Enter the Designer

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Designers live in a world of challenges requiring unprecedented solutions, fostering the sort of individuals who want to lecture on or write about the details of their quests to teach those who will listen. These individuals who share their hard-earned secrets are, to other designers, what the Kung Fu master is to a student in a martial arts movie. Deke McClelland is known to practitioners of Illustrator and Chris Georgenes holds down the Flash animation dojo. Terry White is omnipresent in many areas of digital photography while digital painters follow Serge Birault.

This spring, AIGA Baltimore brought local design masters to the Ink & Pixels event at Towson University so they might impart their sage advice. Since the attendees reported hearing some very Zen-like wisdom that day, we couldn’t resist comparing their mastery to Kung Fu movies.

Our Design Masters were:

(For the sake of consistency, we’ll stick with the time-honored, generic title of “Kung Fu”, though the martial arts styles themselves vary according to the story being told.)

Your Style is Your Legend

“Your reputation precedes you,” says the lord to the old man, “You are said to be the Master of the Five-Element Fist. You believe you can defeat my oppressor?”

The old man’s style is what makes him worthy of the lord’s attention and has gotten him in for an interview. Were he not known for his mastery of the Five-Element Fist, a style explained to be an influence of the Ancestor System of Wuzuquan, the lord’s guards might have just locked down the fortress and lobbed fireballs at the old man until he went away.

Why do you design? Knowing the answer defines where you stand among other designers: understanding why you design is paramount to understanding how you design. Does your attitude towards what you do read like a technical manual, coldly stating, “I am a graphic designer”? Having a vague mantra represents a vague style, a style that is easily defeated by professionals who have a well-defined service to offer. Instead, consider  what it is you do, such as “I’m a print designer because I’m obsessed with color and its effect on everything” or “It’s 2013! Why do websites still look like this? That’s why I became a web designer: to make some decent sites”.  It’s the difference between saying “I know how to fight” or “I’m devoted to the Way of  the Thundering Mantis and will emerge victorious because of it”.

Presenting Worthiness

Before each Kung Fu movie challenge, the participants each give a preliminary demonstration, a quick succession of impressive moves which acts as a display of their respective knowledge of the art.

Demonstrating who you are and what you can do is vital to finding jobs. Effective networking is the ability to make meaningful connections with strangers combined with an online presence for your new connection to reference. Make yourself look good by creating a designer’s resume, using your tools of the trade instead of a Word template to create something that looks like experience. Have people look at it and give specific feedback. Choose appropriate typefaces and stay away from those free fonts: the measurements on those are often not professionally calculated. Bad type is the Egg Fist of the design world, a sure sign of an amateur.

In the movies, the Kung Fu student will face opponents possessing abilities the student is unaccustomed to. Upon defeating the opponent, an understanding of how to defeat a future adversary, through gain of skill, is achieved. In other words, the student learns something.

Apply for every job with an intention to learn a valuable lesson. Whether that lesson is a how to calculate web layout grids or why you should thoroughly explain your contract agreements, these experiences are necessary for achieving Design Mastery: no job is without merit. It’s important to step outside of known abilities in order to discover unknown ones, the ones that can only be resolved through battles fought with CTRL+Z and Google search dead-ends. Without accepting possibilities of conflict, there can be no understanding of resolution. And without an understanding of resolution, you will end up with disastrous image enlargement results.

The Non-Photo Blue Pencil is Mightier than the Sword

“Your weapons,” said Yoda with grim certainty, “you will not need them.”

Not heeding this advice, Luke hung onto them out of fear of being without. His weapons were a crutch. He didn’t need them to face his future that day (in fact, he freaked out a little), they didn’t help him later in Cloud City (when he got his hand cut off), and it wasn’t weapons that finally turned his father on the Emperor (that was the result of Vader’s heart growing three sizes that day).

Star Wars isn’t a Kung Fu movie proper, understood, but the point is similarly illustrated.

Build the use of tools into your workflow. Opt to draw out ideas on paper instead of in Sketchbook Pro. Choose to carefully light, arrange, and frame an image instead of spending time in Photoshop to achieve a similar effect. Sketch out or identify in writing the sort of typeface you would like to work with before searching your library. Spend as much of the process as possible without turning on your workstation, writing notes theorizing how something can be achieved, the steps involved, and exactly where to go for help.

