5-19-08 Adrian has just launched Font Burner. It’s the easiest way to add great fonts to your website.

After 4+ years Be A Design Group would like to say thank you and good bye. We couldn’t have done it with out everyone’s input and support. We are putting BADG into cryogenic freeze, but unlike Walt Disney, there is the technology to reanimate us.

If you missed the retirement announcement, read here. We will make one more post on this site that we will update with news of our plans, announcements and updates. Look for something big from Adrian in the next month. He won’t even tell me what it is about.

I wrote this over a year ago, but for some reason I never posted it. Since writing this, Creative Suite has been released for Intel Macs along with the Multi-Touch trackpad for the MacBooks.

As I work on my four year old G4 I can’t help but imagine that graphic designers are becoming useless to the likes of Apple and to a certain extent Adobe. I can think of very few software or hardware upgrades that were made in the last couple of years that have made our job significantly faster, better or easier. Sure we will be able to work faster when Adobe comes out with software that is ported for Intel machines, but do we really need anything much faster? When it seems that iTunes takes up about as much processor speed as Photoshop, I realize that it is not designers that are driving the technology anymore. So what industry is driving the market for faster computers? The obvious answer is video.

Drew Davies sent me this picture of a new business across the street from his own. Click to see the larger version and I dare you to find all of the things wrong with this photo.

This is just what Red Bull wants me to do, but oh well. Our good friend Michael Nielsen sent me this pick of the new Red Bull Cola. It should be noted that Red Bull is a client of the agency he works for. I also know that Michael doesn’t BS. He says … “It’s 100% natural and contains 23 unique ingredients. Not too sweet like regular sodas, just right!”

My criticism: Do we need more cola? I heard a stat that said you are twice as likely to get diabetes if you drink one soda every day. And doesn’t the 23 flavors , er … . ingredients sound familiar? The idea of something from Red Bull not being too sweet seems a little funny as well.

So I will join in the hype. Mainly I wanted to point out the cool pull tab. That and maybe they will send our in-house team a case for ourselves.

The other day I received a letter in the mail informing me that I had something in the newly released Best of Business Card Design 8. It wasn’t until I got the book in the mail this week, that I found out which pieces made the cut. Kind of strange timing to get a two-page spread in a design book in the same month that you are shutting the featured website down (i.e. this site).

I was also pleased to find out that the business cards I did for my wife made it in.

by Cathy Fishel

“Freelance Design in Practice,” to be published in Spring 2009 by RotoVision, will be a book for freelance graphic designers who are in it for the long run. I’d like to invite experienced, full-time freelance designers from anywhere in the world to contact me directly for possible interviews. Please contact me at cathy@fishel.com if you have advice, anecdotes and insights to share with peers. Design work will also be shown in the book.

Chapters will include succinct advice and real-life case studies on subjects including:

Logo Design Love Awards is a competition that is going to recognize the best logos in the blogosphere. I was lucky enough to help with the judging, and I thought you guys would enjoy browsing through the logos as much as I did. There are ten categories of blogs and somewhere around 100 logos. Check it out, and cast your vote in the comments of their site.

While we designers talk about new logos, bad kerning, bad business practices, etc., we seldom talk about being a decent and active human being. We tend to celebrate the abrasive celebrity designer that bucks the system and the over-worked people that neglect their family and friends. The design profession also needs to look at what is healthy for the average designer.

The first part of this post speaks of greed and consumsion. After meeting so many designers that are over-consumers it was great to hear some reason from the Stefan’s (Stefan Bucher and Stefan Sagmeister). These two fellows are proof that you can be a nice person and an amazing designer.

I recently went to go hear west coast Stefan (Mr. Bucher) speak at Concordia University and he said some great things that we all need to hear. At one point in his talk he made a quick little recommendation about the new sin of today … DEBT. He talked about staying out of debt so we can remain free to be creative. How can we be creative if we have no choice but to take any and every freelance project that comes our way? We need to be free to make decisions that aren’t completely based on our wallet.

