I was scanning some pages from old sketch books of mine, and thought I would share a sketch with you. I am going to try and do an image of the week. It is hard to write something every day, and since I am constantly working with graphics anyway, it makes sense to post some of the images I work with that would otherwise go unseen. Looking through old sketches is always fun, but it makes me realize I need to start drawing more...

Here is the image for this week. I took this shot under a bridge in Nebraska. The graffiti has been covered up in a very beautiful way. Any Abstract Expressionist would be proud...

BE A DESIGN GROUP
Photo by Bennett Holzworth

I wouldn't exactly say these two were separated at birth, but the similarities are striking. This photo caught my eye when I was searching through photos.com, a subscription based stock photo site. I wish I would have seen this in real life and taken the photo, but I will just take credit for seeing some of its shared DNA with the iPod. I assume this device is used to help pedestrians in crossing the street.

Does this design reach the level of our beloved iPods? Maybe. I would have to see it in use to say for sure, but probably not. The beauty of the iPod is that it has so many functions, very few controls, and it is still very intuitive. If anything these two objects prove that there is beauty when form does follow function.

I have been thinking about pinhole cameras since last week when I was describing the photography of Abelardo Morell to my creative director. If you are unfamiliar with Abelardo Morell, the link above will take you to a gallery of his work. What Morell is famous for is essentially turning entire rooms into cameras. By blocking out all the light in a room except for a small aperture on the window, the image outside the room is projected across the room. Morell, standing inside the “camera” used a long exposure to photograph the inside of the room with the outside projected upon the interior. With a little more research, I learned that what he was building is actually called a camera obscura, a tool that dates back to the 5th century BC. The reason I bring this up is partly because I took some heat a few posts back for criticizing Paula Scher, a technophobe, for endorsing the G5.

As I was driving down a small highway in Kansas, I noticed this beautiful old sign. I took a photo for our BA project and set out to find more in this mystical land of Bala. I drove down a small road hoping for more unique BA photos. I found six more, but more importantly I found a small adventure. Not an adventure with people or events, but a visual feast none the less. I have included a photo journal of my adventure.

A couple weeks ago I described the technology burnout that led me to build a pinhole camera. Once I stripped away the extraneous gadgetry, I was left with a lightproof box with a hole in it. Until I build myself a darkroom, I won’t be able to test this simple machine. Or will I? My vacation from technology was nice, but back to technology I go. It is going to take digital camera technology to test my pinhole camera.

Although my pinhole camera (part 1 and part 2) experiments led me to this subject, this post isn’t specifically design related. I wasn’t able to find a great resource online for this subject, so I thought I would share my experience with anyone looking for an alternative to the Nikon MC-EU1 Remote release cord. If you are interested in this kind of thing, here is how I made a Remote Shutter Release Cord for my Nikon Coolpix 5000 digital camera…

I am finally getting around to explaining how I built my digital pinhole camera. If you have ever made a pinhole camera, you recognize that there are major drawbacks to traditional pinhole photography. Fortunately, our hybrid digital pinhole camera isn’t limited by the traditional obstacles that make pinhole photography impractical. For example, with our digital pinhole camera, it is easy to get full color images. There isn’t any processing or light sensitive materials. There isn’t any fumbling around in the dark trying to load your camera. You can take as many photos as your memory card will allow, and best of all, you get instant results. Let’s get started…

Digital Sucks. That’s the name of a website dedicated to photography taken with Holga and other toy cameras. They have some pretty nice photos, and I would be curious to know if they would be offended by my digital pinhole camera. Although the site is on “life support,” and hasn’t been updated in a while, the sermon on the site is an interesting read:

“With digital the geeks have turned the photographic process into a video game. The artform is being corrupted and buried under a mountain of technology. And not only the artform is suffering - the art itself is evaporating.”

Over-the-top, yes, but it is somewhat understandable that a group of low-tech camera enthusiasts would be repulsed by the digital explosion recently. To be honest, I don’t understand why the average consumer has embraced digital photography the way they have. Without a hefty investment in a camera, computer, software, and printer, the quality of digital still can’t compete with even the most inexpensive film cameras. That’s not to mention the huge learning curve and the organization headaches. There is no doubt that we are in the middle of a digital reformation with technology changing many aspects of our life. I don’t think that necessarily means doom for the low-techies. As technology continues to increase, so will the backlash. As more and more people look for low-tech alternatives, I think anti-digital groups like Digital Sucks will also increase in popularity. Maybe pinhole cameras will see an increase in popularity, too.

Few things have stirred up more controversy lately than freedom. Don’t worry, I am not going to go on a political rant, stick with me here. We all know about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, etc., but have you ever thought about logo design in the context of freedom?