Best Offense = Good Defense

The first thing Mr. Miyagi taught Danny was how to wash the car, paint the house, and sand the floor. These seemingly nonsense tasks turned out to be defensive maneuvers that kept Danny out of harm long enough to successfully execute the Crane Kick.

Creatively, to know why you are doing something prepares a defense for it. Reasons why you choose a typeface should be clear, concise, and straightforward, like an elevator pitch. The more words it takes to explain something in a disagreement, the more it sounds like an excuse.

Preparing for defense is also important on the business side for when an explanation is required as to why you will not be doing a complete revision for free. The design process shouldn’t be treated any different than any other journey: if there’s preventable backtracking involved, someone’s got to account for the resources used. Knowing the contract, discussing the process, and identifying the design stages are ways to keep both parties informed and attentive.

Most Honorable

We’re grateful to our Design Masters for sharing their wisdom. Also, many thanks to the legion of portfolio reviewers who came out to give the students an honest look at what worked and what they needed to improve.

After all, without a review, one is just breaking wooden boards and, as Bruce Lee will tell you, “Boards don’t hit back.”

Greg Jericho spends an awfully lot of time designing for clients that do not exist at his equally fake company, Myopic! Studio. Kate Lawless strategizes content for the web, develops e-learning, and designs digital signage by day. By night, she’s a freelance designer and socializer-extraordinaire.

Letter from the Incoming Co-Presidents

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

This spring Jennifer Marin and Stacey Fatica begin their first term as Co-Presidents of AIGA Baltimore, replacing the outgoing leadership of Alissa Jones and Brian Ghiloni.

Both Stacey and Jennifer joined the chapter last Spring. As Education Director Jennifer is inspired by Baltimore’s community of artists, designers, and web developers. Stacey, as Social Design Director is motivated by her connections with the local design community. Both believe that individuals are drawn to AIGA because of a need to belong to something bigger than themselves, to learn from both freelancers and business owners while sharing their own unique knowledge with an unusual city of diverse backgrounds, interests, and talent.

As the incoming Co-Presidents prepare to invest themselves into their challenging roles, they are aware that they are expected to build upon the legacy started 25 years ago with AIGA Baltimore’s first president, Bob Shelly. Under Alissa and Brian’s leadership, the board launched Baltimore’s very first Design Week, executed a large-scale student design conference, Ink & Pixels, and in 2012 alone, held 45 other events geared towards professional development.

The goal of the new presidency is, put simply, to continue and strengthen the legacy of the chapter as set by its predecessors. Providing relevant, memorable events to foster actionable conversation appropriate to the impact that design has on society and the lives of individuals, both personally and professionally.

Assisting Jennifer and Stacey in achieving their goal is a board powered entirely by volunteers, each of whom have a specific focus that is added to their respective teams. The Programming Team, led by Courtney Glancy, pioneered AIGA Baltimore’s first Design Week in 2012 and is currently working on the next, this October 2013. Converse, the well-attended monthly design conversation event, continues to be executed by Lauren Zuber. And our communications team Greg Jericho, Kate Lawless, and Vanessa Vichayakul have combined their efforts to create a powerful social media following and are developing an increased online presence.

Maintaining the foundation of volunteers as set by the outgoing presidency of Alissa and Brian is, itself, a primary focus for the incoming leadership. The Co-President’s message is clear:

“We are here for you. This is your AIGA. This year AIGA Baltimore celebrates our 25th anniversary and it is impossible to name the many individuals who have shaped our chapter throughout the years. Stepping into our roles, we know that our time on the board will be short and that we cannot succeed in this alone.”

“Whether you’ve offered your space for an event, volunteered to speak, reviewed a portfolio, or simply attended one of our events, you are the reason we continue to thrive. So thank you, Baltimore: we couldn’t do it without your support. We look forward to the next two years and hope that we provide the leadership that AIGA Baltimore deserves.”

Does Great Design Equal Great Success?

