Kelly's Biztalk posts

Love Thy Brand™

To celebrate the mushiest of holidays, Train of Thought is offering one person or company the sickeningly sweet deal of 66% off brand identity design. That's logo, business card, letterhead, and envelope design for $3,000*. Ooh! Someone shoot me with a poison arrow.

*Ah, but what's the catch? Like a coy lover, we want to know why you're the worthiest recipient of our gifts. In as little or as much detail as you like, tell us who you are, what you are doing, why you are doing it, and why it is so incredible and deserving. Show us your passion!

All submissions must be received by Feb. 19th. We shall read each entry, and pick one winner by the end of the Month o' Love (February). This is not an offer that will be repeated this year, so get to writing!

Happy Valentines Day!

Quitting is the new beginning

(This is kind of a long post, so I have provided a link below to the rest of the post.)

I have been very lucky to have many mentors in my life. One of them told me many years ago that it is important to know which fights to fight, how long to fight them, and most important of all, when to quit. When I have remembered to follow it, that advice has been so profoundly helpful.

Seth Godin, marketing guru and one of my favorite business authors, has a new book called The Dip, in which he sites many instances of succeeding by knowing when to quit or when to stick with it. I can't wait to get a copy of it, but first I have to finish reading two of his other books. Reading just a small bit about the new book gave me pause to reflect on a decision I made about a year and a half ago to quit a well-paying job.

I had decided to take a long break after ten years of 80-100 hour weeks in the ad agency business. I still worked on my break, but I scaled way back, working only about 35-40 hour weeks. I worked on projects that I wanted as opposed to projects that were highly profitable. During that time I designed three books that did quite well, setting a new standard in their niche. I designed posters, named companies, and designed corporate identities for smaller companies who couldn't really afford my standard rates. I had a little money in the bank, and I chose to do these projects, often barely breaking even on them. My generosity eventually caught up with me, and I found myself in need of more clients or a regular job. I opted to work for someone else for the first time in over 13 years.

The rest of this post is on my blog at: http://kellyhobkirk.typepad.com

Thanks for reading.

Kelly

Creative By Candlelight

I went for a bike ride with a good friend on Saturday morning, two days after the big storm that knocked down trees, power, and people all over the Northwest. We rode along the Burke-Gilman trail talking about the storm, the cold, and the temporary loss of power. "My wife made a good observation yesterday when the power was out," my friend said. "She said that life is boring without electricity." He laughed lightly.

"I had a completely different experience to that, so I have to disagree with her on that one," I replied. "I was on a creative high that night, and I got a lot done, even without any power."

As I returned home from a late meeting the night of the storm, the wind and falling branches took my adrenaline up a notch. I walked in the house to see that my girlfriend had lit candles all around the place. There was one in the hall, three on the dining room table, one in the bedroom. She was just about to go to bed. I asked if she would like to go for a walk as the wind wailed outside. She declined the invite, and I thought the better of it myself.

I sat down at the table with a sketch pad, a legal pad, a pen, and a pencil. Over the next two hours, I completed design roughs for a website, wrote a blog post, sketched some characters for a new graphic novel, and completed some rough logo designs for a client. I paused several times to look out the window in awe as stars peeked through the billowing clouds and tall trees leaned over small houses. Working by candlelight as the evergreens stretched their roots was fun, exhilarating even. I completed more work in the span of two stormy, internet-free, candlelit hours than I do in most regular two hour spans.

Learning about the carnage of the storm the next day was not so much fun. A lot of people lost power, we lost internet service for three days, many people lost freezers full of food, trees lay on top of several nearby houses, a client lost a dear friend.

Storms are like a microcosm of life itself, so much happens in such a short time. People like to talk about storms, and everyone can relate in their own manner, be it happy, reflective, sad, or a myriad of other ways. During the storm, my girlfriend got practical, and she got some much needed sleep. I got creative.

Originality is still valuable, right?

"Oh my GAWD!" I found myself exclaiming in horror as I stumbled upon a vintage poster from 1965 that was the spitting image of a poster someone designed for an event right here in Seattle this year. I am not talking about a similar idea, not a similarly rendered style, nor a heavily influenced execution.

This was a blatant rip-off. The illustration was identical. The color scheme? Identical. And the background? The same, albeit done with a vector gradient rather than being painted by hand, the standard in 1965. The type in the original version was hand-cut, while today's version was simply rendered by computer in a similar type style. If the designer was paying homage, they failed only with matching the type style.

It may help to have a visual reference to obtain a full appreciation for what I am talking about.

The 1965 original can be seen here

The 2006 clone can be seen here: http://www.hagensbermancycling.com/starcrossedcx/

While it is possible that the original 1965 poster is now in the public domain, it is considered poor form for one designer to take credit for another designer's work, no matter how old it is. I was recently in a client's shop where the 2006 clone was hanging proudly on the sliding glass door. The shop owner, a really nice guy, asked me if I had seen the new poster. He clearly liked it, waxing poetically about it's style and simplicity, and about how the designer had done a great job. And hey, no harm in liking the work. It's cool. Plus, everyone who saw the original is probably too old to remember or dead. Heck, the counterfeit 2006 poster almost looks contemporary, even if it is 50 years old and totally unoriginal. Never mind that the rider is wearing tennis shorts and not wearing a helmet.

The 2006 event had sponsors, and the work is supposed to represent them in a positive light. The event promoter and the sponsors probably had no idea that this was a replica, a fake. They trusted their designer to create something original. Every company likes to think of themselves as being unique in some way. This is the cornerstone of every business identity. What is unique about our company, event, product, or service? This should be reflected in nearly every piece of communication a company has. It is an art director or designer's responsibility to create unique visual messages, not copy them from someone else's work. Inspiration is one thing, but copying is another.

