Go over to David Airey’s blog and read the article What Employers are Looking For #2 by Jim Walls, executive creative director of Philadelphia and Los Angeles-based branding agency 160over90.
It has a ton of great advice on how to prepare your portfolio, identify your intangible assets and conduct yourself during the interview. It’s a comprehensive article and definitely worth a read.
You should also read the first article in the series What Employers Look For #1 contributed by Eric Karjaluoto, partner and creative director at Vancouver-based smashLAB.
The following article came from Frank Chimero’s blog. His advice is dead on and the article is worth a read!
“Do I need to know how to code?” is a question that comes up with sure-fire consistency in design circles. I’ve seen it asked by so many, from uncertain design students in classrooms worried about their chances of landing a job, to seasoned professionals at conferences seeing their pool of print projects slowly evaporate. The question is being asked with even greater frequency as of late, because Adobe has launched their product Muse, which promises designers the ability to “create unique websites without writing code.” So, if a designer wants to work on the web, should they take the time to learn this dastardly “code” or instead rely on software like Muse?
My short answer is “Learn code.” My long answer, I suppose, would be that one should learn to code (specifically HTML and CSS), because it’s the language of the web, and while these skills aren’t necessary for every position, team or project, the knowledge does nothing but benefit the designer. Design decisions are not only affected by the characteristics of the content being designed, but also the qualities of the format. The best way to understand the characteristics of the web is to speak its language.
Good design and good markup provide structure to content. Good markup is a fundamental part of good design: beautiful on the inside, beautiful on the outside. HTML and CSS give another venue to provide structure to content in the native language of the web, and learning these guides decisions by surfacing the affordances of the medium. Design decisions are affected by both the content and the format, like how a sculptor would make different decisions if she were working with clay rather than marble.
It’s important to realize that the web is an experiential medium. It’s 4D: there is change over time as users interact with the work. Still images of sites are no good, much like how a still from a movie only gives a faint sensation of what it is to see the film. The best pathway to achieve parity between the construction and final result is to learn markup and stylesheets for concepting and prototyping.
The skills needed to learn HTML and CSS are not far from those used by the print designer day to day. One only needs to take the time to learn the terms. HTML is a markup language that annotates content with tags that define hierarchy and structure. Print designers already do this when establishing typographic hierarchy. CSS applies aesthetic treatment to parts of the design based on the content’s classification. Print designers should be familiar with this behavior from using styles in software like InDesign and Illustrator.
The mental leap in coding HTML and CSS is to learn the particular tags necessary to define the structure, hierarchy, and aesthetics. My belief is that learning them is a short step if a designer already understands typographic hierarchy, knows nesting relationships from producing outlines, and grasps separating aesthetics from structure by way of Styles in other software.
To get started, I’d recommend watching a few videos at Don’t Fear the Internet, which offers a succinct introduction to HTML and CSS for the print designer. Don’t miss their resources page as well. Learning to code is a leap, but it’s not as far as you think. Maybe it’s time to become bilingual.
Since I just can’t seem to leave well enough alone, I’ve decided to embrace that desire to change instead of fighting it. As a result, Use A Concept got a face lift for the start of a new academic year, for the third year in a row. While I haven’t been posting like I normally do, you can expect some more consistent and timely content to follow as the new academic year ramps up.
The Feedback Loop Notebook Project is pro bono project created to benefit youth all over the country.
Twenty-five leading letterpress printers were asked to create fifty unique notebooks. They could do whatever they wanted. Their limited edition books will be sold on Felt & Wire Shop, in a special storefront, with 100% of the proceeds going to Design Ignites Change, to support their School: by Design youth mentorship program.
Also a catalyst for change, Mohawk Fine Papers donated the paper; and the printers could pick any stock they wanted from the Mohawk Loop paper line.
“I wish my mother was alive to see this,” Milton Glaser told me about receiving the 2009 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama last Thursday (the first time for a graphic designer). He was one of twelve to receive the honor for their outstanding achievements and support of the arts. The medals were presented by the president and Mrs. Michele Obama in an East Room ceremony at the White House.
A former student came across this article (read below) at the Cornell Chronicle by Mary Catt. It really does explain a lot. Upon further digging I found the actual published study. It’s worth a read as well. You can download it here.
The next time your great idea at work elicits silence or eye rolls, you might just pity those co-workers. Fresh research indicates they don’t even know what a creative idea looks like and that creativity, hailed as a positive change agent, actually makes people squirm.
