Noisy Decent Graphics

How not to get a placement here, or anywhere

Applying Green

I went to the London College of Communication the other day. It's more famously known as the London College of Printing but they had a rebrand a few years ago. It's a great place and pretty famous amongst design colleges. Walking round there was that great feeling that 'stuff on the walls' gives you.

Anyway. If you're reading this and you're from the college here's a links to a few of things I talked about.

I basically regave (Tom, is that a word? I can't be bothered to look it up) my Applied Green talk. It was slightly different because things have moved on a bit and the audience was different, but here's a link to the talk pretty much word for word, videos and all.

Here's a link to a post called Green(ish) Printing which was written by Marcus Brown who is a printer. It's well worth a read. And remember I said you should get some printers in to talk to you. Do that. They know about this stuff and they like being asked.

Here's a link to Thomas Matthews website that I mentioned. Thomas Matthews are a design company that know a lot about sustainability issues. Sarah Thomas, one of the founders, also helped start Three Trees Don't Make A Forest which is a kind of resource for eco friendly designers. I must admit to having reservations about Three Trees. The picture of them all in the trees really makes me cringe. But it's a difficult and admirable thing they're doing and they deserve our support. (PS If you're reading this Sophie, Nat or Caroline I'd love you to come on here and talk about Three Trees.)

Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry about Ken Garland's First Things First Manifesto, which is a good thing.

Here's McDonald's Corporate Social Responsibilty blog and here's a blog post where Richard Reed from innocent Drinks says "I also sought the counsel of the MD of Greenpeace, who said that over the last five years mcdonalds have changed from being their number one enemy to their number one global partner in reducing deforstation in the amazonian rainforest".

And last and least here's a link to all my posts about being a design student and trying to get a job etc. Invaluable, obviously.

The Best Writer's Job I Can Offer You

I get loads of emails asking if i know of any graphic design jobs. Normally I don't. Sorry. It must be really hard to get a graphic design job these days.

Sometimes I get emails asking if I know of any writer's jobs. Jeez, you lot don't like the easy life do you? I can count on one hand the number of writer's jobs I've seen in the whole of my long life that aren't ad agency writer's. If that makes sense.

This is a long winded way of telling you that innocent are looking for a writer. Which must be about the best non-ad-agency writing job going. You can read more from your future boss here and you can apply here.

Pitch stories

We did a pitch the other day and me and the work placement were an hour early.

So we popped into a nearby cafe and had a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. Lovely. I opened up my laptop to check the presentation and noticed that the screen was a bit grubby. Very grubby. Kids at home and all that. So I asked the cafe owner if I could borrow a cloth and gave the Mac a good wipe.

"It's not like this at The Partners" said the placement.

No, no, no.

Some students popped in yesterday. Asked a few questions. Had a look around.

As usual I asked, "Are you seeing anyone else?" as usual the reply  was, "No. Everyone else said no."

Ten Year

This year is my ten year anniversary. I've been working full time as a graphic designer for ten years.

I'd like to talk to other people in this industry who've been working for exactly ten years this year. Designers, art directors, copy writers, account managers, planners, all of you. If that's you or if you know someone who fits the bill then drop me a line ben at thedesignconspiracy dot com.

Thanks.

Not Another CV

I got sent this CV/website by a young designer looking for a job www.notanotherdesigner.co.uk

We don't have any jobs for designers right now, but I looked at the site. Liked it. Meant to blog about it. Forgot.

And then Chloe (for that is the young designer's name) sent me this little postcard.

That's clever isn't it?

A nice reminder and a nice touch. Not just another designer at all.

Spare an hour of your incredibly valuable, important time

The nice people above are all from Bournemouth Uni. They popped in to the studio yesterday to have a quick look around and ask us a few questions.

I asked them who they were going to see after us and they said no-one. They'd contacted loads of studios but no one else had said they could come and have a look around. Some people (no names mentioned) didn't even reply. That's not very nice is it?