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

At varying points in a career, the question of success rises to the top of a list of concerns. If a designer is not finding it, they might diversify an existing skill set to better qualify for different types of assignments, or possible begin work in an unfamiliar style in order to develop a relevance in a contemporary design market. Sometimes, though, it’s worth considering that there’s something other than a portfolio holding us back, something that keeps us from competing with other designers besides the work itself.

At AIGA Baltimore’s most recent Converse, our open talk on a specified design-related topic, we asked our group this question: Is the success of a designer dependent solely on the finished product? Are we all missing that ‘something’ and are we even aware of it? The suggestions we heard were interesting, and the conversations, inspiring.

Be Prepared

Being prepared is necessary. Unfortunately, parents, teachers, and co-workers have been telling us to ‘be prepared’ so much, that it comes off as just a cliché. A filler. Words said to bridge the gap between receiving the assignment and agreeing to the deadline. To dismiss research, development, and practice by intending to go into a project with an overconfident, self-perceived cleverness to win over a client is not only going to fail, it’s going to give the appearance that any design experience comes solely from watching all five seasons of Mad Men.

We heard from well-prepared individuals who suggested including quantifiable data to back up logic in a presentation. By doing market research and reading case studies, a designer can show returns on investment, giving little room for logical disagreement. By using online analytics to measure the impact of interactive products and by using social media to configure metrics regarding the successful exposure of printed materials, there is a clear emphasis made that we understand how to make this thing work. Being clear means being prepared.

Explain Yourself

While we were on the topic of being clear, we identified at Converse that designers aren’t particularly strong when it comes to communicating verbally, and it’s a common misconception that it’s not a necessary skill, that the work should speak for itself. In truth, all the aforementioned research and development that was done to assure a project’s success needs a knowledgeable speaker to explain it in terms of goals, direction, and purpose. A creative brief of this sort can become a preemptive explanation to the client, an education in design process, that can prevent confusion and unrealistic expectations, especially in later stages where their seemingly minor change means a complete conceptual reworking for the designer. One Converse attendee so believes in the power of a verbally-skilled designer, that she took an acting class not only to present herself and her work, but also how to react to clients’ comments. That decision scores points for being prepared as well.

Trust Me

Being prepared and well-spoken are absolutely paramount in creating a trustworthy image of a designer. The Converse group found that there were many clients who had never met their designer or even talked to them. In a society that believes that it’s called ‘Dreamweaver’ because you dream up a website, click a button, and it weaves one up for you, it’s important to become separate from our software.

As designers, our clients should understand that we chose our career because there’s a collaborative effort, a critical process that we require to do our best work. If we didn’t want input, criticism, or revisions, we’d have gone into Fine Art and insisted upon our sole vision. We are people who have a unique talent to visualize the solution even better after we’ve broken the last one, whether by accident or knowledgeable rejection. For this sort of partnership to work, we have to trust each other and, because the client is the financier, it’s up to us to gain that trust first. By explaining early and often why they should believe we’ll succeed and how they can help keep it that way throughout the process, the client feels assured that we are able to control the project without micro-input. Being mindful that both parties specialize in different areas and shouldn’t be expected to guess how the other does their job is a welcome transparency and should also prevent some unwelcome surprises.

Success is How You Work

Our Converse attendees gave us lots of valuable insight on success with clients but they also suggested some tips to help productivity while working to increase the value of time spent designing. Planning ahead for what will be the most productive time of the day allows an opportunity to clear out distractions. Check email a limited number of times a day, for a limited length of time. Most agreed three times a day for thirty minutes each was the maximum.

Some of the most difficult distractions are often mental, the pressure of conjuring an idea that’s worth exploring or that spurs a creative work session. Non-computer related activities such as sketching or flipping through a coffee table book are two ways of refreshing inspiration, the added benefit being less time spent troubleshooting a software tool or becoming distracted while connected to email or other types of e-communication. The stress of administrative tasks is as detrimental to creativity as regular writer’s block, so it’s important to remove the availability of tasking reminders during the previously scheduled productive times. Otherwise, the guilty, inner voice insists on responding to everything before allowing a relaxed mind. Creativity works well under pressure because there’s not any time to worry about anything else.

