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Be A Design Cast 2

On this week’s episode, Marty Neumier’s The Dictionary of Brand, and Coudal Partner’s Copy Goes Here are reviewed, as is Tom’s junk mail.

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On today’s podcast, AT&T becomes lowercase and drags design down with it; Part One of the Be A Design Cast Holiday Design Review; and your friends the Blog Recap and Student Tip of the Week.

Welcome to the Be A Design Cast for the week of December 27th, 2000 and 5. On the Design Cast this week, we bid farewell to Macromedia as they are officially taken over by Adobe Systems. Tom takes a dive into the Dew, and the Holiday Design Review continues.

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Welcome to Be A Design Cast 5. Today we discuss the Intel’s rebranding effort and the merits of the millennium swoosh along with the final installment of the 2005 holiday design review — don’t forget to vote! Also we welcome David Kadavy to the Design Cast all the way from northern California.

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The Be A Design Cast keeps getting better! (7mb) This week we welcome Ric Grefé, the executive director of AIGA (the professional association for design) to the Design Cast for our very special first interview. Ric talks about the future of AIGA and of our profession, as well as the re-positioning of AIGA in it. Our thanks go out to AIGA Nebraska and president Drew Davies (a Be A Design Group author, in case you were wondering how we swindled this) for allowing us a few moments of Ric’s time. Thanks for listening!

NEXT WEEK! The Be A Design Cast continues its march to dominance as we welcome Joe Duffy to the show!

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Coming to you on-location from Des Moines, Iowa! This week we interview none other than AIGA Medalist and good-sport Joe Duffy. We tackle the future of advertising, Duffy’s experiences following his split with Fallon, and much more. Donovan even sneaked in a question about Duffy’s past battle-of-the-minds with Tibor Kalman (get a primer here, courtesy of Design Observer). Also pondered: Has Joe Duffy ever had a Hillary Duff? (answer: no.)

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We blow the lid off this podcast with over a half hour of Superbowl ad coverage. We hope you saw the ads during the game, because it’s a podcast, and we can’t really show them to you. But we can tell you all about them! Tom takes us on a whirlwind tour of the best and worst ads of the night, Nate speaks in broad sweeping generalizations without backup, Donovan drinks Peach Fresca and, if you hang in there long enough, we even squeeze in a student tip for you on top of it all.

Today on the Almost-Tenth Be A Design Cast we welcome fellow Be A Design Group author and AIGA Nebraska President Drew Davies to the show, filling in mightily for Mr. Nemitz. We dive into the treacherous waters of spec work, Olympic design, and design competitions. Also, Drew shatters my faith in House Industries. (But hey, we all did dumb things when we were younger, right?)

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What would you do if you were stuck on a deserted island with only five typefaces for the rest of your life? Choose one for Serif, Sans Serif, Script, Designed-By-Adrian-Frutiger, and the enigmatic “Misc.” You’ll have to listen in for our picks, but we’re more interested to hear from you! Post your picks in the Comments section and we’ll tally up the top five vote getters for a recap on next week’s show. Thanks to Greg for getting us off the negative tip.

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Well, it wouldn’t be a design podcast if we didn’t talk about Quark’s new ways of letting us down… I mean, their new logo. Also, a big thanks to Franz for inspiring Tom on this week’s Taboo Typeface. The man came at it with a vengeance.

Now your number one graphic design podcast! At least as far as the search engines go, and really, isn’t that the only way importance is measured anymore? A big thank you to everyone who listens for putting us there; we aim to please.

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Turn up your speakers, BADCasters, because this week Be A Design Group’s own co-founder Bennett Holzworth joins the show!

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Today on the unlucky 13th BADCast, Donovan coerces me to talk about Apple’s Boot Camp for six or seven minutes before we get to the real news of today’s show: It’s Spring, and student designers everywhere are graduating! We cover how to get a job as a recently minted student designer from the closest parallel experience: Men (student designers—including female student designers) hitting on Women (companies/agencies/design firms). It’s a surprisingly deep analogy. Here’s a taste:

Portfolio = Sexy body A sexy body might get you talking to a lot of girls, but a good personality fit is what it takes to end up in a relationship (freelancing excluded). Conversely, a sloppy, out-of-shape body will make it harder for women to want to talk to you and discover the inner creative genius underneath the flab.