I've heard this before (can't find where I wrote about it) and it really fucks me off. It's just so rude.

Students are always saying to us that agencies never get back to them. Whether it's a short list of questions or a request to come and have a look around, no one bothers to reply.

I know we're not the biggest or the busiest studio in town, but surely everyone (or at least someone in the agency) can spare one hour? Just one little hour.

Let's be realistic. When these guys turned up it was a bit of a surprise as didn't realise it was one o'clock. Consequently I think my first words to them were, "Fuck". I was very busy on Thursday and could have done with having that hour to myself. But you could say that about any day, in any week, in any year. There's always something to do and there's never enough time.

But we enjoyed showing them round and we enjoyed answering their questions. But most of all I enjoyed their appreciation. You could tell it meant a lot to them that someone had bothered to show them round.

And I know the big well known studios get hundreds of requests like this and I know you can't say yes to every one. But you could say yes to one a week, couldn't you?

And you could actually take the time to reply and say no to the others.

Sigh.

How to get a job at The Design Conspiracy

Lots of people ask me, "How do I get a job in the design industry?". Normally I answer, "Sorry, I haven't got a clue. Sorry."

Sometimes people ask me, "How do I get a job at The Design Conspiracy?". Normally I answer, "Sorry, We don't have any jobs at the moment. Sorry."

But we've just taken on Alex, who's a brilliant designer, and I thought I'd explain how and why we employed him because it sort of answers both questions.

We first heard of Alex in 2004. A client of ours rang and said they'd seen someone talking about us in a D&AD thing. It turns out it was the D&AD Talent Pool website. Alex had been short listed in the London 2012 Bid logo competition and because of this he'd been interviewed by the guys at Talent Pool.

We found the interview and when he was asked what his influences were he'd said, Henry Moore, Mother and us. Yes, us. We were a bit shocked by this (in 2004 there were 3 of us in one room) so we invited him in for a cup of tea.

We loved his work and we really liked him, but we didn't have any jobs going.

He / we kept in touch. Sometimes he would ring and ask if we needed any help. He helped us out during holidays and even at weekends. He came to all the parties.

When we moved into our new studio he sent us this moving in card. By now there were 7 of us.

April.

Tom, Kingsley and Paul.

Rebecca Cox and Emma.

And of course me.

Good isn't it? So when we finally needed another designer there was only ever going to be one choice.

Next time, when someone asks me how they get a job in the design industry I'm just going to point them at this post.

(By the way we're currently looking for a Business Development Manager and some freelance junior web developers. If you fit the bill drop me a line, ben at the design conspiracy dot com.)

My Week @ TDC

I was one of the luck pups who was treated to a week's placement at TDC after exhibiting at New Blood. Being a big fan of Ben's blog previously I couldn't believe I was going to the studio I'd already become so familiar with!

It's been great to sample a real slice of London life in one of it's top agencies, TDC's got a fab atmosphere, the studio is definitely home from home, as they all made me feel so welcome (esp. Becks!).

The Monday morning meeting on my first day brought me up to speed on what everybody was working on and straight away I was getting involved in current projects.

It's been a real taster for me of industry life and I've got to say I love it, I can only hope wherever I end up, it's as welcoming and thriving as this place!

Honorary Blogger - Stephanie Holford from Staffordshire University.

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Stef is here on a placement and she's cleverly admitted to reading the blog so I asked her to write something. I'd better be careful as this is now my third guest post (Marcus and Tom's efforts can be found here).

Should you wish to employ Stef you can download a PDF of her work here and you can contact her here.

Interesting Mini CEO Half Thoughts

Ask anyone why they blog and inevitably the expression "it's a good place for sharing half thoughts" will come up.

So here's a half thought.

Someone asked me the other day what percentage of my day was spent doing what. Yesterday it was approximately one third general admin type stuff, one third client liaison type stuff and one third designing type stuff. If we ignore the fact that there isn't really such a thing as a typical day - that is a pretty much a typical day.

