Design

Before I go off on my rant, I want to acknowledge that I haven’t focused on the design aspects of my life recently, and I think it’s about time I do that, whether it’s the work I do at my daytime gig, or using design as part of my art. I’m not completely sure what and how much I will share, but it is a big part of who I am, so it’s about time I shared.

Now, what was I saying…

Obviously, I feel design is an important part of life. Without quality design, many things would just not function. That’s as true with biology as it is with business. Crap design can kill a project quicker than you can say Tropicana. Lord knows I’ve had my fair share of design failures in my life and I probably will have thousands more, so I’m not immune or oblivious to it, but I also know when I had successes, and when some of those good designs were attached to a project doomed for failure from the start. [click to continue…]

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As things get more and more sketchy at my regular gig, I’ve decided (once again) to focus on developing my consulting skills, as I mentioned in greater detail over on The Greeniest. In an effort to avoid pink slip shock, if I walk into my office and find my manager and Human Resources waiting for me, I want to hit the ground on a freelance/consultation career in a sprint.

Last month, the corporation I work for laid off 25% of it’s workforce with rumors of more to come this month. It’s a fairly scary world we live in right now, but if we constantly look at the doom and gloom, we’ll never work our way out if this economic funk. I have no illusions that if, I were to get laid off, I would be able to ramp up my clientele fast enough to compensate for the lost income, but I can’t just stick my head in the sand. Doing nothing only puts my wife and I at greater risk and I can’t put that kind of pressure on her.

So here I sit, on the verge of developing my freelance/consultant future wondering if I’ll be able to sufficiently find my Unique Selling Position. Do you think there’s enough room in this world for another marketing pro/art director with a traditional media background in automotive publishing who specializes in helping business make the jump to New Media all while going green? I think there’s hole in the segment for me.

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And by “The Kids”, I mean your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. They may have good intentions, but they look through the world with PHP eyes and probably don’t have your marketing plan in mind when their working. They may know a ton about SEO, but do they know exactly what SEO is right for your company?

This is normally not my subject matter, but I found this great article on Hubspot that talks about 7 reasons why you can’t trust your webmaster with SEO. All good intentions aside, the web guy more than likely hasn’t looked at your marketing plan, nor has anyone given him specific direction on the subject. With these 7 reasons, you’ll be better equipped to lead him down the correct path.

In an effort to help, if a certain individual I know is reading this (DF), I’m hoping he’ll read the hubspot post because he’s just about breaking every single rule, that is if they’re even doing any SEO at all. So, DF, please call and tell me that you’re ready because time grows short.

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I know it’s possible to have too many inputs when it comes to critical thinking, but what about for art and design? Because of the monthly rigors of my day job, the scope of my design work has been less than desirable. I pretty much shit out pages without much care for how well they are designed. For our magazines, it’s not in our nature to be that concerned. “Good Enough” is the mantra spoken company wide. Trust me, I have my issues with that, but it’s taken its toll on my design sensibilities. For the past couple years, I just haven’t had as much energy to do anything of value. The irony to that is I feel I am a much better designer than I was two years ago, go figure.

Tonight I find myself gorging on design work by Scott Hansen of iso50 and listening to music from Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith (don’t worry, I’m not going to off myself) and the more I take in, the better I feel, the more inspired I get. Scott definitely has a style all to his own, so much in fact that when others do work like his, they call it iso50-ish. I don’t want to copy his work, but it’s so visually stimulating, my mind just wants to do something just like it. Would I be a better designer for trying or am I just a hack riding the coattails of somebody better than me? Either way, I’m just glad that I’ve got the bug again even if becomes short lived.

Thanks Scott, Elliott and Jeff for the virtual kick in the pants.

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