6-30-08 Like Colors! Former BADG author Drew Davies and his company (Oxide Design) are creating a book chock full of amazing t-shirt designs. Submit yours today!

5-19-08 Adrian has just launched Font Burner. It’s the easiest way to add great fonts to your website.

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.

The other day I received a letter in the mail informing me that I had something in the newly released Best of Business Card Design 8. It wasn’t until I got the book in the mail this week, that I found out which pieces made the cut. Kind of strange timing to get a two-page spread in a design book in the same month that you are shutting the featured website down (i.e. this site).

I was also pleased to find out that the business cards I did for my wife made it in.

Well, as a few of you might have noticed, I have been really absent from BADG over the last year. I made a job and location move and the motivation to blog seemed to have been left behind. I’m not sure if I just needed a break, I no longer need the creative outlet, I was too busy with home renovation, my desire to be a famous designer has faded or my temporary home studio isn’t conducive to long hours of blogging, but I’ve only posted a few times in the last 12 months. Somewhere in that long list is the answer, and one of these days I will figure it out. With Adrian retiring as an author, my practical retirement, several others dropping out of author circulation and then Donovan and Nate striking out on their own, it is time to put Be A Design Group into retirement. It has been an amazing four years! We will definitely keep the site up as an archive and Adrian and I plan to develop it into something new and fresh in the future, but for now BADG wants to take a nap from its stint of discussions, reviews, rants and critiques of the last few years.

While we are sad to say goodbye, we also thought it would be fun to bring BADG back to its heyday for the next couple weeks. We’ve invited a gaggle of our past authors to write original essays that we will post over the next couple of weeks. We will start posting on Monday and make a new post live every other day. Look for new insight from Drew, Paul, Kyle, Clint, Adrian and I.

You can keep up with many of us from the past by following these links.

Adrian has a couple other blogs he has created.
I have my portfolio site and letterpress work to look for. I even have a gig poster page.
Of course Nate and Donovan will be moving skyward with 36point.com
Drew Davies is still owning Oxide Design.
Travis Gray would rather not be found at travisgray.com
Clint Carlson actually works at the same agency as Adrian does.
David Kadavy can be found on kadavy.net.
As always you can see Jeremy Pruitt’s work at ThinkMule.com.
Kyle Heineman is keeping busy with his family and his job at esri.
Paul Berkbigler is warping young minds at Concordia University.

The sad, sad reality (via a sad, sad reality):

Here are some of the highlights of our new and improved site:

1. Flash replacement of headlines
Since the web isn’t any closer to font freedom, I used SiFR to replace our headlines with a non-system typeface, Futura.

2. New templates
BADG has been powered by Movable Type since 2004 and our templates were pretty old, not to mention I barely knew what I was doing when I first created them. Our new templates take advantage of MT’s improvements over the past few years. This should keep things flowing smoothly and with less bandwidth and strain on our servers.

3. Valid markup
Our XHTML and CSS both validate. Hooray!

4. Affiliate BAnners
More about this in the future, but we now have a system for rotating banners of our sponsors. I hate to call them BAnner ads, but the goal of our affiliate program will be to help offset the cost of maintaining the site. If you are interested in purchasing a banner, just send us an email!

5. Pages are now PHP
The really observant may have noticed that our pages changed from shtml to php a couple months ago, but now it is official. If you try to access any of the old shtml pages you will be redirected to the new php pages thanks to some tricky .htaccess redirection. Hey, I told you this was geeky didn’t I?

6. Improved comment spam protection
As an extra layer of defense you now have to type the word “design” before your comments appear on the site. This simple test filters out the robots from the humans and keeps BADG spam free. When combined with our top secret spam reduction methods BADG it is our goal that spam comments will never appear on our site.

7. Now hosted by MediaTemple
We finally outgrew 1and1 and moved our site to MediaTemple. They have been great so far and they are one of the few web hosts that appreciate and promote good design. That makes them the perfect fit for us, and we recommend them.

8. New BA photos
We have a fresh batch of BA’s in rotation. Thanks to everyone who has submitted photos. Keep them coming!

9. BetA Login
BetA, our private blog for graphic designers is still going strong. Now you can login to BetA from the sidebar on our homepage. If you don’t know what BetA is, read all about it here.

10. Updates by Email
This is actually an old feature, but the notification system needed to be reset when we switched servers. If you have signed up for email notification in the past you will need to sign up again. Any time a new post is made to BADG you will receive an email. You can sign up and learn moer here.