“How is it that people say they want creativity but in reality often reject it?” said Jack Goncalo, ILR School assistant professor of organizational behavior and co-author of research to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science. The paper reports on two 2010 experiments at the University of Pennsylvania involving more than 200 people.
The studies’ findings include:
Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.
People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical — tried and true.
Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.
Anti-creativity bias is so subtle that people are unaware of it, which can interfere with their ability to recognize a creative idea.
For example, subjects had a negative reaction to a running shoe equipped with nanotechnology that adjusted fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters.
To uncover bias against creativity, the researchers used a subtle technique to measure unconscious bias — the kind to which people may not want to admit, such as racism. Results revealed that while people explicitly claimed to desire creative ideas, they actually associated creative ideas with negative words such as “vomit,” “poison” and “agony.”
Goncalo said this bias caused subjects to reject ideas for new products that were novel and high quality.
“Our findings imply a deep irony,” wrote the authors, who also included Jennifer Mueller of the University of Pennsylvania and Shimul Melwani of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Uncertainty drives the search for and generation of creative ideas, but “uncertainty also makes us less able to recognize creativity, perhaps when we need it most,” the researchers wrote. “Revealing the existence and nature of a bias against creativity can help explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle scientific advancements, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary. … The field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identify how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.”
The study, “The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas,” might validate the frustrations of creative people, Goncalo said.
Here is a great article by By Nicole Torres over at the Imprint blog. It goes over the process the band Cake went through to to make their book Bound Away. How many of you can say you used your own clothes to make paper? You can read the entire article here.
It looks like CAKE is going far beyond the distance. The Sacramento-based rock band, known for their unique sound and front man John McCrea’s recognizable half-spoken vocals, not only released their sixth studio album early this year, but they also got their hands a little dirty with some handcrafted graphic work.
CAKE has been collaborating with BANDmade Books in San Francisco since June 2010 to publish Bound Away, an artfully handmade and visual book that will be released in mid-September. The small but ambitious Bound Away is actually from CAKE’s most recent album “Showroom of Compassion,” turned into a book, combining text (McCrea’s lyrics), illustrations by R. Stuhmiller, and music (as it also functions as a seriously cool CD case for the single).
A note from AIGA president Debbie Millman (and illustration):
A little over a year ago, I published a letter outlining my goals as the incoming AIGA president. I brought up the need for connectivity, stemming from a desire to create a new connective structure within AIGA to foster discussion and share ideas. I also addressed inclusivity, with the intent of breaking down the barriers that separate design specialties, so we can use our collective talents more effectively. My last objective came in direct response to AIGA members’ unanimous and enthusiastic endorsement, that AIGA support the profession’s aspirations for relevance, leadership and opportunity. The first action of AIGA’s mandate for 2014 promised that AIGA would “provide ample opportunities for members to engage in social networking activities, to provide content and make connections.”
So, while everyone on our 65 chapter boards and the national staff is working toward fulfilling those objectives daily, today marks one “tweet-worthy” milestone in our efforts. We now have 100,000 followers of @AIGAdesign on Twitter, which has become an invaluable tool for connecting designers in a global, multidisciplinary design discussion. In addition, AIGA chapters and student groups have created more than 100 social media feeds for sharing timely information about conferences, events, competitions and other professional resources, as well as providing humor, friendship, commentary and countless sources for creative inspiration. Together, this connectivity has provided stronger, more immediate access to designers and the businesses and individuals who are just as passionate about the role design plays in our lives. And those virtual connections are strengthened even more when we finally meet at events and conferences across the country.
Since 140 characters are not nearly enough to express our appreciation, this is a thank-you to all the incredible members, chapters, groups, friends and followers that believe in our mission and are participating in a truly stimulating, steadfast conversation. And welcome to all of our new Twitter friends!
I came across this article by Christian Romer about her transition from student, to intern to employed designer that I want to share.
I am an International employee of AgencyNet from Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas. As I finish my first year of employment at AgencyNet, I find myself reflecting on the personal and professional transformation I have experienced: the transition from intern (previously a student of The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale) to an employee. My transformation has required me to go through a sort of “professional metamorphosis”.
Looking back at my first unsure and timid stroll through the doors of AgencyNet, I’ve realized that there we’re certain key lessons that I had to grasp before I could consider myself a true AgencyNetter.
