the Blogger hates me for hosting on an FTP (meaning my own server). Sure they allow it, but they get all whiny about it. For one, the categories, in Blogger called “Labels” does not work. This is a documented problem that many, probably all users via FTP have faced and yet Blogger has remained silent on the issue, which is just dirty. DIRTY, Blogger! And then the deal-breaker: I cannot upload images via FTP through Blogger.

What’s that? You seriously can’t upload an image to FTP using Blogger? No. You cannot. And for that, Blogger can kiss my grits. For now I upload my images myself using the Cyberduck, but that completely defeats the purpose of a convenient content uploading experience. If I was going to update everything with my own FTP client and hard-core my image links myself, I wouldn’t really need to use a blog in the first place.

So obviously, this story is not finished. We have, however, caught up to the present day, and at current I have no more stories to tell. I have a few big projects in the way of me completing Vossome.com 2.5 or 3.0, but rest assured when I do have time, this is going to need to be sorted out.

Thank you for reading the Continuing Adventures of Nate Voss, Self-Employed Graphic Designer!

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.

Some call free gigs “pro-bono,” especially when they benefit some cause. As a freshly-minted sole-proprietor trying to get things off the ground, I call them “free gigs” and have a pretty sharp love/hate relationship with them. Thankfully this project engages my interest on several levels and I find myself unable to resist it’s sensuous pull. Chip is coming to Omaha in February, pimping his new book and generally being fabulous, I imagine, and I happen to be in close contact with the coordinator of the event for the local AIGA: Be A Design Cast co-host Donovan Beery.

So I say to Donovan, “The poster you and your spirited team are working on looks great and should attract a bevy of local designers. But this man, this Chip Kidd fellow, he represents an appeal to markets beyond simply graphic designers. A market that, for the event to be successful, you must tap into: Book lovers and comic geeks.” Believe me when I tell you my spoken words are somewhat less eloquent than my written ones.

Much of this line of thought comes from watching the very same AIGA chapter butcher a speaking engagement for the now-legendary Deborah Adler, who, despite changing the world a scant few years ago, only garnered about 20 guests because her appearance was promoted only to designers, and not additionally to the medical or pharmaceutical communities nor to local Target stores (of which Omaha has seven, with another on the way).

So I decided to take one for the team (my team) and design a poster that should be irresistible to bookstore and comic shop walls. It would have to be easy to reproduce, easy to distribute, engage the viewer amidst a great deal of clutter, and totally introduce the viewer to Chip’s work. The good news is that, anecdotally at least, most people actually are familiar with Chip’s work, they just don’t recognize it as his. However, my new-businessman mind can only allow so much: I have decided to limit my involvement with this poster to a slim four hours. Given the look and feel of most poster boards in the local market, this time limit’s impact on overall quality should not hamper the result’s appropriateness.

I am letting some ideas bake in my mind and will begin promptly at 2:00 p.m. Central Standard Time today, January 21. My progress will be posted live on the half-hour.

Annnnd Go.

2:00 – 2:30: Beginning with sketches, as any good designer should. It occurs to me on my third that Chip would hate a poster designed for his event with a photo of himself on it. Why? Because if the book is about a horse, you never just put a horse on the cover. Nonetheless, the man has created quite the iconic look for himself, which at least one option I have is going to chase down for the time being.

I have found the basic outline. 11″ x 17″, four-color, with a .375″ white border (to eliminate trimming needs) encasing a larger border featuring works designed by the man himself. I’ll have to cull those from the internet later. Quotes from famous authors regarding Chip (and those certainly aren’t hard to find) will populate the negative areas surrounding the main information. These quotes, combined with the image of his more commercially successful or recognizable works (read: Jurassic Park) will sell the scope of the engagement, while the inner illustration will carry some of the whimsy of the evening’s events.

I am, however, currently torn between two of the thumbnails in my short set.

2:30 – 3:00: They say patience is a virtue, and I know that it is one I do not have. Having made my selection, I spent the past 25 minutes rocking out the inked illustration. There were errors, to be sure, in both physical process and thought process, and it will require digital cleanup. Also, drying time. I hope to have a scan by the next half hour. Why I wait for it to dry (with the fan on in my bathroom), I’ll take this time to cull together the remain pieces of the puzzle.