The same person then asked me what advice I would give a graduate today and the one thought I can't get rid of is that I think today graduates should be aware that if they want to get anywhere in this industry they'll have to start up on their own. Write a list of all the designers you admire; I'll bet all of them either run their own consultancy or used to, like Jonathan Ive. From Glaser and Fletcher through Ive and Saville all the way through to Eatock.

I don't mean you have to have a business degree or read the FT everyday, but just bear in the back of your mind that one day, probably, you'll have to run your own show.

Which reminds me of Iain's post about Mini CEO's. You see if we have a bunch of people who are thinking about starting up on their own, we'll then have an industry (and a pool of people) who have other skills than just designing. People who can read a balance sheet and who can present and string a sentence together and write and handle difficult clients and handle difficult staff and design stuff. And that will be a good thing.

Half thought over.

Busy, nooks, crannies, students, 80's guitar bands and laser cutting by hand.

We're busy at the moment. Which is nice. The picture below is Kingsley and Guy (who was on a placement) working on a nice brief for a nice client.

Busy is good for all sorts of reasons, but one of the reasons it's good is that everyone spreads out across our little big studio. Little teams working in all the nooks and crannies. Stuff happening everywhere.

I've probably bored you to death about this before, but one of the reasons for the big studio move was to have the space to do stuff. Before we only had 5 desks. Like just five desks and some room to walk around them. In the new gaff we've got 10 desks and a meeting room and a whole floor with a few Expedits, some great chairs, a stuffed sparrow hawk and stuff like that.

It means we can take on placements, invite people round to stuff bags, have more than one meeting simultaneously, good stuff like that.

Speaking of placements, our first ever official placement scheme is going really well. They don't drink any hot drinks, they love 80's guitar bands, they can come up with loads of ideas very quickly, they don't say a lot and the ones that do say a lot get on better. We're really enjoying having some new people around.

So far Jen, Marie, Nina, Rob, Luke, Katherine, Freya, Luke and Alan have all paid us a visit. We're hoping to extend the scheme and invite some of them back for a longer stint later on.

Freya even made us this incredible sign. Nice isn't it?

 

Interview

Yoni came in yesterday to interview Tom and I about our lives as designers.

That's Yoni and Tom and our lovely studio.

It was quite MA-ey if you know what I mean. Lots of questions about process and methodology. But it was all good fun and I enjoyed it.

It's weird, but we always try and go out of our way to help students out with projects like this. I get lots of emails saying, "thanks for replying to my email - no one else has!". We don't do this out of any great philanthropy, it just seems like the right thing to do. I guess the fact that four of the founders went to university together helps the benevolent feelings towards the students.

Whatever.

If you'd like to help Yoni with his research project, contact him here.

Want to be filmed?

Yoni has written in, and he'd like to interview a load of graphic designers for his MA. Do you think you can be help? Read below.

"For my MA Graphic Design research project at London College of Communication, I'm interviewing (by video) G.Design professionals of all disciplines and levels. These short interviews will eventually be edited to a video piece that will be published online.

I will arrive to the person's workplace at a scheduled time, will set up my video camera and will ask a few questions that relates to the person's views on the G.D profession. The whole thing shouldn't take more than 15 minutes.
Any cooperation will be appreciated.

Graphic designers in London area who are willing to participate should please contact me at: me at yonialter dot com."

Directions

The other week (as I mentioned) we toured the D&AD New Blood show. We signed up 9 people to our placement scheme. The first one started Monday, 9.30am sharp.

As usual there was a lot of good work, some great work and some terrible work on display.

I always feel so sorry for the students at these shows. It's just a really shit way of displaying work. You can never see all the work, you can never see the work properly and you don't get a feel for what a student is really like.

Everyone puts loads and loads of work into these shows, D&AD, students, tutors, everyone. It's no one's fault they're so bad, I've thought long and hard (in the past) and I don't think there's a better solution. By that I mean, there must be, but I can't think of one.

You see some odd things at student shows.

Coming Soon

Cards for tonight

For more info see here.