I designed a logo earlier this year for a division of a huge dot com. During the project briefing, the client told me that they had paid $40,000 for the custom logotype. I took one look at the logotype, and I winced in pain for them. I instantly recognized the typeface, and I told them that I could buy the very same typeface for $39. I knew the type foundry. The typeface had been on the market for about ten years before they paid the big bucks for it. It's still on the market today. I really felt bad for them. When I create a typeface for a client, it is totally original. If I buy a typeface for their project, they pay my standard hard cost markup of 15%. Period. What value is there in gouging a client for unoriginal work?

Clients should be hiring designers for their ability to create something totally unique that represents their heart and soul, makes them feel good, and represents the product, service, or event like nothing else could -- and importantly, like no other designer could. I like to think that is why clients hire me.

There is an intrinsic satisfaction, that transcends that of financial reward, in being given the opportunity to create something original. I take great pleasure in creating solutions that my clients can feel proud of. If other designers are copying my work for their clients, it devalues everyone's solutions. The offending designers are essentially ripping off their clients and me. How good can someone feel about a design that they stole? How good would a client feel if they find out that they had paid good money for an unoriginal design?

What are your opinions about originality in your work? Do you think originality is now lacking relevance and importance? Are there bizniks who feel that their credibility is not reliant on their originality? Is original work still more valuable than copied work?

I know my answers. What are yours?

Code Is Sexy, Apparently

After Dominic Canterbury and Rachel Whalley's excellent blogging event Monday night, a few folks headed off to Liberty for some brew, foodstuff, and talk.

Sitting off to the side of Dan McComb and Stuart Updegrave, sipping a brew and slowly losing the feeling in my cheeks, I found myself utterly lost in a sea of adjectives I had never before associated with the ever-evolving world of web development. The beer helped me make it through this, I swear. I found myself insidiously scribbling little phrases on an ATM receipt behind my beer glass. The beer made me tell Dan and Stuart what I was writing, and I told them that I just had to post about it. To my surprise, they gave their blessings. They were drinking too.

Now, I have been designing websites for eight years, and I have a blast doing it. Designing websites engages several of my design geek tendencies all at once. I get to totally geek out on a healthy dose of project management and strategic planning, indulge in my questionably healthy habit of scrutinizing other sites in finite detail during the research phase, pry out the perfectionist in me for outlining the information architecture and standards, apply my love of typography, and write good content for clients who wrote their own copy twenty-six years ago and have never, ever changed it, spelling errors and all. Then there is the design and layout phase. When I started in advertising, a double-truck ad spread was a dream project, so huge was the canvas. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I might have a five, fifty, or one-hundred page canvas to strategically design. After all that geeking, I get to once again invoke my perfectionist tendencies, making my web developer pull his hair out in large clumps as I say, "Please move that graphic one pixel to the right." Or two to the left. Next, there is the testing and tweaking phase, wherein we all get to wax poetically in unison about the latest a**hole tax that Microsoft ought to be charged for not being able to make Internet Explorer even remotely standards compliant. Lastly, the launch and relative euphoria of completing a project that makes the client excited, more prosperous, and happy to write a check.

Talking about code is an entirely different melancholy beast. When clients began expecting designers to learn how to code in the late 90's, my interest in web design briefly waned, but I quickly adopted the stance that coding was best left to programmers. It was one of the best business decisions I have ever made. (Coincidentally, it is right in step with the Biznik way.) For every site I have done since, I have teamed with a developer during the planning, development, and testing stages, and the approach has paid off in spades. I am able to collaborate, learn, share, provide my clients with a hand-picked team that suits their unique needs, and I am much happier.

So, there I was sitting betwixt Dan and Stuart, coders extraordinaire, my imagination still giddy with excitement about the blogging event, eyeballs swirling in opposite directions, listening to the two of them talk about code. 'Where did Dominic go?,' I found my inner dialogue asking. He was four tables away, being 'The Dude,' or just talking with a friend.

I heard a tale about twenty lines of amazing code that did something or other. Dan showed the depth of the lines of code with both hands. Stuart was amazed. I listened to tidbits about the second coming of the Biznik site with new features and ease of use. 'How could it be any easier,' I wondered silently. Dan verbally marched on about more code. And then more code. And still, more code. My beer disappeared at an ever-increasing speed as the now completely foreign language, or code, conversation became a cloudy background noise thing. My chimera might have understood. All of a sudden, I heard Stuart passionately exclaim, "That is some sexy code!" I looked to my left and saw his eyes wide, a smile ripped across his face, eyebrows raised, forehead slightly wrinkled. Women have gotten lesser frenzied looks from straight, horny men. I looked to my right to see Dan with a similar intensity and expression, eyebrows peaked, forehead crumpled. The two of them leaned in to the conversation just a slight bit. I rifled through my wallet, looking for an elusive piece of paper, something, anything to jot a note about 'sexy code.'

Next, I heard them talking about Ruby. I had heard of Ruby before. Ruby is code that was named after the precious gemstone, making it more appealing to developers than HTML, or PHP, or .net, but that's not what Dan and Stuart were talking about. As I studied the wall, I heard the adjective 'sleek,' and then I knew I had to write about this. Dan asked if the conversation was boring me to tears. "No," I said, "This is, uhh, well..." Just then Dominic returned to the table, and I didn't have to answer.

I am glad that there are people who can get excited about code. I need these people. The world needs them. Heck, what's not to get excited about. We have code that sexy, Ruby, even sleek. What's next? Scarlet? Wilhelmina? Oooh, Cuddly?