Welcome to My World

As I sit here drinking a Beam and Coke, I'm reflecting on how tired I am from my work day and how fried my brain feels. I'll ramble...cause I can...

Mind you, I've been busy the whole week (haven't we all?) but today was just icing on the freakin' cake. I'll try not to bore you too much with what I do, but this is a prelude to why I look forward to class and a future in the world of design. Suffice to say that "Retirement Plan Coordinator" isn't a glamorous position. One of about 10 things going on today illustrates this... High level, I have a client who let about 110 people contribute to their 401K accounts from 1997-2008 erroneously (yeah, 11 years). This population previously took hardships and should have been suspended from making contributions for 6 months. It actually gets quite sticky when you consider account history and stock diversifications (huh?), etc, etc. At any rate, I've been working on 6 different mail merge populations for the communication about this debacle, tweaking language in those letters, and staring at spreadsheets...for the better part of 2 months. Corrections were actually started in 2008 for this, but this kind of thing drags out. Luckily, this animal should be off my plate in the next 2 weeks...and will leave room for some other shit-storm to fall in my lap. There is some silver lining to these kinds of projects however...I've developed into an Excel master, my internal and external client communication skills are on-point, and I've been offered a job internally by our Control Dept who processes the fix for this. Think my job is glamorous?...mine doesn't hold a candle to that one...I appreciate the kudos, but no thanks. Today sucked. I can totally deal with normal workloads of "tasks I don't enjoy" on Fridays...but when I've been at this for the whole week, am short on sleep, and would love to spend some time researching a project for school...a pounding workload at week's end is unwelcome.

Now, on to school..
I have to say, I'm kind of shocked and disappointed that some Pub Designers are intimidated by Amy and Stephanie, and in some rare cases avoid their classes. Look, I don't have a background in design. I was really good in art in high school, aced a drawing class in college, then went into a Mass Comm/Advertising major at Towson. I've been at T. Rowe for 11 years this October, and worked in a restaurant before that. I sat in with a designer at T. Rowe in Fall 2006, and the light went on. I started the M.A. program in Spring 2007 with the mindset that I wanted it tough the entire way because that's the way you get better. I would rather it that way than get to graduation never having been challenged. Who in the hell wants to look like a deer in headlights when you get challenged at a job outside of school?...and it will happen sooner than later. This brings me to our last class. I heard that Amy was a tough critiquer (sp?). I knew my logos for Flagship weren't even close yet, but I prepared myself to get shot down. Know what? She's right...they aren't cutting it. I knew it, and she just validated that thinking. I want to be pushed and am thrilled that it's happening. I may be tired from work, and projects, and two kids at home, and lord knows what else, but I'll be a better designer and much more confident about my work when I leave this place because of the professors that want to see top notch output. They expect it, and I expect it of myself. Don't take critique personally...use it to your advantage. I think any students who avoid tough classes, or professors, or whatever, are doing themselves and the program a disservice. They are doomed to fail.

Eat or be eaten. "No Mercy...sweep the leg Johnny!" Okay, I'm done...

Harpless Harp

In the spirit of our rebranding project (and to also play off of Tess's post about brand packaging in other countries), I thought I would post something I found interesting when I was in Ireland. Harp Lager, which I have always considered to be the other Irish beer, looks really different over there and is not nearly as popular among lager drinkers as Carlsberg and Heineken and is actually hard to find in pubs.



Apparently the brand split from Guinness in 2005 and lost its harp, which belongs to Guinness. According to people I talked to over there, the marketing since then has really focused on Harp's Northern identity (down on the bottom of the can it reads: Brewed with pride at the Great Northern Brewery) and caused it to fall out of favor in the Republic.

Visual Research Text

Hey gang, I found a few copies of the text on Amazon. As of right now there are 3 left. If you are like me and want a sweet library in the home office, here's one to add. AVA makes beautiful books.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2940373205/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

Research

After reading chapters 1 and 2 of Visual Research: An Introduction to Research Methodologies, I am a bit overwhelmed. Here are a few links that you may find helpful for conducting your research:
GuideStar: Useful web site for downloading free financial information about non-profits
Questions for non-profit logo redesign: This is a good set of questions to help direct preliminary research for any company or non-profit

And last but not least:
Here is a link to Pepsi's 2008 Design Brief, absolutely hilarious.

Scanner?

Hi all. After updating to Leopard, now Snow leopard I have left my scanner useless. So, I need a new one, does anyone have some good advice for me? Any to stay away from? Thanks.

British Bluntness vs. the Marlboro Mystique

So I spent part of this long weekend with old friends hanging out in Sea Isle City, NJ. Our motley crew of five can be broken down along certain demographic lines:

tobacco use: two former smokers, two current smokers, one pristine-lunged nonsmoker who must have some other vice we don't know about

country of residence: three US residents, one native Brit, one US-born academic who's lived in England for about a decade.

Thus the opportunity to compare cigarette packs.