The Design Conspiracy Placement Scheme

All a bit last minute, but we've announced our first ever official placement scheme. Quite exciting really. The full details are down below.

When we moved into our new studio one of the things we wanted to do was start a proper, organised, placement scheme. This is it.

On Monday night we'll be at the D&AD New Blood Private View. We'll be walking round with a diary and some of these cards. If we like your work we'll book you in there and then. No messing around. No waiting. No bullshit interviews.

Don't email and don't ring, the only way to get a placement is to be at New Blood on Monday night. Placements will be for one week and you'll get travel expenses.

See you on Monday.

10 years ago the four designer founders of The Design Conspiracy were at the very same exhibition, so there's kind of a nice symmetry to it all.

Typographic Advice

I was at Northampton University the other day with April, doing some portfolio surgeries and giving a teeny talk. We've hooked up with Cardiff, Glasgow and Northampton this year as part of the D&AD Clinic thing. A jolly good experience it's been too.

During the portfolio surgeries it was obvious that the thing the students struggled with most was typography. That's fair enough, typography is one of the hardest bits of graphic design. Good typography is rare, very good typography is very rare.

One of the students asked if there were any rules I could tell them to help their typography. Good question.

Whilst there are typographic rules, there aren't really any rules you can tell someone in a ten minute portfolio surgery, so I said; when in doubt keep it simple, remember that readability is the most important thing, obviously no more than seven words per line, stick to a simple typeface that you know and get a decent hierarchy sorted out on paper before you start.

All good advice, but I'm not sure that it was that helpful. So, my beloved listeners, what basic typographic advice would you give a third year graphic design student?

Good advice

A lot of blogging talk is quite frankly bollocks.

So it's great to see Richard and David passing on some good, no nonsense, nuts and bolts advice.

Richard has started a series called Uncommon Knowledge. So far we've had the En-Rule, the Combination Rule (which planners will love) and the Matter Rule (which I don't agree with).

And David has followed up with some excellent advice on text and setting type. Good work Gentlemen.

Training Design Grafic

If you're a young design student from Romania and you're looking for advice about the industry you should probably read this article called, Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School from Design Observer in 2004.

Cruel to be kind?

We see lots of students and junior designers here, people who've only been in the industry for a year or three. Students, graduates and freelancers.

Some of them are very good. Some of them are OK. Some of them are bad. Some of them are bloody awful. And there is the problem. Should we tell the awful ones they are awful? Should we tell the truth?

There are several problems here. First off, people give up their time and often travel a long way. Sure they want some work, but they're only seeing us because they like our work, which is great. It would be a shame if no-one ever wanted to come and see us. Secondly, most people are very nervous and could do without a critical assessment of their work. And last but not least, who's to say what's good and what's bad? Who died and made me arbiter of taste?

But.

But, and it's not very often, but sometimes we see people whose work is just bloody awful. I dread to think of these people trudging all round town and no-one actually saying what we're all thinking. Shouldn't we be cruel to be kind? In Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares the most helpful bits are always when he is brutally honest with the owners. Sometimes they just haven't realised that a roast chicken stuffed with banana is wrong. Shouldn't we be brave and considerate enough to do the same?

What do you think?

Finished

From this to this.

 

My desk, right now

 

Everything I held

Last Monday I was in Cardiff.

We were asked by the Cardiff School of Art and Design (or UWIC or something) to come down and give a little talk. Cardiff was dark and wet, just like Torchwood.

First off we had to dissect a brief with some of the 3rd year students. Fairly simple stuff, no harm done. They were about to enter a brief set by the ycn, who I'd never heard of. Looking through the book of last years winners I noticed a list of design consultancies at the back. I was just about to go mad because we weren't in it, when I noticed we were.

The college looked a lot like ours. Lots of rooms that are obviously well used, but that no one calls home. Lots of out of date but strangely comforting books lying around.

I guess the problem with Art Colleges these days is all the modules.

And the IMPORTANT MEETINGS.