My encounter with east coast Stefan (Mr. Sagmeister) was through his new book. I recommend that any and every designer should get the book, or at least look at Sagmeister’s recent work. It is a great reminder to be a good person (to yourself and others). One phrase in Sagmeister’s book is that “Money doesn’t make me happy”. I’m assuming that with all his success, he knows that from experience. We can all go through life without re-evaluating our priorities. Don’t hesitate to make some course corrections and make some changes in your life.

There is a post that I wanted to do for some time, but never had the time. While this might not be pertinent for every designer in the world, it is something that needs to be said for perspective design students in the mid-west and Nebraska. Here it goes.

Stay away from the Creative Center! There are plenty of good design schools in the state, but the Creative Center in Omaha is a horrible way to go. I have friends that went there and they would tell you the same thing. The majority of professional designers in Nebraska will back me up on this. It is extremely expensive and you come out with some antiquated illustrations, some mediocre designs and a hefty debt. I know several successful designers that came from the Creative Center, but this is only because they learned things outside of school and are very talented and driven people.

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What is a design blog without shameless self promotion. I had to get one more in here. Here is a very short video for my wife’s show with good friend Adam Nielsen. If you are in Nebraska this weekend, you should check it out. If there is a message for designers in this post, it would be … Get out and see more art (especially printmaking).

Enjoy the five seconds of artwork!

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I haven’t had a chance to read this book yet, but I wanted to do a little video review before the final goodbye here at BADG. Even without reading the interviews, insight and captions, this is a great collection of Modern Dog’s work. Where would posters be without these people? The book appears to be as irreverent and fun as Robynne and Michael … and if Dr. Figus Upshaw endorses this book, how could it not be good?

As we approach the final post here at Be A Design Group I have been reflecting on how I have changed as a designer since my first post here four years ago. As I strive to be a better designer, the list of attributes that I try to emulate are things that on the surface don’t have much to do with design. Here are some characteristics that don’t normally get mentioned on most lists of designer skills…

by Kyle Heinemann

Many yeas ago, when I was 15 and working in fast food….if you would have told me “Pay Attention!” since I would be learning valuable life lessons, I would not have believed you (to put it mildly). That job was purely income. Not for socializing, not so I could eat the food, not to be popular, just money. Today, many years later, I can see where I learned customer service: back at Dairy Queen.

Customer Service, to me, is one of those areas of work that everyone says “well, duh” it’s important. To really excel at it, translates to a big payoff. You can learn to serve your customers/clients so well that a) at the end of a project, they get what they really wanted, but maybe not what they initially asked for, or b) so happy they will tell their friends and colleagues, or c) so happy they congratulate your manager—and your manager remembers to compensate you accordingly when it’s bonus/raise time (wink wink).

I have created a short list of products that get free advertising without the consumer even realizing they don’t have to put up with the logo/ad placement.

I have created a short list of products that get free advertising without the consumer even realizing they don’t have to put up with the logo/ad placement.

by Drew Davies

On behalf of designers everywhere, I am writing you this letter with a very simple request. My message isn’t particularly novel — in fact, you may have heard something like it before. But, it’s become clear that it’s time to say it again as clearly as possible.

by Paul Berkbigler

Bennett and Adrian have lit a bit of an Internet campfire and rustled the hedges in the forest around it to call several of us wayward BA authors and writers back to share in the warmth and swap a few more fireside stories together. So, as I trudge out of the many tangled branches of teaching, research, writing, grading and continuing to work as a freelance designer, it’s great to at least briefly brush the leaves and twigs off my jacket and rejoin good friends in conversation.

When last I left BA Design Group and its group of campers, the podcast was continuing its rapid rise to the most regularly scheduled programming on the site, I was in the midst of leading a workshop in Tennessee, and I think we were all still fielding comments in the Gig Poster thread - the hits just keep on coming, right?!