I was reading that camera production flourished under a communist government in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s. In a generic landscape where individuality wasn’t tolerated, a logo was much more (or maybe much less?) than a marketing tool. To have a logo is to have an identity, and that’s what makes the camera factory logos found in the Soviet Union so intriguing. According to Alfred Klomp,

“One of the consequences of the way the Soviet Union was structured is that factories were seen as integral parts of the state rather than as independent economic units. Factories therefore never profiled themselves, and always remained hidden behind the massive facade of trade firms and state export. Their products were given generic names like Zorki or Zenit, and the only way to connect the end products with their manufacturers was to look at their logos. They were the last glints of independence of otherwise generic factories.”

In addition to a great selection of camera reviews, and a nice collection of his photography, Alfred Klomp has collected and redrawn many of the logos that identified the camera factories of the communist Soviet Union. The logos are accompanied by a short history of each factory, and the models of cameras they produced. It is really fascinating stuff.

Although it may be a bit too optimistic to think that logo design could bring hope to an oppressed workforce, I think there is definitely some substance to that line of thought. Sometimes we forget that logo design is more than the execution of a marketing strategy. When a company’s logo is a source of pride to the workers of that company, great things can happen. More than an abstraction, a logo represents the people who rally under it. It is a source of pride, loyalty, identity, and in maybe even freedom.

I thought this link went well with Adrian’s Retail Alphabet post and our collection of BA photos.

Just type in whatever you want and Spell With Flickr will draw from Flickr’s photo archive and spell out your chosen word in photographs. I couldn’t help typing in BA and refreshing the screen multiple times.

Thank you to fellow author, Jeremy Pruitt, for sending me the link.

Blu Dot has come out with a “desktop clock” that has had me mesmerized for the past week. This clock and supporting short flim have been reviewed by other blogs, but it is so inline with our ever changing BA identity that it just belongs here. This clock is essentially a collection of found typography. I can’t imagine the work that went into this. Actually I can, and that is what scares me. This clock makes my BA photo addiction seem like some “harmless experimentation”. Download this clock and I guarantee you will want to look at your screen even if you are working on the fifteenth revision of a used car lot’s newspaper ad. Thanks to Ben Schicker for sending me the link.

I used to think that it took a small fortune to take up medium format photography as a hobby. Used cameras on B&H and the ads in photo magazines give the impression that shooting medium format takes a minimum investment of $1000. Believe it or not, you can shoot medium format on a budget of less than $100. Your camera won’t say Mamiya or Hasselblad, but you would be surprised how much life there is beneath the extravagant surface of medium format cameras.

Today, (April 24) is Worldwide Pinhole Photography day. In celebration of this holiday, I encourage you all to go out and take some pictures with your pinhole cameras. If you don’t have a pinhole camera, or you just want to learn more about it, here are some links for you to peruse:

Pinhole.org has a gallery with a collection of photos from over 200 photographers. They recently added a blog to the site, too.

Flickr has a group dedicated to pinhole photography.

Photo.net has a good history on pinhole photography.

Here is a link to my first post about pinhole photography on this site, and here is a link to some of my photos taken with my digital pinhole camera.

Most vendors in the printing and photography industries cater to non-designers for good reason: that’s where the money is. In an effort to serve as many customers as they can, they make their services as simple and universal as possible. Since most customers don’t have knowledge or access to design software, the job of color correcting, resizing, and layout either gets done by under qualified software or by a non-designer working for minimum wage. Specialty options are limited in order to simplify the process. The results are very acceptable, and the price is cheap. Sometimes you can even get exactly what you want. Everyone wins. Except the graphic designers. Designers aren’t satisfied with acceptable generic results. We know exactly what we want and that is usually a high quality custom product. We need the printer to match our expectations exactly. When you think about it in those terms, why would anyone want us for customers anyway?

What if there were companies that catered to designers instead of the average consumer? They could cut cost by letting the designer doing the work of file preparation. Since we already have the skills and tools to prepare our files, we can do the heavy lifting and all they would have to do is have highly accurate, high quality machines to do the printing. Good news! These companies do exist. Here are a couple graphic designer friendly companies that I have come across in the last couple weeks.

A regular commenter on our site stated that he appreciated our “non-NY-centric point of view”. As much as we all love New York it is good to get as many different view points as possible. I decided to embrace the midwest and share this little photo essay.

These photos are from a recent visit to my wife’s family farm. It is amazing the beautiful things you can find if you only look. This also supports the idea that you can find inspiration no matter where you are.