In the evening we were 50% of the Cardiff Design Forum. The other 50% were the design team from Torchwood, so no pressure there.

I think Kingsley and I did OK. Essentially we ran through our work, how we started and stuff we've learned. Not dissimilar to this. At the end we threw in a bonus slide called, How To Get A Job. That's a slight over claim, but we thought it would be helpful to say all the things that graduates do that piss us off. Helpfully, I'll list them for you.

1. Don't ring up and say, "Hi. Have you got any jobs?" Firstly, we probably haven't. Secondly, the person you're speaking to probably isn't the person who gives out the jobs. Thirdly, don't you know that sales people never ask questions that you can say Yes/No to. Try harder.

2. Don't do your CV in Word. Straight in the bin.

3. If you come in to see us, act like a human. Be yourself, be normal. Don't just stare at the walls.

4. Apply, apply, apply. Getting a job is very hard. It's the ones who try hardest, not the ones who are the best designers, who get the jobs.

5. When we ask who your favourite designers are, have an answer. And not Saatchis. They are not designers and this is not the 80's.

And some more stuff. We got asked lots of questions and quite a few people came over to talk to us in the bar afterwards. The heat sensitive business cards were a big hit.

The Torchwood people were brilliant, and I'm not a Sci Fi kinda person. They have a team of 100 designers in Cardiff working on Doctor Who, Torchwood and another one I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention? Edward Thomas runs the team and obviously knows his stuff.

The detail they go into is staggering. If they get asked to design a lever that an alien wil pull they ask why the alien is pulling the lever, what sort of hands will the alien have, why does it need hands, has it ever used a lever before, and much more. That's a pretty good way of dissecting a brief.

At one point someone asked why the lift has pipes running along the side. Edward replied without hesitation that the pipes were needed to take water into HQ to cool the alien brain that powers the lift.

There was a pause.

And then one of the team said to Edward, "You've no idea how funny that sounds". Dedication and belief are no bad thing.

We had a good time in Cardiff. Thank you Cardiff. Thank you Olwen.

This picture is one of many reasons why you should go to Art College. You get to paint "Everything I held" on the window and no one is troubled. In fact you could probably hand it in for one of your modules.

By the way, is anyone reading this an art student? Please leave a comment if you are.

 

What do Alex Ferguson and Michael Bierut have in common?

(Pictures taken from inthenews.co.uk and Pentagram respectively. With great thanks, usual stuff applies.)

I was listening to Howard Wilkinson talking about Alex Ferguson on Football Focus this morning and something he said reminded me of something Paula Scher said about Michael Bierut recently. And what struck me was the common thread running through both the quotes below and how that's often missing in young design students I meet.

Let's look at the two quotes:

"You talk to him about a league, a club, a player in any country in the world and he'll know about it. He's a walking football encyclopedia."
Howard Wilkinson on Alex Ferguson

"Michael Bierut knows every one of you, no matter what your age is. He knows your names, where you’re from, where you work, what you’ve designed, and whether it’s better or worse than the last thing you did. If he liked something you designed along the way, he probably sent you a little note telling you so. He may have even saved a design of yours that he came across, and it’s downstairs in his basement with the million other things he’s saved.

If he runs into you, he might reference something that influenced you, or he may know one of your clients, or he read an article that had direct bearing on something that involved you somehow, or he knew who you competed against on a project you just won. Maybe it was even him, and if it was, he’ll tell you so.

He seems to know all this stuff very naturally, like a guy who just coincidentally, has exactly the same interests that you do.

At Pentagram, he is an indispensible resource. Every partner relies on him for information, no matter how trivial. Mention a book to him and he’s read it and he’ll recommend two others like it that you will also enjoy. Bring up a song, he knows all the words and might entertain you with a stanza or two, and he manages to carry a tune. Reference a movie to him and he’s always seen it and can quote some relevant piece of dialog VERBATIM as if he had spent his entire life rehearsing for that moment when you’d bring it up. Mention a potential new project to him and he’ll know more than a bit about it and recommend the two three things he’s read in The Times on that subject, and then he’ll forward the articles to you.