It’s incredible to see how quickly a year passes and to try making some sense of the individual images that make up the blur once you’re standing at the other end of that time span. It kinda makes my brain hurt to realize that my workshop post was almost exactly a year ago this week!

…Time to move on in the writing then, I suppose!

In aiming to make some sense out of the big, crazy, wonderful thing that has been BA Design Group and the many twists and turns that it’s taken along the way, my brain heads towards a phrase that Stefan Bucher used about a week-and-a-half ago while he was visiting the college I teach at:

Launch and learn…

Well, as a few of you might have noticed, I have been really absent from BADG over the last year. I made a job and location move and the motivation to blog seemed to have been left behind. I’m not sure if I just needed a break, I no longer need the creative outlet, I was too busy with home renovation, my desire to be a famous designer has faded or my temporary home studio isn’t conducive to long hours of blogging, but I’ve only posted a few times in the last 12 months. Somewhere in that long list is the answer, and one of these days I will figure it out. With Adrian retiring as an author, my practical retirement, several others dropping out of author circulation and then Donovan and Nate striking out on their own, it is time to put Be A Design Group into retirement. It has been an amazing four years! We will definitely keep the site up as an archive and Adrian and I plan to develop it into something new and fresh in the future, but for now BADG wants to take a nap from its stint of discussions, reviews, rants and critiques of the last few years.

While we are sad to say goodbye, we also thought it would be fun to bring BADG back to its heyday for the next couple weeks. We’ve invited a gaggle of our past authors to write original essays that we will post over the next couple of weeks. We will start posting on Monday and make a new post live every other day. Look for new insight from Drew, Paul, Kyle, Clint, Adrian and I.

You can keep up with many of us from the past by following these links.

Watch and see 15 of the possible cover designs to Stefan’s new book appear before your eyes.

So Sagmeister has done it again. Although we have already seen many different pieces that are in this book, it is great to see and read about the entire project. It is fascinating to have all the work in one place, see the process it took to make these creations and discover the meaning behind it all. What has always struck me about Stefan’s work is the complete originality behind it and the guts that it takes to produce work like his own. We can make all the naked Sagmeister jokes we want (but please stop, it is very old) but he really has put himself out there and it isn’t based on arrogance.

While it would be amazing to have encountered some of this work in its original setting, I assume that the majority of this work was mainly designed for the end photograph and publication. If he created this work to be mainly viewed in these public spaces then his work would teeter over the design/art line very heavily into art. This work is interesting in that it is so much about self expression, but Stefan also has a message to say, and clients are willing to pay him to make the work.

I made a quick stop animation of our magnetic inspiration wall at work being created. Enjoy all 13 seconds!

Sites all over the internet are reporting that Toshiba is finally, finally pulling the plug on HD-DVD. Thank GAWD. Not that my wife is going to allow me to pick up a Blu-Ray player anytime soon, they are still far too expensive, and the movies are even more overpriced than DVDs.

It’s WIRED, though, that offers the best assessment of the situation: “This leaves Blu-Ray as the presumptive victor in the irrelevant optical disk format war. It now must face up to the real competition: the continuing success of DVD and the growing popularity of downloads, both on the internet and on-demand cable TV.”

Well, that’s all well and good. I personally still prefer to have a physical disc that I can take around, watch on my computer, watch on my TV, watch whenever the hell I want to, as opposed to say, getting a 30-day window to watch something one time over a 24-hour period that is only actually available on your newest line of products so fools like me that spend $5 on them get shafted by your staunch refusal to either refund my money or support my still-functioning fifth-generation iPod. Dicks.

