The Donut Project

I mean it was only a matter of time right? Yeah, I ordered one for my Valentine and one for myself. She sure is a lucky lady. Get one at Pajamagram.

via Gizmodo

iStockphoto announced yesterday that they would begin selling logos on their site, in addition to their popular, cheap stock photography.

The logos will sell for 100-750 credits, and each logo can be sold only once. Designers will initially receive 50% royalty, with this policy to change after six months. Credits range from $0.95 to $1.50 depending on how many you buy at a time… meaning logos can cost as little as $95 and max out at $1,125 (although the max price is based on the inefficient purchase of 12 credits at a time until you have 750+ credits, so real world situations won’t go over $1,000).

To get great photography, we hire great photographers to create specific images for us, and logo design is no different. But now, like stock photography, stock logos are becoming mainstream. The consumer attitude of “good enough” is spreading like wildfire.

iStockphoto (owned by Getty images) is in business to make money. Period. So it’s difficult to blame them. Sure, it’s unethical (this can be argued for stock photography as well), but really, they exist to make money, just like the tons of other crowdsourcing logo sites on the web. So where does the blame fall for this new trend?

These sites rely on a number of designers to submit work with no guarantee of pay. Designers seemingly line up around the block at the chance of being paid less than market value for their generic-one-logo-fits-all design. I blame these designers for allowing themselves to be taken advantage of, and lowering the perception of our field to millions of potential customers. Sure, this client perspective won’t hurt Pentagram or Landor, but your average neighborhood designer may see some wallet-crunching by their mom & pop shop clients.

When it comes to crowdsourcing, the responsibility falls solely on designers to stand up and say NO. As long as there are thousands of designers submitting to these sites, they will continue to thrive. I personally vow to no longer associate myself with designers who undervalue our industry by allowing themselves to be taken advantage of as style-whores… and I encourage/challenge you to stand up, have a backbone, and do the same.

It’s simple. Crowdsourcing can’t thrive if there’s no crowd to source.

Let iStockphoto know that we don’t appreciate this through the forum they made this announcement here.

I made and published this updated Internet Explorer logo a while ago, but dealing with some recent Internet Explorer testing frustration made me repost this.

As a web guy, I waste countless hours per web project getting good code to display or print in Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). Google has discouraged users from using IE6, which is a huge step forward for the web community. If Google can ditch it, so can we… sort of.

As long as people use IE6, we have to design for it. IE6 came out in 2001, which is an eternity ago in the world of computers. Microsoft recently announced they were extending support of IE6 three years beyond originally planned to 2014… largely because Vista was such a bellyflop… shoot me.

I wish there were a way to recoup the countless hours and dollars spent making sites work in outdated versions of IE. Microsoft owes us a big fat check.

This blog currently doesn’t offer Internet Explorer support and it’s unlikely that we will. Our IE traffic is under 5% currently. If you happen to be using Internet Explorer do yourself a favor and please download and begin using (for your sanity and computer’s safety!!) Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome on your PC. If you are on a Mac you don’t need to do anything different, as usual.

Did you want a Snuggie but were just too bummed about the boring colors? Well today is your lucky day! Designer Snuggies are here to help you look stylish even when you’re cold. Available in Luxurious Leopard, Stunning Zebra or Classic Camel plus the Transformer-book-light-arm-thingy.

As designers, we’re sure to appreciate it when companies make a lame products uglier by slapping tacky patterns on them and call them ‘designer’ – so get yours while they last! I’ll take mine in Classic Camel.

Fast Company has a piece about this new ad from Absolut. Upon first watching the ad, most people instantly recognize the manmade typography and wise message as classic Sagmeister, but this isn’t his work. It is the work of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. Read the entire article at Fast Company.