Michael’s brain is a massive compendium that’s been carefully edited to contain the world’s most interesting stuff. Political stuff, cultural stuff, humanistic stuff, things all about you and me. Stuff that makes up the American experience."
Paula Scher on Michael Bierut (read the full speech here).

OK, there's several things here. Remember this? Look at point number one - find inspiration in everything. Both Fergie and Michael are demonstrating that above. Let's take Ferguson, do you think, at the level he's at, he really needs to know about every league in every country in the world? Probably not. Firstly he's probably got people to do that for him and secondly I imagine (like most professions) potential Man U players are selected from a fairly small pool. The same pool Arsenal, Chelsea, Madrid, Barcelona, etc are fishing from. But yet he's still following the minutiae of global football. Why? Because he has a real passion for the sport. And I'll bet he's inspired by some kid in an obscure league in Corsica.

The Michael Bierut example is more obvious. Books, songs, blogs, news articles, all this stuff is essential to a designer. It's one of the things I like about blogging. You can store stuff in your personal online archive and then come back to it whenever you like. It's easier to search than your brain. I don't really know Michael Bierut but we have shared the odd email conversation. And, like Paula says, he has sent me the odd note when I've written something that strikes a chord.

We get lots of students coming to see us. Portfolio surgeries, placements, friends of friends coming for a look around. One question we always ask is, what designers to you like at the moment? I'd say probably 60-70 percent can't name a single designer. Of the 30 odd percent that can name a designer or a design firm, it's always something really, really obvious or slightly off key like, 'Saatchis' or 'Phillipe Stark' or 'Richard Rogers' or something. Nothing wrong with those, but I want to hear NB Studios or Made Thought or GTF or Mark Farrow or even Peter bloody Saville would do.

Do you see what I'm getting at? Being interested in stuff matters. And it keeps on mattering even when you're as successful as Ferguson. Knowing your industry, being really, genuinely passionate about your industry matters. It really matters.

Both these men are senior in their fields. Both of them have achieved enough to sit back and take the plaudits. Both don't do that. Both of them have a passion for their work. Do you think it's a coincidence they're both still successful?

Great job available

Poke are looking for a Creative Director, which strikes me as a pretty bloody good job. Read more here.

The decent money / nice work salary axis of evil.

A designer friend of mine has just taken a job with a crap agency.

Really crap. He knows they're crap and they probably know it too. Doesn't everyone know when they're crap? He's quite happy, even excited about the prospect. Sure the money's good and it's a slightly different version of crap than before, but it's still crap. I was just looking at said firm's website and some of the stuff looks about 10 years old. And that's the decent stuff.

So why does he work there? He's not crap, in fact he's really talented. Bursting with ideas, great personality, the confidence to make things happen. Presentable enough to take to client meetings. But the problem is he's caught in the trap I've seen so many friends get caught in. Essentially their pay demands restrict where they can work and in the long term hold them back. So let's talk about salaries.

If you want to make money, money like this, then quit design. Go and sell your soul to a hedge fund. For most designers remuneration is a 'decent money / nice work' axis. Pay me just enough to live and throw me just enough nice projects and I'll be happy. Alternatively, pay me loads and I'll churn out rubbish all day long, or pay me nothing and I'll be grateful I'm in Creative Review each month. Yes, there are exceptions but they are the ones that get off their arses and do something different. The one percenters you get in any walk of life.

Certain types of design (some publishing, some pharmaceutical stuff and all porn for example) deliberately pay you a little bit too much. Why? It makes it really hard to leave. Sure, you could go and work for that trendy hot shop in Shoreditch but you've got to take a 25% pay cut. Sounds OK on a blog, but when you've got two kids, a divorce and the caterers for your fortieth birthday want paying - things look a little different. Consequentially you get stuck with the crap work at the crap firm for the good money.

