FullBleed

Illustration by Jim Starr

At your local supermarket, “shelf life” represents the length of time a tomato, cup of yogurt, or carton of eggs will stay fresh and desirable. Some foods last longer on the shelf than others, thanks to a combination of ingredients and packaging. When a company wants to extend the shelf life of a food product, it will often create a new form factor that holds up better over time.

Shelf life is also a crucial concept in the design world. When you kick off a new web design project, you must assess the shelf life of your project.

Will it be a quick-hit, six-week campaign that is timed to fly with other coordinated marketing efforts? Is it a task-based application that will help the staff of an organization work more efficiently for months or even years? Understanding the shelf life of your project before you start designing clarifies — to everyone involved — the criteria with which to evaluate and refine the design.

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Photo by Pat Padua

I should tell you up-front that this is not a Snowmageddon story or a tale of Washington’s winter woes of 2010. No, it’s nothing like that. In fact, the story starts about five years ago when DC winters produced a few dustings of snow each year, and the stretch of non-federal holidays from President’s Day to Memorial Day was what we feared most in the mid-winter months before the approaching Spring. And, come to think of it, it hasn’t got much to do with the weather at all.

It’s about connections. And, of course, I am referring to the Butterfly Effect; a metaphor encapsulating the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely, that small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce— Wait a second. There’s an easier way…

Just as the story in the film “Juno” “all started with a chair,” this one quite literally started with a pair of earmuffs. No, nobody got pregnant. But I did get a job — for a while.

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Illustration courtesy of Owen Shifflett

The latest polarizing dust-up in the Wide World of Web Design involves the methods and tools we designer-types use to solve our clients’ (or our own) problems. This most recent round of misunderstood comments, edge case examples, and generally circular arguing was touched off by two posts (one and two) from the 2009 edition of 24 ways.

The authors, respected designers Andy Clarke and Meagan Fisher, propose similar-but-slightly-different design strategies, which may be boiled down to: “design in the browser.” Meagan even goes so far as to proclaim, “Die, Photoshop, Die.” A bold statement, for sure. Both posts are insightful peeks into the processes of two well-known web practitioners.

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In Part I of Marketing for Designers, ADCMW’s own long-time member Deane Nettles shared how he has learned to leverage the web as a foundation toward promoting his creative work. In Part II, he discusses social media’s role to other ADCMW members who, like him, have found themselves asking, “What are all these social media tools about?”

Social media tools provide people with ways to reach a large number of contacts while establishing individualized relationships, too. Through these tools, you as a creative can talk about your interesting new clients, the things your clients are up to, the new work you are doing for them, the photographers and illustrators and copywriters you’ve gotten to work with on that project, the techniques you’ve learned in the process, and the fabulous awards you’ve received. It’s also a way of getting worldwide exposure for your work — without a world-class budget.

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One of the regular features here on FullBleed is our “Three Questions” article. Throughout the year, we hand the microphone over to our fellow ADCMW members to answer questions that plague the creative community. We’ve recently switched the format of “Three” from asking three questions over the course of a month, to asking three chosen creatives a single question every month. Got all that?

For each article we also spotlight a featured illustrator who is assigned the vague task of “representing the number three in some shape, as obvious or abstract as you want”. Being the end of the year, it’s a good time to gather up all their creativity and to learn a little more about 2009’s featured “Three” illustrators.
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The democratizing nature of the Internet has redrawn the competitive landscape of everything from music distribution to telephone service to the creative process. Even Joe the Plumber can pick up some nice, decorative swag for his van.

While the creative process stands in stark contrast to music distribution and other industries, we do find online services spreading the playing field, increasing competition, and lowering fees … and in the case of spec, lowering fees to zero with the possibility of compensation. While spec threatens the value of design, I think it is the core *idea* of design that faces greater danger. The rise of DIY and “every man design” are re-imagining what design means in the minds of our clients. No research. No process. Just tweak a Bezier here, push a pixel there. Kern some type? We can only hope.

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The unveiling of the new Art Directors Club logo has the design blogs abuzz…with mostly negative comments. “Uninspired,” “generic,” and “dated,” are just a few of the pejoratives being tossed around. (I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, didn’t ADCMW just re-do its logo several years ago? Can’t you guys make up your minds?”)

Wait a second! The club in question is the Art Directors Club in New York City (or ADC Global as they sometimes call themselves). The problem is, many people are confused by the similarity in the names, especially if they didn’t even know that there was an Art Directors Club in New York. In fact, during my time as ADCMW president, I would occasionally refer to the club in New York as “ADC National,” incurring dirty looks from the ADCMW Director — who happens to be my wife. She was right and I should have known better. Unlike the AIGA — a national organization with chapters around the country — the various art directors clubs from Denver to Connecticut to Northwestern Arkansas are not related to one another apart from the shared name. I can’t speak for the other ADCs around the country, but ADCMW is fiercely independent and proud to be going it alone.
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Photo courtesy Sean McCormick

Russell Heimlich is a lefty. And an only child. And he knows a thing or two about computers.

“My parents really wanted me to be good at computers, so there has been a computer in our house for as long as I can remember. My first computer was a Commodore 64; my parents wrote DOS commands so I could play games,” he said. “As we upgraded computers I learned more and more about them. My dad worked for the government, and he once took me in so I could use Gopher, a pre-Internet computer network.”

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In Part I of Marketing for Designers, ADCMW’s own long-time member Deane Nettles shares how he has learned to leverage the web as a foundation toward promoting his creative work. Stay tuned for Part II, which will include his recommendations on how he has used social media tools to build upon his website and email marketing efforts.

Let’s presume that there is an inside world and an outside world. The inside world is your studio where you live, and the outside world is where your clients live. If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve built up a client base. Those clients recommend you to other people, and there is this buzz in the outside world … which provides you with new business.

But, to build buzz in the online world, where do you even start? Here’s the answer: with a website.

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Since graduating from McGill University in Montreal, Claire Manibog has been working as a philanthropic advisor — and she loves it.

“Basically, I help people like Bill Gates make smart choices when they donate their wealth to charity. I work with an incredible team of smart, young people and their energy, optimism, and brains keep me motivated every day.”

Though, Claire doesn’t seem to be short on motivation.

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