Enjoy! And good luck, graduates.

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This week we bring some serious cool to the BADCast with guest Steve Gordon. We spend a little time on Steve’s raison d’etre:logo and identity design, then wander the exciting, re-invigorating and slightly alcoholic halls of graphic design conferences, including HOW to convince your company to pick up the tab.

Did everyone get the subtle plug there? Eh?

There are no words to describe how cool Steve MF’ing Gordon is; so I will use one I wish I invented: Scrumtrelescent. Steve is like Kane, a Kung-Fu master wandering the Earth, solving design problems, and has been described—to me—by HOW magazine editor Bryn Mooth as a “powerhouse.”

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So this is what it’s like to have an enhanced podcast? This is good. All new rez’s and byte’s and things.

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Live and super echo-y from Aesthetic Apparatus’ studio in downtown Minneapolis, this is the 16th Be A Design Cast! The BADCast takes a secret vacation to the twin cities and drops in on some old friends. Actually, some dudes we met once before: Mike and Dan from Aesthetic Apparatus! This show is a must listen for any fans of their work or anyone looking to make a living designing (or “creating”) gig posters—hint: they do a lot more than posters.

Also on the BADCast this week is our man Steve Gordon doing his Man on the Street thing live-on-tape from the HOW Conference in Las Vegas! Steve did a fantastic job capturing the awe and allure of the Vegas conference, so we’ll be kicking it to him over the next few shows to bring the experience a little closer to you.

And don’t forget, Be A Design Casts are now 100% enhancier, for your pleasure!

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Continuing our trek through sunny Minneapolis, we spend some quiet time in the new Central Library with Brian Edlefson, Senior Designer and Art Director for Target. Brian’s is the in-house designer’s hero, able to work for major corporations, under major brands, and produce majorly amazing work. He holds a position on the Minneapolis AIGA chapter’s board of directors as the associate programming director for in-house designers. He’s also worked for Herman Miller, MoMA, and holds a MFA in Graphic Design from Yale. So there.

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I have been trying to get these guys on the show since the beginning. These two fine young gentlemen, Sheraton and Jovaney (not “Giovanni”), were two of my best friends back in design college. We took most of our classes together and played little games of one-ups-manship to see who could either turn in the most kickass project for critique (they usually won), or rip off the other person’s design (that nearly spiraled out of control). These two graduated and headed to work for Charles Anderson, of CSA Archive, CSA Design, and PopInk fame, and have been there for the past 5 years working on a plethora or crazy, crazy things. Rdqlus things, honestly, that are far more fun than the average designer could easily handle. Anyways I love these guys. This show was a blast to record, and I hope you enjoy it—though it does get a bit quiet at times. I’m just sayin’…

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The podcast to end all podcasts.

Four authors. One hour. One host?

The Be A Design Cast heads west, into the great unknown wilderness, for our enneadecashow. Nate takes Bennett Holzworth, Adrian Hanft, and Paul “the Professor” Berkbigler out into the darkness to hunt the wild beast that is the online world of graphic design. We cover the past, present, and purported future of this strange animal as we attempt to uncover both its secrets and, if possible, its purpose. This show is not to be missed—especially by Donovan, who was tragically lost to a wild deer this week.

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The first in an epic series on San Fran-based interviews, Donovan and I make the trek to Volume Inc. It was an unusually warm day and of course nobody has air conditioning in San Francisco, so if you hear anything odd its the beads of sweat dripping off Donovan’s dome. Eric and Adam gave us a great interview where we discuss the merits of big versus small clients, trade shows, designers who teach, and of course we give you your Student Tip and Taboo Typeface.