Be A Design Group, and its founders/owners Adrian Hanft and Bennett Holzworth, would like you to know that Be A Design Group does not officially support or endorse any political cause, candidate, or issue, and prefers Be A Design Group readers feel free to discuss graphic design when they visit this site without being pressured by any author’s personal political views. Any political views expressed by authors of Be A Design Group should be taken only as that person’s views and not as a representation of Be A Design Group. Furthermore, I distinctly believe they would prefer that I not post the following, however my sense of civic duty compels me to do so:

Oh to hell with BA’s official rules on posting about politics. Get out there and vote for Barack Obama! He has better posters and is good for the country!

(A reminder that Nebraska holds it first-ever caucuses on Saturday, which will mark pretty much the first time Nebraska had a say in, well, anything.)

The best Superbowl commercial recap of all Superbowl commercial recaps. Why? Because of this:

Does that set the tone for you? Are you not entertained? Featuring the return of Tom Nemitz, Design Princess® Ashley McFeely, Robert “I Can Has Cheeseburger?” Maguire, and Steve RDQlus Gordon, as well as old hats Donovan and I. A full hour of unhinged greatness just for you.

Nate Voss

podcast [at] beadesigngroup [dot] com

Right click to download Be A Design Cast LII to your computer (XXXmb), or subscribe directly from iTunes.

Just funny. Good linkage.

http://www.formfiftyfive.com/

http://www.theamazingshape.co.uk/2008/01/28/thanks-formfiftyfive/

http://www.theamazingshape.co.uk/

Last December traveled to the fair city of Boise, Idaho to speak to a group of promising young designers who were soon to enter the workforce as recent graduates. They were a good group, and proved to be a lot of fun, whether it was drinking and dancing with their professors, walking home in the freezing rain barefoot, or having their friends take awkward photos of me from a distance making “gestures” in the foreground. Our 24-hours in Boise was one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve ever taken in relation to graphic design. So what to do but plop down in the middle of the Boise State graphic design department and record our follow-up to Season 2: Season 3! We spend about half this show talking with our faculty friends and the other half taking some long-overdue listener mail. Welcome back!

Nate Voss

podcast [at] beadesigngroup [dot] com

Right click to download Be A Design Cast 51 to your computer (14.5mb), or subscribe directly from iTunes.

Just over two years ago, Nate came up with the idea (well, Steve Jobs told him what the next big thing was in a keynote, but Nate knows a good idea when he hears it sometimes), and that was podcasting. Podcasting about design, and since Debbie’s show wasn’t on iTunes yet, Nate had nowhere to go hear all of the design talk, so he decided we’d start a show.

I was interested enough that it didn’t take long for them to convince me to join in, especially since the thought was simply to record something we’d find entertaining, more like just talking about design like we always ended up doing, just with a microphone in front of us. And me, Nate and Tom were off on our venture.

A commenter on the last story recommended I read Don’t Make Me Think in response to the previous chapter in my story. Instead of listing my response to his response in the buried comments section, I thought I’d give my official position on Don’t Make Me Think right here: it’s the same as my official position on Hey Whipple Squeeze This: Stay away from it if you want to retain free and rational thought. I’ve seen people read and subsequently abuse the information in each book as a substitute for creative and original thinking. In the case of Think, it’s “people are used to using websites a certain way, ergo all websites should look and function in this way.” I saw it at my last job and it obliterated my ability to seek new and creatively intuitive ways to design for the web. Like Whipple, in two years it will be outdated anyway. Stick to A List Apart.

When we last left …er, me … I was in the death throes of my last website.

To follow-up my last post about using a free blog as a portfolio site, I offer the following recommendation: be careful what you wish for.

For those of you who didn’t read it, when I found myself out on my posterior a few weeks ago I needed a cheap and easy solution to showcase my work and availability for creative projects. I did not know how to program much more than basic and frankly outdated HTML and needed an easy content management solution. I’d seen so many industry sites fall apart because they we too difficult to maintain, and I was determined to utilize he modern age of blogs to make sure I didn’t become one of them. So I made a free blog site. I used a free blog site template. It worked just fine.

Then, disaster struck.

Artist unattributed.