There’s a lot of buzz in recent months about “crowd-sourcing” design. Some companies are making big bucks on providing a service that allows what they call “communities” to submit logos in the hopes of getting a cash reward. This isn’t new of course, it’s basically the same thing as doing a design contest, or what we’d call speculative work. I may have discussed this issue here once or twice.

Here’s a great article written up by a design group that had their logo plagiarized dozens of times by people who submitted derivative artwork in the hopes of winning a design contest.

To new, upcoming designers…I understand the thrill of possibly getting some recognition by submitting your work on these things. But if you’re serious about getting into this profession, you have to think about your own role in protecting the very career you’re heading towards. Your raw talent, your training, your software and hardware, and the future well-being of your clients, are all worth more than what little you get awarded from these things.

One of the perks about teaching a college course in new media is that you get to use the latest software. Well, there’s no choice really, you HAVE to learn the latest thing otherwise the students you have lose out on the experience.

About a couple months back the latest Adobe Creative Suite software came out for CS5. As is typical of every upgrade season, it sets you back a few hundred bucks if you’re upgrading, or nearly a couple grand if you’re purchasing it all for the first time. And as usual, designers like me have to weigh the options of investing in the upgrade…are the changes worth the price of upgrade?  I know very well-established design colleagues who are still using CS2.

It’s still a crazy thing to keep up with….this year it might be all this software, next year it’ll be time to upgrade all the hardware. Kids…you want to do this type of business all legit?  This is where you’ll be sinking all your money.

ANYWAY, I guess since the new Fall semester starts next week, I better sit my arse down these next few days and familiarize myself with the new GUI and features. Nothing more embarrassing than sitting down in front of a class and not being able to find that one feature that’s been moved to another menu.

There’s a good set of tutorials over at Layers Magazine to check out all the programs and the new features they have. I guess the rest of my day will be staring at tutorials…

I’m feeling a little bit of a loss of confidence today. Long time readers will probably recognize this happens to me once in a while. Who knows what triggers this feeling….I might see another designer do some great work that I wish I did? I might have done work that I wasn’t too happy with? I might have lost a bid on a contract I really wanted? Who knows…it just happens from time to time. I hear it occurs a lot for folks who work alone. It’s one of the hazards of doing my own business I suppose.

What to do? I dunno really, time heals. You wait long enough the feeling goes away and the next successful project comes along and the confidence comes back.

Taking a break helps. Get outdoors, see some gorgeous weather or spot some truly inspirational movie poster and then you feel the spark again.

Sitting with other creatives helps. It might be a rare occasion when you can meet another freelancer, but when that opportunity comes up to share horror stories or even commiserate together, you don’t feel so alone anymore.

When all else fails, a nice big bowl of ice cream and some time sitting behind a game of God of War helps.

This was one hell of a rough weekend. We did heat treatment for our condo last week which meant that the house and office was a wreck. What they did was heat the whole unit over 130 degrees to basically cook the termites wherever they were in our house. So we practically had to stuff almost 75% of our belongings into boxes and hope and pray it didn’t all melt away in the process.

Turned out we managed to get by ok…one of my expensive Polk Audio speakers was a little singed but should be ok, and unfortunately I killed my fish. (Yes I did take them out of the unit but I thought I could get away with leaving them out in the patio; hey! they were in the shade damnit!) I’m a fish murderer. One fish managed to survive the ordeal…I’m calling her the sole survivor and wisked her away to a luxury vacation retirement in my dad’s fish tank.

Anyway, so they nuked the whole condo and then we spent the entire Saturday trying to put everything back in place. Only my wife took this as the first opportunity in 2 years to completely clean the house from top to bottom. So from 8am that morning till 8pm that evening we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. I swear not a single spot in our condo wasn’t wiped over…even the most remote back corner shelves or cabinets were scrubbed over. It was exhausting, but at the end of the day it really did feel like quite an accomplishment…now the condo is probably cleaner and more organized than ever before. Nuts huh? I don’t know where she gets that energy, but I’ve learned to just go with the flow and get things over with.

So I’m back in business…. the only thing left that’s disturbing my work is the sound of jackhammers and the occasional waft of the porto-potty smells coming from the road workers outside my office window. /sigh

Sorry if you’re one of my clients trying to reach me by phone today it may be impossible. There’s construction vehicles outside of my office window that’s repaving the parking. Beyond the fact that it’s driving me insane with the noise, I don’t think there’s any way I can have a decent conversation by phone today so I’m just letting all calls go to voicemail.