The launch of a redesign is exciting, but what really excites me is that the time I was spending on building the site now can go to writing for the site again. I have been relatively quiet on the site for many months and I am looking forward to stirring up some trouble again. Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

What do you get when you combine graphic design with 400 free bottles of bubbles, about 1000 people, and New York City’s Union Square? BubbleBath: a scene right out of Willy Wonka’s fizzy-lifting drink testing room – but with snazzier branding.

Held last month on a bright Saturday afternoon, BubbleBath was the brainchild (and part of the senior thesis) of Anthony DeFranco, a student in the BFA design program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York. The idea came to him when he saw bubbles floating around a Manhattan street corner (thanks to an old man selling toys a few feet away). DeFranco noticed how the bubbles made people smile and brought them together, kind of like great design.

“Design played a major role in the project,‚Äù DeFranco told me. “It was how BubbleBath went from being an idea to a tangible object.‚Äù His BubbleBath brand, in a distinctive hue best described as Mr. Bubble Pink, popped up on his website as well as the event’s press kit, t-shirts, and of course, the bottles of bubbles distributed on the big day.

In addition to the event’s fun and playful spirit, DeFranco wanted the BubbleBath brand to showcase the time, effort, and genuine emotion behind the project. “This was especially important when dealing with companies and other official organizations,‚Äù he said. “Everything had to seem legit, and like I wasn’t just some hooligan who was going to take over Union Square for a day.‚Äù James Victore, DeFranco’s portfolio teacher and mentor at SVA, applied the Socratic method, pushing his student at every stage with the question “What would Pentagram do?‚Äù The end result was two logos, one more corporate and serious, the other more creative and playful.

DeFranco set the more businesslike BubbleBath logo in HelveticaNeue condensed bold and sprinkled various weights of Trade Gothic throughout the project. “Whenever I use set type these are two of my favorites,‚Äù he said. “Everything else was done by hand, which is how I prefer to do all my type.‚Äù

“For me BubbleBath was just a stepping stone. I want to keep going bigger and continue to surprise people and myself,‚Äù said DeFranco. “I would love to be able to make a career out of this type of work.‚Äù He aspires to work with designers such as Stefan Sagmeister and Victore, “who use design to touch people, to educate, and to inspire.‚Äù

The event exceeded even DeFranco’s expectations. “I never expected BubbleBath to touch people the way it did,‚Äù he said. “I had a lot of people coming up to me asking for hugs and to tell me how much the event meant to them.‚Äù But it wasn’t all holding hands and blowing bubbles. One reveler decided to share with DeFranco some bubbles of another kind. “The most amusing part of the day happened when someone came up to me and spat right in my face. Seriously.‚Äù

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Probably the most exciting part of BetA is that you will be leading the conversation. As a member, you have the ability to make a post and address the group about whatever you feel like. After your first post, you will see your name in the author section along with all the other BetA members. Your name will link to your very own profile page which you will be able to update and manage yourself. You will also be able assign yourself an avatar that will appear next to comments you make anywhere on BetA.

A side benefit to us is that we hope to harvest some of the more fruitful content for use publicly on Be A Design Group. This will be done with your permission, of course, and if we see an especially active member we may ask them to make the jump to BADG as an official author with all the fame, glory and wealth (cough) that goes with that prestigious title.

In addition to giving you a place to share your ideas, and the possibility of super stardom, BetA is also a place where the BADG team can experiment with ideas and get feedback from our most dedicated readers. You will be the first to know about new features that will be added to the site, potential podcast guests, and all kinds of insider knowledge. Heck, we may even have a yearly campout for members so we can get to meet you in person.

Registration will always be free, but membership will be by invitation only. How do you get an invitation? Good news. Until November 15, 2006, membership will be open to anyone and everyone who reads Be A Design Group. After that, simply send us an email and ask for an invitation. If you have left a comment on the site, we will most likely give you a green light.

I would like to thank the following “BetA testers” for their suggestions and involvement! Shout outs to:
GCRaya, Jason, PixelHustler, Simanek, Ben Swift, JonSel, lostbercub, outerwear4, Donovan, Nate, Bennett, and Sam Sampson. You guys rock!

My hope is that BetA lets us to get to know each other better and allows us to help one another grow as designers. Hopefully soon BetA will be filled with conversations and personalities. Sign up, log in, and start kicking the tires. BetA is waiting for you.

What do you think about the attention designism has gotten lately? Pick the answer that best matches your thoughts about designism:
1. I have no idea what they are talking about.
2. I like the idea of using design to promote social change. Where do I sign up?
3. The discussion is interesting, but the left wing politics turned me off to the whole thing.
4. Designism is a waste of time and I don’t think it will ever become a movement.
5. Designism is a monumentally important design movement and it is imperative that we keep the discussion going.
6. Design has always been about making the world a better place, so I don’t really get the point of inventing the word “designism.”