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Beginning (hopefully) three back-to-back-to-back weeks of Pentagram interviews is our run-in with Lorenzo Apicella. I was most nervous meeting Lorenzo, as he is one of those curious “architects” who design buildings, not brochures. My nervousness was soon lifted because Lorenzo Apicella is a charming, gracious, brilliant man who put us quite at ease. We discussed the idea of multidisciplinary design, as well as his approach to architecture and many other topics that quite frankly changed the way I view design.

Unfortunately you’ll get to hear none of that, as I single-handedly failed to capture more than half of the interview with our recording equipment. Lorenzo, proving his good humor, was obliged to join us a second time to rattle off the Reflex Blue Round and Student Tip but sadly much of our terrific interview was lost. It did, however, afford Mr. Apicella with the greatest burn in the history of the Be A Design Cast. Cheers.

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I have a confession to make. I have scarcely felt more inadequate as a designer than the half-hour we spent with Robert Brunner. A Pentagram Partner, formerly of Lunar Design, and former lead industrial designer for Apple (he hired Jonathan Ive), Robert’s command over the idea of what design is and what is possible through wielding it is commanding to say the least. If Robert Brunner were to judge a design competition, the non-winning entries would simply burst into flames upon his steely gaze. If Hollywood made a movie about Robert Brunner, the only man who could play him would be Steve McQueen, and this is why there is not a movie about Robert Brunner. When I sit down to design now, having met him, I feel the eyes of Robert Brunner on my back, telling me it is not good enough. In short, Robert Brunner is design’s Chuck Norris.

This is my impression of Robert while he was both jet-lagged and battling a cold. So you can imagine. But don’t let me give you the wrong idea. Robert was a wonderfully nice, down-to-Earth fellow, and he gave us a great interview. Hats off.

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I don’t know that we know Kit so well that we can outright call him an “old friend,” but going into our illustrious day of interviews at the Pentagram office in San Francisco we certainly knew him the best. Kit had visited us in Omaha before and gave the show-and-tell to end all show-and-tells. It left a room of over 100 designers collecting their jaws off the ground. My favorite moment was when Kit showed a product catalog deemed to be terrible, and we all looked at this thing thinking “actually, that catalog really isn’t so bad. In fact I wouldn’t feel bad if I had designed it—OOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooh” (That was the point where he showed us what he created to replace it).

So please enjoy our finale to the Pentagram triptych. Our apologies for the delay, but I can now assure you the Genius Bar at the newly opened Omaha Apple Store is up to snuff.

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After a long breather we are happy to return to the Be A Design Cast with none other than Tricia Bateman. Tricia should be one of your favorite designers, whether you know it or not. She is the Senior Art Director at HOW Magazine and I’m guessing about everyone listening to this show pours through her work six times a year just like I do. Donovan and I had a terrific opportunity to spend some time with Tricia as she visited our hometown last month for some AIGA business. During the show we talk about designing a bimonthly publication (for designers, no less), the redesign with DJ’s team at Pentagram, and of course Donovan’s fascination with one Mr. Steven Gordon.

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Welcome to the Season Finale of the Be A Design Cast! We are head-over-heels to bring you a half-hour conversation with the one-and-only Debbie Millman of Design Matters. If you’re not aware of Design Matters, have been living under a rock, or are not a graphic designer, it is only the premier graphic-design/business talk show and both Donovan and I were terribly humbled to have her in-studio with us. Fly on over to iTunes to download every episode of her show and the first 5 minutes of today’s podcast will make a whole lot more sense to you. Debbie was kind enough to discuss the advent of the millennium swoosh (Nike beat her to it), the Quark/Sterling/SAC logo fiasco, Design Matters and its origins, and much, much more. Plus, for the first time in show history, her student tip actually left me speechless. A big thanks to our good friend Debbie and to all of you who listen. We’ll see you in January!

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RETURN OF THE AWESOME. Now in 3-D! Or stereo, at least, and we apologize for the severe, severe, severe echo you are about to experience while we work out a slight bug in our new recording hotness, I mean process.

We welcome Superstar Designer Drew Davies® back to the show as we run for our very lives from the zombie Orville Redenbacher, who is hungry for our delicious, air-popped brains. Then we play kick-the-can with 35 different cans of Pepsi before getting Drew to theorize on the virtues of doing great work for clients who are what we call financially challenged. And of course we bring back the Taboo Typeface and Student Tip. Because really, it just wouldn’t be the BADCast without them.