Sagmeister isn’t the first or only person to create typography in this way, but it has become one of his signatures. His book Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far as been a success, sprouting the Web site www.thingsihavelearnedinmylife.com which asks users to submit their own messages in manmade typography. Last year he held an exhibition in New York on this topic, which Hillman Curtis did a short video about:

If you are unfamiliar with Sagmeister’s type experiments, here’s an excerpt from another video showing his more recognizable type experiments which seem to have been very influential on this commercial:

This is my entry for PortlandOnline’s online contest to redesign their site. Read on for some background on the story:

Portland Online – A Web site representing the city of Portland, a site that receives more than 2 million visits per month and includes over 140,000 pages, a site the city of Portland is holding a contest to redesign. How much money would you expect to receive for such a job? $25,000? $10,000? $3,000? $500? – Pshhhhh money! LOL!!1! You silly designer, you.

Portland, Oregon is asking designers to strap on their design boots and redesign their Web site for the payment of “a link to your site at the bottom for one calendar year.” A link. Don’t even think of money, you won’t be receiving any.

Design contests are insulting enough when they pay a nominal fee to the winner. Sometimes some people justify it by saying “well, if I win it’ll be worth it!” – not here. Your work is worth $0 to Portland, even if you win.

Needless to say, this has ruffled some feathers in the industry. Specwatch has posted on it with links to others criticizing this policy:
Spec work? Ur doin it wrong
Open Letter to PortlandOnline Refresh Committee
Dear Portland, just say no to spec work
City of Portland’s Message: We Don’t Respect the Creative Community

(more…)

Here’s a rather depressing look at employment trends in the U.S. from 2004 to the present day. Check out the interactive graphic here.

“Shepard Fairey Ripped Off My Picture First” says Ed Nachtrieb, photographer of the photo on the left. Fairey’s poster on the right.

Nachtrieb took this photo of a Chinese soldier 20 years ago at Tiananmen Square. Fairey used it afterwards with no mention of the photographer or compensation. This poster was out long before the infamous Obama poster. Read Nachtrieb’s post about it here.

(Seen on Quipsologies)

Tonite, a friend IMed me asking for my help applying for a job at Sheetz. She said that the site wouldn’t let her apply and said she needed IE 5.0+ to use the application. Thinking she missed something, I asked for the link to check it out.

Using Safari 4 beta, a browser that scores an unprecedented 100% on the Acid 3 test, making it the world’s most compliant browser, I get this message:

Now, I thought, OK, Safari 4 is in beta, something isn’t working, also it’s Mac software so maybe it’s anti-Safari. Kent State’s old web mail was clusterfucked in this manner, so I tried Firefox. Same message… and I was mad. After a little poking around, I find that Sheetz recommends you use, and I quote:

This site is best viewed with the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, or Mozilla Firefox; a minimum screen resolution of 1024×768; and a minimum modem connection speed of 56Kbps. It is also recommend that you enable both JavaScript and Cookies in your browser’s settings. Visit the links below to download and install the latest browser of your choice.

• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Netscape Navigator
• Mozilla FireFox

Whoever programmed this part of the web site deserves to be kicked in the dick. Netscape Navigator. Click on the link, go ahead, I dare you. That’s right, it doesn’t exist anymore. This is an important part of their web site, one that will be used daily by thousands of people. This is unacceptable.

If whatever software they’ve stolen from the year 2000 works in IE 5.0, then an illiterate monkey could read the code and draw the pages in crayon… I think modern browsers can handle it… and if they can’t? It’s time to upgrade technology. As we’ve mentioned before, Internet Explorer is the devil.

I can only hope (but I suspect I am wrong) that this is an isolated occurance in the hiring world. As Internet Explorer becomes less and less of a player in the browser world, hopefully companies will upgrade their web technology to something invented in this millenium.

Quipsologies posted this news about companies learning that based on a questionaire about their company, random companies will be chosen for the 2012 Olympics.

“Back in February, the Olympic Delivery Authority advertised for design and print services via CompeteFor. Sparks submitted its portfolio (only three images are allowed) and filled out the questionnaire which asks for details on areas such as liability insurance and number of employees but nothing to do with how good your work might be. Yesterday the studio learnt that its bid had been unsuccessful. It scored 94% on the questionnaire, while the average score of shortlisted bidders was 100%.”…. Read the full article here.

via Quipsologies