I picked up a Polaroid camera for $1 at a garage sale thinking I could add a pinhole and have a pinholaroid. I didn’t find any good online tutorials, and feeling confident after building my digital pinhole camera, I decided to figure it out as I went. Keep reading to learn how to turn a cheap Polaroid camera into a cheap polaroid pinhole camera…

Paul Giambarba was the first art director for the Polaroid Corporation. His blog, “The Branding of Polaroid” tells of his experience as a designer at Polaroid from 1957-1977. It is a fascinating journey from the first logo redesign in 1957 through the instant movie film failure of 1977. You really get a designer’s perspective as you follow Paul through the highs and lows of one of the most innovative and influential companies in the history of photography.

Another highlight of the site is a memo from Ansel Adams called “Typographic design in relation to visual sales impact” criticizing Polaroid’s packaging. Although he was a major consultant of Polaroid’s, it still seems a bit arrogant to hear him tell the designer, “I would like to see such titles as Type 52, 4x6 packets, field tank, 545 adapter, etc. (along with POLAROID) visible from a greater distance.” That is a nice way of saying, “make the type bigger.” Nevertheless, it is interesting to read how sensitive Ansel Adams was to the graphic design of Polaroid and Kodak’s packaging.

Thanks to everyone who offered positive feedback about the BADG identity. Here is a link to our collection of over 250 BA photos. Enjoy.

If you ask many designers what they love to do, you will undoubtedly find a great deal that love to travel. There is no great mystery here. We designers love to see new things. To be visually challenged and stimulated by what we see on our travels. We get accustomed to our familiar surroundings and don’t “really” see the beauty (or ugly) around us. Travel awakens us from our visual slumber.

What follows is a photo journal of what I saw on my week vacation to Oregon a couple of months ago. The landscape was probably the most inspiring part of all, but we’ve all seen photos of mountains and waterfalls. Some of what I have included is inspiring, some of it is mundane and others are kind of funny. All of them just happen to be signs.

Just in case you missed my photo on our BADG photo blog. Remember to keep the wildlife “Wild”. Maybe we should just feed them Mountain Dew and Slim Jims and they can not only be wild, but EXTREME!

Collecting “BA” photography has been a part of this site from the very beginning. It started as an exercise for keeping us alert to design that is always surrounding us, and has become a rewarding and slightly obsessive activity. Although Bennett has contributed the bulk of our BA Photo Collection, the hope has always been to get as many people to contribute to our photo collection as possible. When BA Photo of the Week evolved into a photo blog, we were going to accept submissions from all our readers. Due to the lack of an efficient system, that never happened - until now. Introducing the Be A Design Group photo pool on Flickr. Now anyone can share their photography with our group!

Here is how it works:

1. Join Flickr
If you haven’t joined Flickr yet, you need to. A free membership allows you to upload photos and plug into a huge community. You will soon see why Flickr is one of the most exciting sites online. (Design Observer even says so!)

2. Upload Photos
After you get some of your photos on Flickr, join the Be A Design Group, uh, group, and add some photos to our pool.

3. Look for your photos every time you read our blog
The photos in the sidebar are pulled straight from our Flickr pool. The top two are the 2 most recent additions, and the bottom two are pulled randomly from the collection.

You are probably wondering what kind of photos you can share with our group, right? Well, although we are most interested with photos that have a “BA” in them, you can submit any photo that might be of interest to a graphic designer. Mainly, we just want to see some of your pictures and connect with more of our readers. I am also hoping that this might even turn into something bigger in the future. Maybe we can pick our favorite BA photo and feature a BA photographer each month. If anybody knows someone who might like to contribute a prize, maybe we could turn it into a monthly contest. If things really take off, it would be cool to make a publication like Light Leaks Magazine. The possibilities are endless, so get out there and take some “BA” photos and share them with our group! I can’t wait to see wait to see what you come up with.

I don’t think that my camera likes making time-lapse photography. I can’t blame it for getting bored after taking the same photo several thousand times. It is tedious production work. I set up the camera and then leave it all alone for most of the day. Not exactly a camera’s dream job. So I am not surprised that once in a while my Nikon Coolpix 995 decides to rebel. Once every few thousand images it decides to break the routine and design something more interesting. It moves parts of the photo around. It changes the colors. It repeats the parts that it likes, and deletes what it doesn’t like. If I didn’t know better, I would think that my camera wanted to be a graphic designer. It never resizes the image, but sometimes it leaves a white edge on one side. I think that is its polite way of saying that it would rather work in a different proportion. I guess 4x3 is a digital camera’s equivalent of 8.5x11. It’s boring.

