I just have to get this off my chest. It’s been grinding at my soul for several years now, and I can’t escape confessing this. Since I live in a very small town, there’s only one place for starving designers to shop. You guessed it…Wal-Mart. I think I can overcome my ideological and moral issues associated with supporting the world’s largest corporation, but I just can’t handle one more day of their in-store brand design. “Great Value” products are driving me insane. (Note that Equate and Ol Roy are not GV products. This is just the best image I could find in the public domain)

At first I was simply stunned that a company with all that money couldn’t come up with better design for their own store brand. The “Great Value” font is nasty when it’s readable and the photography/printing is depressing. It just exudes cheap, not “value” and certainly not “great”. I’m sure the work was done in-house at Wal-Mart, and the designers wer...... Keep reading

Something’s been bothering me lately as I browse the blogsphere. I’ve noticed how many comments other blogs receive talking about the most mundane things and how few B L A N K receives trying to delve into things more meaningful. Silence is ok, but sometimes if there’s no feedback, but a lot of people sitting around listening, you begin to wonder why. I know from the session reports that we have almost 600 unique visitors a day and around 90 subscribers at any one time, so it’s not like we’re yapping at ourselves. However, you begin to wonder if you’re connecting or even worse if what you’re saying is meaningful.

So, for all you “lurkers” out there, give some feedback. What are you thinking about B L A N K? Why do you read these crazy posts about design? Are we spinning our wheels here, or should we continue to try and explore the heart and soul of design? Please do speak up....... Keep reading

Lately I’ve become more aware of things in design that make me cringe when I see, hear or experience them. Sometimes cringing is good, especially when your opposing something immoral, illegal or downright deceptive. Other times cringing is a sign that we are in some way held captive by the very thing we cringe against. I want to be more free creatively, so I’ve come up with a list of things that make me cringe in the design business. Maybe by identifying them, I can eventually see some good in them. Some may suprise you, others may not:

– Marketing
– Church marketing
– Stock photography
– Christian design
– Advertising
– Design conference
– School
– Grunge
– Style
– Design on a dime
– Logos
– Employer
– Employee
– Branding
– Consumers

What makes you cringe?...... Keep reading

Design is a democracy. I don’t mean a “design by committee” type of democracy. I mean democracy where the “common” person can contribute in a significant way to the final outcome. Unfortunately, design often lives in a we-they-ocracy. Clients say, “We paid them good money. They better come up with great design.” Or design firms say, “We’re the professionals in design. They may have ideas, but there’s no way they are actually going to participate in the design of the final piece itself.” This is a shame. When clients are actually given the chance to participate in design, good things happen. Here are three projects I participated in as client and designer where design democracy worked.

Project 1: Concrete Democracy
As a designer you’ve probably had the urge to try something different to expand your creative horizons. Last summer when I had some slack time (read no clients), I decided to help my mom redesign her kitchen. Now, I’m no architect, but I figured that with a design background, I should be able to come up with something nice. Executing the idea would be the tricky part. I could have just listened to her ideas and incorporated them in the final work. Instead I went a step further, and encouraged her to actually participate in the design. She hung drywall with me; she painted; she picked out cabinets; and she troweled t...... Keep reading