An ongoing commentary on the world of branding, advertising, national identities, the Internet, and graphic design in general. Behold the quirky, witty, insightful, interesting, beautiful, and amazing from the far corners of the Internet. Your comments are welcome.
Image via BBH and The Guardian
In the continuing series of Marmite-related blog posts, here is a version to commemorate Margaret Thatcher, who recently passed away. It’s true, you either love her or you hate her.
This, dear friends, is a blog post about a blog post. My reactions to the ideas of another, and my arguments and opinions as to how the author is wrong, and needs to be corrected. I understand that the internet is full of critics criticising each other, but there are times when one is left with no choice but to leap into the fray and start throwing roundhouse punches.
Recently, an article entitled Seven Rules for Managing Creatives* appeared on the Harvard Business Review blog in which the author, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic writes a well-meaning but ultimately misguided manual for managers on how they can cope with creatives in their organisations. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Dr. Tomas is a psychologist and has been seen in the media, including on Channel4 during the short-lived Big Brother On The Couch series. There, at least, his insights were quite fascinating and astute, but it seems that the industrial psychology of creative professionals (the subject of my own forthcoming PhD studies — date unknown) hasn’t quite gone as mainstream.
Anyway, let’s get to it. Here, I will feature Dr. Tomas’s article, and insert my commentary stating why I think he’s a bit short-sighted, and more importantly, what well-intentioned managers can actually do to get the most out of their design pros. The article will appear in block quotes, and my commentary in normal text.
In following last week’s post, I am starting over yet again, but this time not entirely related to computers and software. I’m beginning a new job tomorrow, reuniting with a former boss whom I adore, and joining a growing organisation at a time when they need someone to sort out their graphics and branding. It’s exciting, and I’m looking forward to the fresh start.
This announcement might seem rather mundane, but it’s been a tough year regarding jobs and working. It’s been about twelve months since I proudly announced that I would be leaving me role as self-employed, one-man agency of Starship Design, and joining MakerBot. That didn’t last, as our department was laid off before too long. After this, I reconnected with a creative director I worked with in 2007, but he had us working until 5 am, and that role (which was freelance, but essentially open-ended) quickly sputtered out. Come October, I found myself working at a small agency. Unfortunately, this too proved to be a mis-match, and I had no choice but to look elsewhere. I am grossly understating the subtleties of each of these jobs, but even a quick read will allow you infer, correctly, that it’s been exhausting. I’ve earned several black eyes in quick succession, and witnessed some appalling behaviour on the part of bosses, and staggeringly outdated workplace philosophies in a variety of organisations.
But as the post title indicates, I’m starting over. This time, the biggest variable is known. Reconnecting with a former boss (who, by the way, is awesome) means we can skip the awkward-yet-important first phase of getting to know one another’s work style. I’m walking in to a situation where I am trusted, where my work has a track record, and where I am joining a team, not merely another company. Clearly, I don’t have the ability to see the future, and with any job you take it one day at a time. But I’m hoping that the frustration of the past year is a thing of a past, and will not soon be repeated. Onwards and upwards, dear friends.
(cue Elton John’s I’m Still Standing)
The only other aspect to this is that with this new role, I’m hoping to achieve a much better work-life balance (if I may use that terrible term). I’m going to do my best to resume blogging regularly, as well as working on side projects and other design-related developments that, frankly, I didn’t have the energy for being in situations which were absolutely draining. I’m hoping to actually get busy on the redesign of this site, which I started but never finished in the early days of 2012! I’ve been planning it, but of course the thing is to actually do it. Watch this space!
(and don’t worry, I’m going to be setting up a new Mac installation when I arrive at my new job. Luckily, it’s fresh on my mind.)
Ok, true story. A few weekends ago, my computer stopped working. It just wouldn’t load the OS, instead greeting me with a black screen. Long story short, I had to reinstall the system and everything on my main drive. I usually do this once a year or so, on purpose, such as when the new operating system is released, but considering I’d only just moved and set up my desk, this wasn’t planned for at all. In fact it was most inconvenient.
As a computer geek first and a designer second, I run a very customised and configured system. I install a ton of tweaks and hacks, and run a bunch of applications on a daily basis that aren’t part of the stock installation. I remarked that it would be two weeks of customising and installing before I truly felt comfortable and productive. Friends encouraged me to blog about it, listing the apps I use and ways that I customise my system. So in the spirit of starting over, here’s a look at what’s going on.
As I write this in the final hours of 2012, I am taking moment to review and reflect on what has been a strange year, even for me. For anyone following this blog, it seems obvious that I deviated from the habit of posting regularly. In fact, I believe this is was the year with the fewest posts since I started writing about design in the early days of 2006 — only 25 or so posts managed to see the light of day, and most of those in the first three weeks of January 2012. Had to chuckle a bit to remember that there was a time, such as during the summer of 2007, when I was aspiring to post 25 posts per month.
It would seem obvious to say “I got busy”, but more accurately, I got busy several times with several new endeavors. It was the continually-starting-over nature of this past year that took me away, and turned me sideways a bit. I’m a little disappointed with myself that I never managed to write about the 2012 Olympics, considering I’d been sniping at that stupid logo for the previous 5 years, and considering I wrote a three-part review of the 2008 Beijing games. Opportunity missed.