Well, it's not hard to guess which country has a coherent national healthcare system and which is completely beholden to corporate interests. On the right, a pack of Marlboros purchased in the States, with its shameless appeal to the Marlboro-country mystique: the bucking horse! The cowboy silhouetted in the sunset, arm triumphantly raised! The purple mountains' majesty (well, OK, blue) in the background! The outer wrap works with the little red-and-gold logo doodad to evoke the idea of the setting sun. Because after a hard day of wrangling cattle, it's your God-given American right to enjoy a relaxing smoke as you gaze serenely out over the boundless horizon, secure in your belief in Manifest Destiny—oh, wait, you mean you're just a 9-to-5 cubicle drone who's never been near a bull in your life? Eh, that's OK, you can still buy our product.

On the left, a pack of Marlboros purchased in the UK. No sissy 6-point Surgeon General's warning here; they get right to the point in stark black and white. Smoking kills, you know it kills, I know it kills, so we won't even bother going into the particular means by which it might kill you, as you're probably already quite familiar with the grim details, but we thought we'd do you the little courtesy of reminding you that you're choosing to spend money for the privilege of inhaling toxins that—did we mention?—might kill you.

Disclaimer 1: I'm not mocking smokers here; I know how compelling this irrational habit can be.

Disclaimer 2: I'm not sure how effective the warning actually is—the two smokers in the crowd also happen to be the two UK residents, but obviously this is a limited sample size to draw any conclusions about. It's interesting to see the difference in what makes it onto the pack, though.

Shiiiieeeeet, it never goes the way you want.

Today was special.

Sometimes life remembers you exist and drops some bullshit on your head to keep you honest. I know it is getting late into the first night of this long weekend and just now I am hammering away at these keys, listening to some old Tom Waits, drinking some cold ones and fulfilling my promise to my new stranger friends.

As some of you may remember from class, I lost my steady paycheck this week. No biggie, that place was a living nightmare and a true test of my gumption, but I see it as a win for me. I get a month of full pay, once that dries up I can get some free gov-ment monies in the amount of a bit over half of my former earnings. Hell, I am still happy as can be, I don't have to go there anymore!

But I digress. Today was special, I was reminded that this game ain't fair and, to quote Eastwood, "Deserve got nothin' to do with it." Only if it did… So, with my first Blog entry I am going to discharge my stressful fucking day onto you, just don't let me hear you bellyache this excuse after reading this. Shit, I shouldn't 'ev had to deal with this crap myself.

Gather 'round.

Three full days relieved from my job I decided to back up my handy portible hard drive. I sat down at my desk near 8 A.M. I Reached into my canvas bag, pulled out the drive and plugged it in.

Fuck.

OK, let's go back a few. I bought this drive about 18 months ago. She quickly earned my trust; saved all my work, keep all of my secrets safe and never betrayed me. But, coming from a rough beginning, that was never enough for a guy like me. Trust wasn't something you could rely on, it was just a minor convenience, give it to much and your screwed. So, in this case I had strength in numbers. I keep a backup of my portable friend at the office and another one at home-sweet-home. But, there was no more work; backup number deuce was gone forever.

Back to fuck.

So I plugged in the drive, an error message immediately fires up onto the screen: (and I paraphrase) "Yeah, your fucked." "What?" I yelled. Well, no worries, I thought. I have my backup. Just as I tried to access my fail-safe I got a solid hay-maker to the jaw from our ol' friend Murphy. The drive went south and was completely and totally and absolutely corrupted. That damn Murphy packs a series punch. So, here I am at eightthiryaaaemm, my primary drive is kaput, my backup number two is verboten and my backup number three is kaput. Great.

Alas, no freakin' out yet, I'm a smart and resourceful dude. I began troubleshooting the situation, all scientific-like. Macs are reliable, my mantra, until I hung up the phone with Apple Tech Support, it wasn't my Macbook, it was the drive. Hm, that makes this very worse now. The freakin' out starts seeping in. Nothing on the drive would cost me clients, I didn't have any, but I had a ton of gig-a-bites of bad ass design work on there. Hours and weeks and months of photography, photography made better by Photoshop; illustrations, PDFs, .indd's, ideas, resume. Damn, everything on there I need now more than ever! So here I was, dealt the hand of death, almost TKO'd by Murphy's Law, but with a little bit of Rocky in me I was still standing.

I'm reminded about the resourcefulness of hobos and crack heads when times seem completely hopeless. That always gives me strength. I wasn't going into this long weekend, and perhaps long unenploymentness, with my stuff gone. I tracked down the manufacturer of the drive, found pricing on drive recovery (twelve-hundred god-damn American dollars and up), shitted a brick and called the manufacturer. The time is sixfifteenpeeehm. The bastards want twenty-five bucks to just call them. Shit, I paid it and went through five minutes of online forms and got the number. Within 3 minutes of the guy answering I had total access of my drive, nothing was lost and I beat the crap out of Apollo Creed! ADRIAN!!!!

Sorry. I'm a Philly guy.

Hell people, I was lucky. My stuff was almost gone. I thought it was safe, backup and good to go. Again, luck saved me, but I'm not a victim and refuse to be one.

Now, I am looking forward to a long and light weekend. My stuff is safe and I only have to worry about enjoying life, 'cause I was just smacked silly by reality, but this time my reminder just made this a very special weekend.

Have a great semester and never forget my suffering.