the-undirected:

Short Story Poster / Klaus Ernflo.

This week we’re relaunching series pages on GOOD. This entailed retooling how some of these series headers look. These are the kind of weird, small jobs some designers don’t like doing. It can be frustrating to work on these minimal impact projects when you are eager to start showing off in bigger, showier ways. This is most prominent when you are young—trust me the feeling is one I know all too well. Having either done this type of project all too often, or having had a bit of distance from previous bravado, I have come to find these types assignments to be thrilling. 

First, there’s the immediacy. When you have to turn around something quickly, you can pivot into ideas a bit more confidently. There’s a bit more room to experiment, due in large part to the lack of real estate. What could possible look dope in this space? It’s easier to look at that type of question the other way: what could possibly not look dope in this space? It turns out, quite a lot, so now you have some standards set for you, but you know the proximity to start bending the possibilities. Negative space becomes really important. What can cut in? What can fit? How low can my type size go? Setting up those questions gives endless possibilities, within reason. You are just defining the limits so that bending them seems less daunting. 

Secondly, very little separates this from a branding project. Sure, branding is a very prolonged process that involves deep levels of thought and iteration. Consider this branding lite. You are activating all the same triggers for setting up a system of visual vocabulary, you just aren’t agonizing over your perception for the audience quite the same way. It’s human to understand that not everything needs to be perfect. It just has to be done well, and fluid enough to undergo iterations without too many pains later on. 

Lastly, it’s always good to remember this: work is work, and most often that means you can approach it from some angle that makes it less of a rigor than you previously anticipated. We all do that, no matter what the profession. Sometimes it’s harder to work up the interest in a project than it is to actually accomplish it, but if you can start to take yourself out of that problem—step four feet back and assess what needs to be done—it can all start to fall in place.

None of this is new, it’s just a good reminder to have, mostly for myself.

Thanks, me.

Peace to Trevor Burks for doing this great illustration for this piece I wrote on my need to diversify my creative outlets. 

good:

Some people specialize in ideas, constantly scheming, iterating, finessing. I prefer doing. I don’t know what makes me want to make, but often the impulse strikes without warning. If I don’t satiate it immediately, it becomes a dull ache that lingers all day.

You’d think this would be a non-issue—after all, I’m lucky enough to be paid a salary to design all day. But increasingly I’ve realized that for people like me, one creative outlet isn’t enough.

Editorial design director Dylan Lathrop writes about why creative people need multiple outlets, whether writing or D&D.

A couple of years ago my good friend Levi Rubeck was working on his graduate degree in poetry from NYU while I was wrapping up my BFA in design at MCAD. He was working on a series of 100 single line poems, while I was trying to find odd freelance gigs in the twin cities, applying for any full time design positions I could find as well. 

To keep both of us sharp, we decided that this little chapbook of poems should see the light of day, and so I noodled on the design and Levi kept hammering his keys. And we finished. And then it sat. 

I moved to LA, Levi was doing a ton of stuff in New York, and both of us barely had time to check in on one another’s music recommendations let alone figure out how to get this thing out into the world. Well, now it’s our pleasure to announce that Singularities is now live for digital consumption. I half expected to grimace at the dusty design, but I’m strangely drawn to what I did here, and Levi’s writing reads as sharply as ever.

Feel free to read or download at your lesure, and make sure to keep track of what Levi Rubeck does with writing, as he’s truly one of the most talented people I know. 

emptystorage: Andres Guzman /// STEAKMOB*

good:

Senior Editorial Designer Dylan C. Lathrop writes on the need to change the growing boys club mentality in design: 

Graphic design is, by and large, a boys’ club. Of course, if you were to survey practicing male designers, you’d find an abundance of guys that wouldn’t identify as sexist. But personal beliefs don’t always translate to how we work, and that’s an issue that needs to be addressed. Female designers still struggle to feel comfortable in their profession and recognized for their work.

Recently two separate incidents made this point clear: the launch ofMOMENTUS, a visualization of important moments in U.S. history curated by Evan Stremke, and the Weapons of Mass Creation Fest, a three-day event held in Cleveland, sort of a SXSW for design. These projects are great because they challenge designers and highlight their work, but both suffered from the same glaring flaw.

With MOMENTUS, the failure to include women has been acknowledged(though not on the project’s home page). I reached out to Stremke to ask how it came to pass that he did not have a single female designer or illustrator in a project that has 30 pieces. His reasoning was one that is common among creative people that curate this type of project: He wanted to work with his friends and didn’t realize that gender imbalance would be an issue. Both things I can forgive, for sure, but neither one is good for design.

Read more on GOOD →

Why We Can’t Let Design Become a Boys’ Club - Design - GOOD

Just got out of a taping for The X Factor, which was very surreal. That was some next level LA stuff that I hadn’t experienced. 

While on stage, a 30 year old mother of two—who was dressed up like a girl from Sucker Punch—dropped this gem.

No one bothered to correct her. She didn’t make the cut. 

writersnoonereads:

“Words were not the servants of life, but life, rather, was the slave of words.” — Patrick White (whom no one reads), Voss

(Image: Sidney Nolan’s cover design.)