Join Us Next Time

Interested in some more about creativity and where it comes from? Be sure to join us for our next Converse on April 18 at The Windup Space and tell us how you come up with those ideas. Or tell us that you’re not: maybe we can help. It’ll be like designer group therapy.

Here’s some links suggested during the Converse:

Viewing: Designing a Stop Sign

Reading: Be Excellent at Anything

Greg Jericho spends an awfully lot of time designing for clients that do not exist at his equally fake company, Myopic! Studio. Kate Lawless strategizes content for the web, develops e-learning, and designs digital signage by day. By night, she’s a freelance designer and socializer-extraordinaire.

Did you know?

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Last summer, AIGA launched a new model for membership. Instead of membership being based on your career level, you now have the choice. The new model gives you the ability to choose how much you want to contribute to be an AIGA member.

Become a part of the Baltimore design community and join the greater conversation of design.

Learn more and join today!

Together, we are OneAIGA. Have questions? Email info@baltimore.aiga.org

 

Clarvit Design Lecture Series keynote

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

The University of Maryland’s Department of Art  is delighted to announce that James Victore will be this year’s Clarvit Design Lecture Series keynote. His lecture will be 6 p.m., Thursday, February 28 in the Art-Sociology Building, room 2203 on the College Park campus.

To say that James Victore is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill designer is akin to saying that the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is no ordinary architectural structure. James Victore is a self-taught, independent artist, graphic designer, design educator and speaker. His work is infused with passion, conviction, and a no-holds-barred attitude. He designs on his own terms and eschews technological gadgetry and clients when appropriate.

Victore’s clients include Moet & Chandon, Aveda, Bobbi Brown cosmetics, Esquire, TIME and The New York Times. HIs work has been Emmy nominations and Gold and Silver Medals from the New York Art Director’s Club. His posters have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and are in the permanent collections of the Palais du Louvre, Paris, the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, the Design Museum in Zurich and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. His book Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss? was released by Abrams in 2010.

Design Week 2012 RECAP!

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Complete and utter madness yields lovely, lavish design…GO BALTIMORE DESIGN WEEK!
– Seth Kaiser, Bmore Design Week attendee

Sarah's winning design

Aw, rats…

On October 15, we began our first annual Bmore Design Week: five days of celebrating design in Charm City. While there’s no shortage of art festivals year-round, Design Week gave us the opportunity to show how the celebration of our local pop culture can become great publicity work for the town and its people.

The opening event was the Out of My Hands Workshop where, Sharpies at the ready, designers got together to create a unique Baltimore alphabet inspired by this great city. Helen Armstrong and Zvezdana Stojmirovic, authors of the book Participate: Designing with User-Generated Content, kicked off our Design Week with a unique workshop where designers let go of control and allowed their visions to be built as a team. Each designer was given a sheet of paper with an outlined letter and asked to designate a rule or guideline inspired by Baltimore that would guide the next designer to fill the letter with images related to that rule. AIGA’s Jennifer Marin was intimidated by the thinly outlined letter and its theme at first. “Would I go abstract and choose a theme that would stifle the next person’s creativity? Or a more cliché concept like Baltimore Crabs?” she asked.

After a few minutes, she chose “Salty Like Old Bay” as the topic of her letter. Some of the other letter themes included the Ravens, Baltimore City Rats, Waterfront Living, Brick Row Homes, and the good old 695 Traffic Jam. In five minute intervals everyone passed their letter forms to the right and watched as a unique alphabet was born. It was great to see how each person interpreted the individual themes.

A special thank you to all who attended, Helen and Zvez, and MICA for donating the space. Stay tuned to see the final artwork.

Tuesday brought us to Mother’s in Federal Hill for Industry Trivia Night. As the teams entered the bar with names like “The Ringers” and “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner,” it was obvious we had assembled some creative people for this challenge. The questions covered design, the printing industry, advertising, marketing, photography, and Baltimore.

Our trivia host, Patrick Storck, asked 50 questions that got trickier with every round. Who designed the Nike Swoosh? What musical was based on a 1990 John Waters movie (not so fast: Hairspray was made in 1988)? Pantone mugs, camera lens shot glasses, and other design-related prizes awaited the victors.