NEW! Designer Homework! Listeners, send us jpegs of other products that would benefit from zombie-pitching, or at least other products Deadenbacher might shill, and we’ll post them right here after the jump!

Big thanks to the staff at the Apple Store in Omaha for letting me edit this podcast well past working hours while my computer was freaking out at home! If you’re in the area, stop by and give ‘em a hug

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The return of Tom Nemitz! Steve Gordon! Donovan! Nate! And the worst superbowl ads we’ve seen in a decade. Seriously, what went wrong there? We spend a bit longer show than usual pondering those issues and more. And we welcome two new friends to the show, New Guy Rob Maguire and New Girl Ashley McFeely. And sound-o-files rejoice! Renaissance-man Steve MF’ing Gordon fixed our echoing issue from last episode. Welcome to awesometown, Steve. Population you.

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We have long wanted to do a show devoted to the business of freelancing. But with my limited experience (re: five stressful months) and Donovan not really being “freelance,” per se, we were not sure we had the right perspective. So we called in four of our friends from Divvy Collective—Adam Nielsen, Ryan Sorensen, “Secret Penguin” Dave Nelson and John Henry “The Steel Drivin’ Man” Müller—who are all freelancers working from the same shared space. Sort of like a design-based season of the Real World, but without the cameras. Among the topics we discuss this week are why they got into freelancing, when it is appropriate to start freelancing, (do you need clients to begin?) and the nuts and bolts of dealing with clients, finances, and kids. And dogs. And swearing.

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We welcome our good friend Rob back to the show to throw down on a topic that has been making the rounds lately: Getting a Job in Graphic Design. For some reason this topic always makes the rounds in late winter/early spring, as near-graduates race to figure out what they’re going to do when the dorms kick them out and their parents stop buying them food. So we touch on everything including portfolio tips and pet-peeves, presentations, web vs. printed portfolios, cold-calling, resumé secrets, and much, much more. Also Rob busts out “visual tofu” on Helvetica’s ass. Not to be missed. This week’s homework: send us photos of your super-designed portfolios and we’ll post them to the blog. The email address is in the show (skip to the chapter called “This Week’s Homework”). We want to see who’s got the best!

Also check out last season’s rant/tirade Getting a Job is Like Dating for yet another spectacular view on joining the workforce of design.

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Weekly content starts NOW on the Be A Design Cast! These shorter, sleeker, sexier nuggets of podcasts will hit on the off-weeks of our until-now biweekly show. Aside from expanding on previous shows, reading listener mail, or covering topics that we would normally overlook, these .5’ers should be what you need to satiate your BADCasting thirst. Today our main man Steve Gordon drops some more portfolio truth bombs to follow-up from last week. See you next Wednesday!

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On our last show we spent most of our time talking about how to get a job in graphic design, this one we spend talking about what to do once you get there. And no, we don’t mean sitting at a desk and messin’ around in Illustrator or InDesign, we mean designing as a part of a team! It’s tricky, especially when you’re just starting out, so Donovan, Stevie “RDQlus” Gordon and I walk through a few sordid tales of the matter.

Also I’m not sure if any of you know… but there’s a new Creative Suite dropping like, any day now, so we dig into the new features of Photoshop CS3, which will make you very happy if you’re A.) on an Intel Mac, B.) have a widescreen monitor, or C.) fond of ‘the filters.’ Maybe all of the above, we’re not quite sure yet. Also, Listener Mail! See you next week —

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It’s a little halfsies show this week, just to get you prepared for next week’s adventure-filled journey to the exotic Dream Project Island. Located 25 miles south of last season’s Typography Island, Dream Project Island is where all of your wildest design-job fantasies come true. Or something like that. Big welcome back to Design Princess Ashley McFeely for this week and next week’s show, where we’ll also hear from some of the industry’s heaviest hitters on what their dream projects would be. You will be shocked — SHOCKED I say — by their answers. See you next week!

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