Years ago, I created a simple calendar which I creatively called “Simple Calendar”. This was the calendar that I wanted, but did not exist anywhere in the world. A 7-seven week grid allows me to see what’s coming up in the early weeks of next month, and a bit of what came before. This solves the recurring problem of “what’s the date for next Thursday?” Why calendars cut off so soon, I’ll never know. Not like we live our lives on month at a time and then everything else just cuts off. I mean, what the fuck. Also, I prefer the European-style display where the weekends are lumped together on the right side, rather than the American style of having bookends. (In addition, there exists an Israeli-style display where Saturday begins the week and the thus two weekend days are capped at the beginning.)
Anyway, I finally got back to making a new version for 2013! This is the same design, but updated with the appropriate dates. American holidays are listed in a simple underline. And it’s available for your downloading pleasure, right here. I’ve also included the InDesign file so you can remix and create your own. Add colour, change the fonts, make it horizontal — whatever. The usual rules apply — if you make a new version, let me know so I can give you props! And it would be nice if you shared a link back to my site.
Download Simple Calendar 2013 (PDF, 81 KB)
Download Simple Calendar 2013 (InDesign CS6, 2.7 MB)
Download Simple Calendar 2013 (InDesign CS6 Markup, 146 KB)
My recommendation for printing is that you use the back of some already-printed paper. Thicker stock works better. Then just use a binder clip and hang the calendar at your desk, or in your kitchen, or wherever it’s more appropriate.
image via Nerdtrek
Sheesh, this post is at least 6 weeks overdue so I’m going to try my best to recreate the thoughts and feelings I had when finishing up the Hackintosh. Sorry for the delay.
I knew that the software setup and installation of OS X would be the tricky part, and it was. Or at least it didn’t work on the first try, and I had to get a little help from Bill and the Internet. But in the end I got it.
This is what an error message looks like. Not very helpful, actually.
image via Nerdtrek
The Hackintosh project continues, albeit slowly. I actually put the box together last weekend but with the hectic work week to contend with, I’m a bit late in this post.
Where to begin? As I mentioned, I’ve build computers before, but that was 8 or 9 years ago. I remember building my parents a PC my final year in college, but that, like most of the computers I built in my teen years, was assembled from spare parts I had lying around, using my old hand-me-downs and maybe a new hard drive, or whatever. This is a bit different since all the components are from an entirely new generation of PC parts. Frankly, I had to reeducate myself on the new configuration of ports and plugs and whatnot.
The components for my Hackintosh, all in boxes
Once I got started, it was a bit like riding a bike. At the core it’s still the same procedure — put all the components in the case, give ‘em power, connect ‘em to each other where necessary. Make sure everything is tight and tidy, and close her up.
unboxed components, ready for assembly
image via Nerdtrek
A while back, I listened to an episode of the On Taking Pictures podcast, featuring my photographer pal Bill Wadman. Bill described how he, and many more around the Internet, are building their own Macs from standard PC components. A Hackintosh, if you will. The reasoning is two-fold. First, Apple hasn’t exactly kept up with new products in the pro desktop market. Their Mac Pro is generations behind by PC standards, leaving many designers, photographers, video guys, and other artists twiddling their thumbs with old hardware. Second, it’s much cheaper to assemble it yourself rather than buy from Apple. After all, Apple’s products are a luxury.
Listening to Bill gave me some confidence. With the increasing number of components compatible with the Mac OS, and an ever-growing community of Mac-builders, it seems like the time is right. Also, my Mac Pro — which was physically damaged by an enraged ex-roommate — has been giving me problems. In fact, I’m very worried that the entire thing could crap out in a moment’s notice.
In a quick follow-up to last week’s post, I have installed Mountain Lion on my laptop (which isn’t my primary design system) and have quickly discovered that two of my wishlist items have been granted.
The new application Contacts has replaced Address Book, and with it, returned to us the three-column interface. It still features that bloody stupid stitched-leather effect, but at least now it’s usable. My goodness.
New Contacts app in Mountain Lion. You can see the three-columns at work. Click for a larger view
iCal has been replaced by Calendars, which seems mostly the same but with the iCloud integration improved and with the added bonus of small calendar thumbnails for both the current and following month. This is actually very significant, especially as the month approaches its finale. MacWorld has a nice review of Calendars, which is worth a read.
Unfortunately, the grey aesthetic of Lion has persisted, and I will now undertake various steps in an effort to reclaim the interface to my liking. Hopefully, most of the existing ones for Lion will also work in Mountain Lion (I almost typed Snow Lion! Ha.) I’ve got some poking to do to really experience what’s new in Mountain Lion from a day-to-day usage point of view. On the surface, it feels pretty much exactly like Lion. Fair warning, some rants may make their way onto this blog.
Not to repeat my mistakes from the last upgrade, I’m going to wait a few weeks before upgrading my main machine to Mountain Lion. Hopefully, nothing will break in the meantime and force me to upgrade (which is what happened last time around).
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