Sound Advice

I used to read a wider variety of blogs while I was in school, but now that I use Twitter I find it much easier to keep track of a few favourites that way. Today I was looking for a topic to write about and decided to check out some other blogs.

Brian Hoff's blog The Design Cubicle offers great advice for designers on a number of topics such as products, plug-ins, and lessons learned through experience. His most recent post was about the client/designer relationship and when to show concepts. While his posts are brief, he really gets the point across. "Get it right – the first time! Clients often ask Designers if they can update them daily, bi-daily, or other timeframes that suits their craving. Designers, stop doing this." Hoff goes on to explain that showing clients work you are not proud of undermines your abilities and your client's trust. When clients see unfinished work they get worried and often slow down the design process with changes and suggestions. Instead Hoff suggests waiting until you have a design that you feel comfortable standing behind, give yourself a chance to refine your work and come up with something great.

Pasted Posters

When I walk around Toronto I am never looking down but always at the things around me (thanks for the lesson on how to see Vince Sowa!). I have two paths that I take to work (on my bike or the streetcar) and even though I read the posters I see almost every day, there is always something new or different. A great example is a bus stop ad I pass for Gap, it features a model with a gap in her teeth. For a while the ad was left alone, but then someone added white out to fill the gap. The day after that someone drew back over the white out with black to put the gap back. I found it very interesting to see how people were interacting with the poster, fighting with one another as to whether the imperfection should be fixed or flaunted.

Last year I remember seeing the posters for Design Thinkers all over poles in the downtown core. Their vibrant colour (and the fact that I interned with the studio at the time they designed them), really attracted my attention and inspired me to look more closely at the posters around town. Since, I have enjoyed a variety of posters. Some are humourous, others help me better understand the neighbourhood I'm in and still others pop out with sheer ugliness.

While looking for images of the Design Thinkers 2011 posters, I came across a very interesting poster campaign/installation. In 2009, artists Sean Martindale and Eric Cheung attempted to liven up public space by attaching cone shaped planters to a pole at Queen West and Spadina. The result is visually intriguing and I am sure their goal to engage the public was successful.

Bantjes

I'm nearing the end of month two for my "Read all the stuff on your bookshelf before buying more books or getting a library card and borrowing copious amounts" project. It is going fairly well but my newfound love of riding my bike or running to work is cutting into my reading time. I recently moved on to the design section of my shelf and my enthusiasm for graphic design went wild once again. I forgot how much I loved reading design magazines, the articles make me feel like I am part of the club and get me thinking about new possibilities. Regardless I bring this up because I came across another great article.

Marian Bantjes is a "lapsed graphic designer" (Applied Arts Magazine, March 2010) who produces beautiful custom typographic solutions. After seeing a few of her pieces it is easy to identify her work, not because it is all the same, but because of the intricate details in her work. After dropping out of Emily Carr, in Vancouver, Bantjes spent ten years typesetting, designing books and doing production at Hartley & Marks/Typeworks. In 1994 she co-founded Digitpolis Media and taught herself corporate design as projects came up. Bantjes eventually tired of the strategic side of things and took a break to work on her personal style. It may be referred to as a break, but the work she produced and contributed for free to various magazines ended up landing her a job at Details. Things moved quickly from there and Bantjes is now contacted directly by art directors and designers, allowing her to stay fully immersed in her creative work.

My favourite part, aside from the images of her work, is that Bantjes is Canadian. There are many well known and talented designers from around the world, but it is great to have such talent coming from Canada.

Below are some of my favourites. (People who know me from childhood may understand my particular interest in the intricacies of her work, remember my graph paper drawings?)

The web design came back, the very next day

My first attempt at web design was pretty amateur and I almost fell asleep during the lesson (lynda.com is great but not on a day when you are tired). When my teacher expanded on the tutorials I understood enough to get my personal website built, and with a bit of help I was able to get a couple more sophisticated things working. Now that I have taken an eight week web design course I understand infinitely more and am actually having fun doing it.