Stacked on top of that, we’ve had to pack up 50% of our house in boxes so we could hire some folks to do a heat termite treatment on our condo. It’s been an irritating nuisance for our otherwise happy home so we wanted to get rid of the problem once and for all. So now everything is in boxes and we’ll be spending the night over at my parent’s house.

Stacked even higher – Kingston’s dealing with a cough that’s waking him up at night, I got meetings out in the North Shore today and then one in Ewa Beach, which will take me practically to 3 corners of the island….

So ultimately, life is kicking me in the ass a little bit today. But no worries, head held high….gonna get though this for a few days and hopefully get back to some normalcy by Sunday. Wish me luck!

So a few months back I posted a funny Oatmeal strip about webdesign. Seems like he’s at it again with a pretty funny list of “8 websites you need to stop building”.

This is such funny geek humor I feel kinda embarrassed I can relate to all of this.

On a side note, I recently replaced a multifunction printer just because the print head didn’t print black anymore. So now what I’m left with is a HUGE hunk of glass and plastic that otherwise still looks in perfect condition and does all the other functions just fine.

I also have 2 old laptops sitting in my closet now and I don’t know what to do with them. Apparently from what I can find online, there’s no real eco-friendly way to dispose of these suckers beyond just trying to take them apart and try to re-use the parts for something else.

It’s really HARD to be eco-friendly!

On the subject about taxes, Gizmodo made mention this morning about this great poster created by an artist named Jess Bachman. It shows a visual record of where all your tax dollars are going with the biggest chunks represented by bigger circles.

When I think of taxes I’m reminded of that one scene from Godfather 2 where the Don in the white suit goes around to each shop collecting protection money. This way the Gov’t takes my money the same way but they don’t look half as cool doing it. (Death and Taxes 2010 via Gizmodo)

God it didn’t take long for me to come back down from the high of vacation. I feel like such a grump today.

I don’t think it ever helps going on a big trip somewhere right around tax-month. I have to keep that in mind next time. First, you have to rush to do all your taxes earlier before the deadline (because you’ll get fined if you’re late, BUT the gov’t gets to take their full 90 days to refund you hmmmpf!)

Secondly when you come back there’s still the quarterly taxes, GE taxes, AND fees to pay for all the bookkeeping and tax work you had someone else do for you.  Yeah, I had a great quarter this first few months of 2010, but it’s ALWAYS depressing around April when you see it all whoosh away to someone else…I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.

I have to admit there are times when I wonder what this is all for?

BUT I’m trying to keep positive…I have some great projects on the table and even today I got news that another good project is coming down the pipe.  In any other circumstance that didn’t involve having to pay for stuff, I should be a happy camper. I know clients probably don’t want to hire a designer who’s a grumps…so I’m putting on a happy face!  *griiiiiiin*

To contribute to my grumpalump feeling I think it’s been a lack of sleep. Kingston took about 1 solid week to get back to his normal sleeping schedule. There were nights where he’d wake up at 1am and just be wide awake for 1.5 hours wanting to play. We had resorted to having him sleep between us which mean a few nights where I’d lie in bed trying to dodge his kicks to my head.

My exercise regiment has been reduced down to 0. I feel like a chunker even though I think I weigh exactly the same. I just feel soft.  It doesn’t help that try as I might to cut down on sodas for the past few years, lately it’s crept back to my diet every chance I can find. And meanwhile, although I pay for my gym membership, I haven’t found the opportunity or the willpower to get back to going down there. I’d cancel my membership, but I’m paying like $20/month for an all-gym, any-time pass which is almost just 30% of the normal membership price….the Chinese pake in me can’t let that great rate go.

I’ll have to force myself back to the gym. I just need to find my footing back in my schedule.

Come-on Raph…pull yourself together and get’r done!

Some beautiful sources of inspiration in the form of “22 Beautiful Examples of Brochure Design” today.

/sigh. I have one brochure project like this that is supposed to be very fancy. Die-cuts, metallic paper, non-standard folds…  sitting in limbo right now waiting on the bosses to approve it. It’s been a year.  I suspect they’re holding off on spending. Yes I want to get paid for this project, but more so I wish the design could see the light of day!

Sadly this comic strip describes the hazards of being a designer so well I had to post it. Just recently I had a small project I was doing for a friend put to a halt for similar issues. That issue got resolved in a friendly manner but it honestly does make you fantasize about changing careers to “give sponge bathes to the elderly” (via The Oatmeal)

I think I’ve encountered every one of these situations…and while I’ll professionally stay as calm and collected as I can be, at home I’d be fuming at the ears and start punching pillows. (Hey, I’m delicate)

Check out the rest of the site by the way, The Oatmeal strips got a lot of funny ones there and some great illustrations.