Sound familiar?

What would you recommend us students to learn? Design.

"Question 4 What would you recommend us students to learn?
4a. Design
4b. Tech
4c. Management

If you had to choose one thing what would that be?
That really depends on what you want to do - increasingly online design and tech will be interlinked.

I think design is in some ways going to be a higher order skill set - something that can't be outsourced - but design will be difficult to untangle from tech."

Some interesting ideas about the web and design from Faris. Kind of explains how (true) design is becoming more important and touches on my theory about Design being the New Management Consultancy. Sort of.

How To Get Your First Job In Advertising by David Trott

Gareth alerted me to this PDF.

You'll find it on the AMV website or (helpfully) I've uploaded it here.

Some decent advice in there for designers and art directors alike. Worth a read.

The Famous Rob Mortimer

I've never met Rob Mortimer. But I feel like I know him, which is the brilliant thing about the internet I s'pose.

Thanks Russell.

He's a planner, but he hasn't got a job in advertising and he wants one. He writes this blog and he leaves endless cleverish, sensible, witty comments on various planner, marketing type blogs. From what I've read he sounds like a worthwhile person to have around. And that's all you can ask for.

Now Rob @ Cynic has started a petition to get Rob A Job. That's a bit on the wanky side for my liking, but I love the sentiment.

Rob Mortimer - worth an hour of anyone's recruitment time.

"Be where you are"

There's a great post on Design Observer that I've just found even though it was written in March 2004.

It's called Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School and it's facinating. I'll list the ten below, but it's worth clicking through to read the little justifications.

1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
3. If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
4. Don’t over-think a problem.
5. Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
6. Don’t forget your goal.
7. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
8. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes unpunished.
9. It all comes down to output.
10. The rest of the world counts.

My favourite is probably number 5. Start with what you know; then remove the unknown.

"In design this means “draw what you know.” Start by putting down what you already know and already understand. If you are designing a chair, for example, you know that humans are of predictable height. The seat height, the angle of repose, and the loading requirements can at least be approximated. So draw them. Most students panic when faced with something they do not know and cannot control. Forget about it. Begin at the beginning. Then work on each unknown, solving and removing them one at a time. It is the most important rule of design. In Zen it is expressed as “Be where you are.” It works."

This all seems like good advice for the Design is the New Management Consultancy stuff.

Advice: Always do it for real

If you are a blogger, and many of you reading this are, then you'll always have several posts saved up in your head. I know I do.

I'm always waiting for the perfect image, event or news story to trigger my awesome post. But that never happens. Rather obviously.

So over the next few days I'm going try and get these often half arsed posts down on to paper. Or screen. Here's the first, it's called Advice: Always do it for real.

This is something that I 'think for granted' and I presume everyone else thinks like this too. But they probably don't.

As a designer, if you're asked to put some hand writing onto a brochure of a document, do it for real. DO NOT use a hand writing font. (How can you have a hand writing font, anyway?) Write the text out and scan it in.

If you need some distressed type, then print the type out, screw it up, photocopy it, re-screw it up, re-photocopy it and so on and so on. Distress it for real, DO NOT use a distressed type font.

If the client asks for a scrapbook style brochure, then make a scrap book and scan it in. Page by page. DO NOT use Photoshop layers.

If the job requires some chalk writing on a blackboard - then do it for real.

Sure, all this takes a lot more time (and therefore costs more money) but it will look a million times better, it will make you think about the thing you are designing and good people will be able to tell you've done it for real. And they will appreciate that.

It's not just designers, ad agencies need to do it too. Actually the good ad agencies are very good at it. For example, if you need to chuck some coloured balls down a hill, then chuck some coloured balls down a hill, don't just CGI it. If you need to make a six foot pencil, then make a six foot pencil, don't just enlarge it back in the editing suite.

And if you're not convinced, then take a look around. There are millions of examples of hand writing fonts, photoshopped 3D text and models comped onto dodgy backgrounds.

Don't do it kids. Always do it for real.