Voting is annonymous and simple so cast your vote here. If you just want to check out the results, they can be found here.

After you vote, continue reading to find out what I think of designism and why the movement is off to a bad start.

Yesterday I listened to the podcast of the designism event hosted by The Art Director’s Club recently. The event was conceived of by Brian Collins, and the cast included Milton Glaser, James Victore, Jessica Helfand, George Lois, Kurt Andersen, and Tony Hendra and was moderated by Steven Heller. If you have the stamina for an hour and a half podcast, I recommend it. If for no other reason, you will know what people are talking about when you hear the word designism getting thrown around.

Before listening to the podcast, I wouldn’t have been able to define designism. Now it is clear that the movement’s goal is to connect design to politics. In other words, designism is the use of design for political activism. If you want a less “loaded” definition, it is simply the ability to change the world through design. If you read this blog you already know my feelings against confusing design with politics, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I am not a big fan of designism as it was presented in this event. (I suppose I should also admit that I don’t share the extreme left point of view of the event, but you also won’t hear me promoting an opposing viewpoint. I don’t because that would be appropriate.)

My disappointment with the event has to do with the fact that I agree with the noble premise that design can (and should) make the world a better place. That is a belief that I have repeatedly promoted on this site, and will continue to motivate my work. However, it seems to me that the designism movement (using the conference as my main source of information) is off to a rocky start. The convention amounted to little more than a self congratulatory love fest for liberal designers. If designism is going to take off as a movement, it needs to appeal to a broader audience. For what it’s worth, here are my recommendations (and criticisms) of the designism event:

1. Appeal to more than one political point of view.
If Designism is going to become a movement, it is going to need the support of many different political opinions. The audience became eerily quiet when Steven Heller asked if anyone there disagreed with the liberal point of view that was presented. Perhaps not a single moderate or conservative voice was in attendance, or more likely no one spoke up for fear of being lynched. I know I wouldn’t have said anything had I been there. The tone of the evening was set by Tony Hendra who said,”The late sixties and early seventies and the early to mid eighties (is) when great design thrived. What do these two things have in common? Ah, yes. Right wing presidents.” This was sarcastically refuted later in the evening when the panelists declared Karl Rove to be a “great designer” on par with Goebbels. It is very clear that not even a moderate voice (let alone conservative) would have been welcomed in this venue. That is a shame because the message of design as a tool for improving the world is so much bigger than the narrow point of view presented. Design has the power to cross political borders and I wish that had been the focus of the evening. All political endeavors can benefit from design, so why limit the designism conversation to liberals?

2. Find common ground and strive for some universal truth.
Hatred for George W. Bush is not a foundation for a movement. Not only is it an absurd starting point for a design discussion, but the pessimism of that belief undermines the positive premise of doing good. Jessica Helfand had some interesting ideas about using design to improve voting and using design to better organize social information systems like Flickr. Those are the kind of things that are universally appealing, without isolating people or limiting the scope of design to a single agenda.

3. Speak in a civil tone.
Designers are supposed to be proficient communicators. If you can’t go a couple sentences without dropping the “F” bomb, you aren’t qualified to lead a discussion. George Lois’s strategy amounted to little more than “getting pissed” and “ass kicking” your way to social change. I was embarrassed for Jessica Helfand, whose refined verbal skills were insulted in contrast to the gutter language used by some of the other panelists. I can only speak for myself, but I would never want to associate my name with the vulgarity that was used by certain members of the panel. Unfortunately, that is an all too common occurrence in our industry.

4. Avoid controversy.
The interesting thing about all the examples discussed by the designers is that most of them were controversial political statements. I think a case can be made that good political design almost needs to be controversial. I don’t think that the foundation of a design movement should be built upon controversial political positions, however. Extreme political opinions may energize a group of like-minded listeners, but if the designism message is going to get legs, it needs to appeal to many and offend very few. The starting point of designism needs to be universal even if the end products require provocative design solutions.

5. Don’t insult designers by saying that political design is more important than other forms of design.
Most designers aren’t going to quit their day job of designing dog biscuits in favor of picketing in the street with well designed posters. Politics is only one of the countless areas that can use design to improve the world. There needs to be a practical aspect to designism that can appeal to designers who aren’t interested in the political arena.

Perhaps my midwest upbringing has something to do with it, but I obviously had a hard time connecting with what was said on the designism podcast. I would love to hear the panelists respond to my criticisms. If they want designism to do good and to grow into a strong movement it needs to be more than a left wing designer club. There is potential to the idea of designism, but if the ideas are going to spread it will need to win the support of people like me. What do you think? Are you on board with designism as it was presented in the podcast?