Wednesday exploded into Creative Alliance with the Shutterstock-sponsored Pixels of Fury, an ‘art fight’ where the contestants are given 20 minutes to dream up, design, and finish a project, the subject of which is revealed at the beginning of the round. National President of AIGA, Doug Powell, and Bob Shelley, AIGA Baltimore’s first chapter president were on hand as a judges. The first round of designers were Dave Colson, Sarah Jennings and Dirk Torrijos, their task was to create something that inspires them about Baltimore.

Round Two saw Micah Piccirilli’s crab project and Bob Gillespie’s crab project fighting each other, while Jill Blum chose a Smalltimore theme. Each minute revealed something new and clever in each design, some added seconds before time was up. Judges and audience voted Micah into the Championship Round.

Sarah came into the round slowly, carefully choosing the right images for her Bmore Rat frame, while Micah ran with a representation of our friendly President Street windshield maintenance crew. Sarah won the judges, Micah won the audience, and everyone went out to John Davis’ photo set-up to act silly for the camera.

Sarah Jennings and her award

Sarah and the coveted Furious Pixel

Local design studio Post Typography gave a brilliant lecture on Thursday. In a beautifully rustic and open space at 2640 Saint Paul St., guests came and gathered round for local treats, pies from Dangerously Delicious Pies and coffee from Zeke’s Coffee. We settled down in our seats to enjoy custom lettering and hear stories of success, great misses, and ways to approach the same project differently each year.

Friday saw attendees visiting three of the city’s design studios. First up was Baltimore Print Studios, where Kyle and Kim invited us into their fully equipped letterpress and screen print shop in Station North. They explained the different presses in the studio, the history of printing, and led the attendees in a hands-on press demonstration.

Next was Fastspot, housed in a Butcher’s Hill rowhome, where Kurt showed the group around and explained the history of the firm and the type of work they do. He talked about their workflow and the culture of the studio: open-concept, no doors, and different types of work stations.

Our last tour was B. Creative Group, an inter-disciplinary studio in Woodberry. Described by the owner, Christian, as a creative agency, the studio does both print and web design for regional and national clients. During the tour, we got insight on how B. Creative Group develops within a collaborative environment while seeing examples of their award-winning design work and a recent proposal.

The first annual Baltimore Design: some were inspired, some were educated. Everyone definitely had a blast. Clear that calendar for October 2013 because as good as it was this year, it will be a do-not-miss event for sure as we’ll also be celebrating AIGA Baltimore’s 25th anniversary!

some of the AIGA Baltimore Board

AIGA Bmore. We’re a little… different.

Board Member Spotlight

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Like most boards, the AIGA Baltimore board is comprised of 100% volunteers. So you can get to know the board and recognize some faces at our events, we are featuring board members. Today’s post focuses on Jennifer Marin, our Education & Professional Development Director!

Q. Tell us a little about yourself.
A. I am Northern Italian (from Livorno, a port city on the western coast of Tuscany) and Venezuelan. I moved to Baltimore from Caracas 15 years ago to live with my mother and attend college. I never returned home and eventually I became a citizen, choosing Baltimore as my new home. I’ve taught design courses at Towson University and currently I am the senior designer at an in-house design department in Columbia. We work primarily in book and video publishing, but have begun expanding our expertise as the digital movement sweeps over our industry.

Q. What do you love about design?
A. Design thinking doesn’t provide the “right answer” but rather a myriad of ways to approach a solution. I love being challenged to find creative solutions. Ironically, at best, I can draw a stick figure.

Q. Why did you decide to join the AIGA Baltimore board?
A. I’m excited to be an active part of the Baltimore design community. I see the benefits of a strong chapter, and I want to help make our chapter as strong as AIGA DC.

Q. What is your passion?
A. Other than design, I love to cook. Before I chose my career as a designer, I went to culinary school. I wanted to be a chef. I worked at a few local restaurants when I realized that for me, the art of cooking was more enjoyable in the comfort of my home where I could experiment freely with new ingredients and recipes and where I didn’t have to clock in and out, work long hours and sweat profusely behind a hot stove. Of course, this was before the Food Network craze, when being a chef was not as fashionable and hip as it is today.

