Let me cut to the chase. There’s a growing trend among graphic designers to create a name for themselves among their peers. And it’s not healthy. Usually it starts off with good intentions. Some designer at company x or freelancing y begins reading design blogs. Then they get the idea that they could do the same. They stretch their wings out a bit and start their own blog. People start reading it. Traffic to the site rises. They promote their work. It’s good. They get featured some place big like name-your-favorite-design-blog.com. A bunch of people start coming to their site and leaving nice comments. After a year or two of this, the designer comes up with something that gets their foot into the door of design stardom. Might be a Web 2.0 application or a really helpful tool or the-next-big-thing insight. They’re invited to speak at SXSW-NXPDQZ conferences. They appear in HOW. They write the book everyone wants to buy. Shoot, maybe their “style” actually starts a design trend. How wonderful.

I know I’m over exaggerating a bit here, but the spirit underneath it all is to exalt the self…your self. How do I know? I’ve been tempted to travel this road too. You won’t find it slapping you in the face like the story above, but you will see “Your Way” road signs in more subtle ways. Take the term “personal branding”. Personal branding involves discovering our selves, o...... Keep reading

In 1867 something very important happened, the results of which are probably sitting right in front of you. Since the invention of paper, people have been trying to find ways to keep them together…ribbons, straight pins (ouch!), spit, vines, gum and anything else they could scrounge up. Then an American inventor named Samuel B. Fay invented the paperclip. Not only was his design simple and ingenious, the humble paperclip is one of the few technological designs that have remained virtually unchanged over the last 100 plus years. The most common variation on the Fay design that we still see today is the Gem clip (hence the name). Quite a design accomplishment in this day and age when a company logo barely lasts more than 20 years before some marketing executive decides to “rebrand”.

Yet, what’s most intriguing to me is how the ubiquitous paperclip became a symbol of something far more important than its original design. During World War II, Norwegians wore paperclips to protest the Nazi invasion and demonstrate their sympathy for the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and others persecuted by the Nazis. After World War II the Office of Strategic Services (a forerunner to the CIA) even ran a covert operation code named “Paperclip” to bring German Nazi rocket scient...... Keep reading

It’s been almost a year since we scooped the designer behind the poop. Ever since, I’ve been hunting for ways to nurture creativity in my children, but hadn’t really found much. Then I stumbled upon Dave Werner’s now famous portfolio which I’ve reviewed here. What intrigued me the most were the things that fueled his creative growth growing up. So rather than guess what those things might be, I asked him. Here’s a list of things Dave did or was free to do in his childhood that exercised his creative muscles (Thanks for sharing Dave):

- Exploring and drawing maps of the woods near our neighborhood, including secret bases and paths
- Drawing huge murals on butcher paper of imaginary worlds and characters
- Making fictional television guides with shows like “Lego” and “Dinnertime”…if we were ever bored, we would just look at what time it was and check out what the different imaginary channels were playing.
- Writing journals and stories in spiral notebooks
- Creat...... Keep reading