The results of my camera’s improvisation are useless in terms of time-lapse, but often they are quite beautiful on there own. They are almost always more interesting than the photos taken seconds before and after. I am sure there is a more technical explanation for these images, but I prefer my Toy-Story-esque explanation. Rather than delete these images I have decided to save them. It’s best to keep the creatives happy, plus I think they fit very well with my Found Photography theme…

I recently received a proof back from the client that had the words “cut grass” next to the photograph. I assume the client wasn’t telling me to change careers, but to trim the unruly grass in the specified photo. Actually, grass is used fairly liberally in this instance. It should have probably said “weed whack”. The photo is of some manufactured equipment that is in its natural environment, i.e. two feet tall weeds growing around it’s base. I’ve cleaned up plenty of photos in my career, but it just seems to be getting ridiculous. Do clients know too much about the powers of Photoshop, or too little? Wouldn’t it just be easier for the client to pay a grounds keeper to mow around the equipment and then retake the photo (which they insist on shooting themselves)?

Browsing through stock photo sites ranks right up there with going to the dentist for me. Every time I use one a little piece of me dies. But on a lighter note, check out Forty Media’s list of the top ten Stock Photo Clichés. How many times have you seen the “The Handshake of Synergy” the “The Romantic Glow of the Laptop” or the always appropriate “Telecommuting from the Edge.” So true. So sad.

via Photon Detector

A couple weeks ago when I was on a photo shoot in the middle of Indiana. The assignment was to document the workers at a corporation there. Aside from the remote location, it was a fun project. The people were genuinely friendly, the project went smoothly, and the camera I was using really performed well. The only snag came with a photo I needed to take of an Amish worker. The Amish craftsmanship and work ethic is a source of great pride to the company, and they wanted that to be represented in the photos. Out of respect for their religion, we asked worker after worker if they would mind being in a picture. One by one they all declined. The Amish don’t like to be photographed because it might cause them to be tempted by pride. Some didn’t mind if they were in the background of the photos, but almost none of them were willing to be the focus of the picture. I respected the wishes of these people and didn’t take their photo.

When I was done with the “official” photo shoot I spent a couple evenings driving around and taking pictures of rural Indiana. At one point I was walking by some Amish people and had a great photo opportunity. I hesitated knowing how they would feel about getting their photo taken. Did I really need these people’s permission before I could take their photo? If you have ever found yourself in a similar situation, you are probably wondering what your legal rights are. Here are some important things to keep in mind…

After a long wait (and a brush with the law), we have finally updated the BA photos at the top of the page. If some of the newer visitors are not aware of our ever changing identity, here are a few posts that explain it a little more in depth (Feedback on our BA collection, Our updated photos, Photo pool on Flickr) and here is the entire collection. .

Fellow BADG author Drew Davies took most of these new BA photos on a trip to the Cayman Islands, but we also have some submissions from Adrian, Kyle Heinemann, Clint Carlson, John Sanders, Gregory Golem and I. As always, feel free to upload your own BA photos to our Flickr pool and we will eventually add them to the collection.

And now, on with the story of my run in with “the law” for this very blog.

You probably saw the news story about the photograph recently purchased by Reuters that was discovered to have been altered. The photo shows the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut and it had been Photoshopped to make the smoke look bigger and darker. The photographer was fired, and his 900+ photographs were removed from Reuters database. Reuters has a zero tolerance policy for doctored photos, and I suppose that is the only stance they can possibly take, but I keep asking myself, what was the crime here? Why the outrage? I fake photography all day long. It’s called advertising. Why is advertising given a pass, while the news is forced to abide by some higher moral standard? All the photographer did was clone some of the smoke and increase the contrast. Big deal. With a little more skill, these changes could have been made in camera by adjusting the exposure and camera position. With a little more Photoshop skill, the photo never would have been questioned. Why was this photo so shocking, and why would an admission that photos in the news are altered be so controversial? In my opinion, the whole scandal has to do with a widespread misconception that a photograph = truth. Let me explain…

To be honest, I was surprised at how hostile the comments were when I raised the question of whether or not photography in the news represents truth. If there is any question left in your mind that a photograph is a purely editorial tool, let me introduce you to a new feature offered on several new HP cameras.

The feature is called “slimming.” To quote HP, “With the slimming feature, anyone can appear more slender—instantly. The effect is subtle—subjects still look like themselves.” HP continues by saying the slimming effect “can be adjusted for a more dramatic effect. See a before and after version, then decide which to keep.”

This camera plays off of the misconception that a photograph represents reality. If a photo says you are thin, people will believe it. When a camera can make a person look fatter or thinner, we can’t trust photographs to be an accurate description of reality. At best they are an interpretation, at worst they are a blatant lie. If you think this is harmless put it in a different context. What happens when cameras can make smoke look darker, people look meaner, or terrorists look heroic. The fact is that cameras already have this ability! People will continue to believe the photos that compliment their world view, whether it is that they are thin, or a political preference. That is wrong, and we need to change this misconception of photography representing reality. I would love to pontificate more on this post, but it