Q. What is a must-see spot in Baltimore?
A. I love the sidewalk culture in Mt. Vernon. The architecture of our city is beautiful, especially around the Peabody and Mt. Washington Monument.

Q. What is your favorite summertime drink?
A. Pineapple, cilantro & lime margarita from El Gato Negro in New Orleans. One of the most refreshing drinks I’ve ever had.

Board Member Spotlight

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Like most boards, the AIGA Baltimore board is comprised of 100% volunteers. So you can get to know the board and recognize some faces at our events, we are featuring board members. Today’s post focuses on Brian Ghiloni our Vice President!

Q. Tell us a little about yourself.
A. I grew up in New Hampshire and moved to Baltimore for college to study painting. Since graduating, I’ve moved away and back a couple of times, but I’ve always considered Baltimore home. I’ve been fortunate to also live in Seattle, Ireland, and Italy. Currently, I help run a 2-person design studio specializing in exhibit and special event design. We work with a broad spectrum of clients including Fortune 500 companies, local businesses, nonprofits, and governmental organizations. More recently, we worked on the NATO and the G8 Summits.

Q. What do you love about design?
A. I love the fact that I’m constantly challenged creatively. Design has the potential to have a much greater reach than fine arts. Design isn’t simply about making beautiful things. The Design for Good initiative is a perfect example of designers participating in larger conversations about important issues that affect us all.

Q. Why did you decide to join the AIGA board?
A. I joined the board to connect with local designers and give back to the design community. I want to see Baltimore designers succeed!

Q. What is your favorite Jon Waters Film?
A. Pink Flamingos

Q. Where is the best Baltimore crabcake?
A. Koco’s on Harford Road.

Board Member Spotlight

Posted on by AIGA Baltimore

Like most boards, the AIGA Baltimore board is comprised of 100% volunteers. So you can get to know the board and recognize some faces at our events, we are featuring board members. Today’s post focuses on Courtney Glancy, our Programming Director!

Q: What is your background and history in design?
A: I was born and bred in Baltimore, have never left and don’t plan to—I love this city!  (Everyone in Baltimore seems to ask where you when to high school; Courtney’s on top of that one.) Before you have to ask, I went to Dulaney High School. I was an Interdisciplinary Studies Major in Visual Communication Design and Business at Villa Julie College. While I know there was a name change, I didn’t attend Stevenson!  After leaving an (unnamed) agency after 6 years, I ventured off to become my own boss and haven’t looked back.

Q: Do you like working for yourself?
A:  It’s great to live and breathe a job you love. Makes waking up and shuffling into my Canton home office much easier.

Q: What do you do for fun?
A: Recently married to my husband, John, my definition of “fun” is going to the farmers market together or enjoying fine food and drinks with good company, attending concerts, or belting favorite 80s tunes during karaoke at Walt’s Inn. AMC is my TV channel of choice.

Q: How would you spend the 8th day of your week?
A: Start with fresh cinnamon rolls, good coffee and some time to catch up on our DVR.

Q:  What do you love about design?
A: One Christmas when I was 12 years old I received Print Shop Deluxe and spent the entire day creating fake ads. I’ve been on a quest for visual organization, good design, and clear communication ever since. (She says as she looks down at a diner menu in desperate need of design and hierarchy).

Q: Why did you decide to join the AIGA Baltimore board?
A: AIGA provides connectivity and interaction with people interested in design. I spend my days talking to my four office mates …errr…cats—the human companionship helps balance my days and keeps me sane. I look forward to serving the Baltimore design community and being an active part of it.

Q: If Baltimore was an ice cream flavor what would it be?
A: Bacon, because it’s a little weird and unusual.

Q: If you could travel anywhere, where would it be?
A: Southern Spain. Love the culture, the food, the history, and especially the people.

Q: Name a must-see spot in Baltimore that you wouldn’t find in a travel guidebook.
A: There are two spots I’d suggest. 1) You’ve got to check out the farmers markets, and 2) the alley behind Single Carrot Theater off of North Avenue has some great graffiti that is always changing.

Courtney looks forward to meeting more AIGA members at future events.