As I am getting more practiced I feel more confident about my work and am even able to troubleshoot my own issues. Lately I have been working on rebuilding my personal site with proper code as well as updating my work's website. It feels great to be able to help out a swamped co-worker (she ran out of time for the updates) and have people coming to me with new work.

I was checking my Twitter this morning before work and was reminded once again that the most difficult and challenging work is often the most rewarding. After reading this I realized that was why I have been enjoying my web work so much lately, it is definitely a challenge, but now I can figure it out on my own and that feels great.

Spring Cleaning

One would think that reading magazines from three years ago (I've been skimming old issues the past couple weeks trying to catch up on my reading, college really slowed me down) would be a little pointless since all of the information is outdated, but today at lunch I discovered otherwise. My magazine for the day was Graphic Monthly Canada, a magazine devoted to the print industry in Canada. One of the articles near the front of the issue was talking about the effects e-readers have had on the book industry and in turn the companies responsible for printing the books. At the time (2009), the article said that e-books had 2% of the book market, up from less than 1% in the previous year. I mentioned this fact to my co-workers and wondered aloud what the percentage would be now. A tech savy iPhone user quickly looked up some information and concluded we are now up to 13%.

In an industry that changed so little for so long, it is amazing the progress e-books have made in such a short amount of time. The publishing company I work for is currently working on their second run of e-books and our main audience is people over 50. E-books are being read by people of all ages and publishing companies are realizing that. It is an interesting time for designers and I'm eager to grow with the changing needs of companies. I feel that the web course I took is a great starting point and I am excited to continue learning more about this emerging market.

Going Solo

As many of the people in my life know, I am now officially moved into my new apartment. I have been asked many times how I am liking living alone and so far I've only had positive things to say. I love knowing that when I get home everything will still be in its place and there will be the same number of dishes in the sink (zero generally and that's how I like it).

Recently my grandfather told me about a fascinating discussion he heard on the radio about the growing number of individuals in Canada and the United States who are choosing to live alone. The discussion centred around the book Going Solo, a non-fiction novel from Penguin Press. The novel explores the rise of solo living and the impact it has on our culture, business and politics. While it is conventionally assumed that living alone leads to loneliness, author and sociologist Eric Klinenberg, found that people who live alone are usually more engaged in social and civic life. Klinenberg even found that those living alone were mentally healthier than unmarried people who live with others.

With all of this in mind, I anticipate great things for the future. I am just beginning to discover Toronto and am already enjoying the diverse cuisine options, weekly design related events, and the joys of new neighborhoods with so much to offer. One last thing I've discovered is the library down the street, if I'm lucky I'll be reading Going Solo in no time.

Sappi - The Standard 5

Last Thursday around lunch time I realized that the Sappi event I wanted to go to was in fact that day, not the next week as I had anticipated. I made the decision to go anyway and was very happy that I did.

I arrived at the event and was greeted at reception with a name tag and coat check. I was hesitant to put on the name tag but it seemed that everyone was wearing theirs and for once wearing one would be the cool thing to do. I dropped off my coat, then got in line for what I assumed was the printing guide they promised in the invite. I waited alone in line for a couple of minutes then was asked what I was waiting for, after assuring my new friend it was the books we patiently waited together.

The timing must have been perfect, Dana, the women I met in line was at the event alone as well and played perfectly into my wallflower tendencies. At 7:00 we were ushered into a theatre for the unveiling of the new Standard - Volume 5, a book on special printing effects. Sappi's Daniel Dejan presented the book, and I was sold. His quick but enthusiastic explanations of the printing techniques kept you excited for the next page, and built up to the moment when everyone received their own copies.

Overall I had a great time at the event. It was well put together, included a nice time for mingling as well as the presentation and sent me home with dreams of grand budgets and exciting printing techniques. I had received a similar item from another paper company before but Sappi's version is far superior. The only thing I need now is their previous four books, and those are in the mail. Thanks or a great networking even Sappi!