3:00 – 3:30: The hot, hot eyes of Natalie Portman now watch over my project for some reason (actually, there’s a good reason. It’s a comp image representative of photography style for another project I’m working on) Sadly the illustration has not yet dried, and it currently sits, moist like day-old pizza, daring me to ruin my scanner by dropping it on prematurely. So I forged ahead into the murky waters of low-res jpegs searching for images of Chip’s covers. I began with the ones I know off-hand, since I’d rather save this task for the very end, when I will grab my copy of Chip Kidd: Book One and reference titles to search. The goal with this part is to play equally to book and comic fans, satisfying the needs of both. I have just a scant few to drop in at this moment, and as soon as I finish this update I am off to check on that illustration.

3:30 – 4:00: Reaching the halfway point feels terrible. Right now my details are a complete mess, and nothing is working. BLEUGH! Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but when you decide to put your entire process in front of the world, even if only a few people are actually watching, you have to show work in stages that you would never, ever show it. And I tell you now, I would never, ever show this. Except here.

4:25 The pressure of half-hour updates is getting in the way of the creative process. It is, in fact, damaging to the project. See you at 6:00!

6:00 Challenge failed! While I have a working comp, I came up short on content. The problem with Chip is that, when you pour over his monolithic book, you find yourself having a great deal of trouble choosing which great pieces of design to include. There’s quite a few. Add to that the internet’s failure to have high-resolution files of ever cover he’s ever designed in his entire career and this kind of thing can start to suck. The search took much longer than expected, so almost no attention has been paid to placement, and I was only able to turn up one quote before the bell rang. The rest are placeholder texts. Alas, here is the comp, unfinished.

And I have a few things to assess. Namely the “anti-clutter clutter” that has developed. This thing is busy. And a busy poster on a busy wall is not going to stand out. Unfortunately for my new business mind, this poster is going to take a little more time tomorrow morning. However, fans of poorly designed posters rejoice: I promise you every one of those book covers is a low-res jpeg stolen directly from the web. I may not even convert them to CMYK for printing, just to keep it authentic…

I should address that illustration before I sign off. The whole Chip-Kidd-Rock-Star thing, that’s sticking around so far as applied titles go. But as these would be posted in environments that celebrated the classics in literature, I felt that making Chip a classical rock star, based on Beethoven or Mozart, would be a nice turn. Kept simple in the interest of eliminating clutter. Somewhat successful for a 20-minute endeavor?

Thanks for tuning in…

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.

The first time I freelanced was about three and a half years ago and I called myself “Nathan Voss Design and Illustration.” Because that’s who I am, and that’s what I do. This is a trap that most people fall into. I’ve always found it so incredibly odd that in a profession built on monsterous creativity we wind up with companies named “Charles S. Anderson Design” and “Crispin Porter Whoever.” I can think of a plethora of liked names in the Omaha area alone; pretty much everywhere there is to work in this town, with few exceptions, is named after the bloke who founded it.

But what does that really say about your new company? “We’re really creative! Swears! We just skipped the day where we named the company!”

Well, enough sermonizing. How to escape this is easy and relatively selective to the creative industries:

RULE #1: Don’t name a company. Name a band.

RULE #2: Do not talk about Fight Club.

Bands have cool names like Journey, AC/DC, WHAM!, Guns n’ Roses, Foo Fighters, The Killers, Radiohead, etc. Now imagine a design firm named “The Killers.” That’s plausible. You could see that. And I’ll bet that place kicks ass. “AC/DC” makes sense, and you may have laughed but I could totally see some touchy-feely design shop out there named “Journey.”

Please note that I am not recommending naming your company after a band. Name it like a band. Aesthetic Apparatus did it. Archrival did it. Modern Dog did it. Can you imagine heading out late on a friday to catch the Oxide show at the Sokol? Opening act Pentagram? Hell yes. Do you see yourself doing the same thing to catch the “BBDO” concert? Only if you’re into new-age adult contemporary.

Sure there will still be a few Steve Miller and Dave Matthews Bands out there, but the design world will be a much richer place in its chosen designations. Here’s a fine place to get started (not really).

COMMENTS SECTION GAME: Pick the band name that would make the best design firm name and, conversely, pick the design firm name that would make the best band name. Annnnnd go!