Too much. Not enough. That I prefer Instagram. Anyway, I wrote a long piece over on Medium that I’ve just “published.” It’s really long but I think it offers a valuable perspective on America from flyover country. It channels my inner Klosterman and Sedaris. It’s about the Midwest, small towns, political correctness, white privilege, and the culture wars. Not about design but not everything has to be.
Starter Kit: Making This Design Thing Matter
AIGA | UNO is proud to present Starter: Kit Design Talks; a speaker series focused on helping upcoming graphic designers and students learn the processes of graphic design from professionals in our community and outside of it. Our second speaker is independent designer and cofounder of Round And Round, Justin Kemerling.
This Friday: How principles can lead to doing the work you love. A story of pursuit, independence, activism, and keeping it weird from the middle of America. I’ll be talking about design activism, politics, making your community better, self-initiated projects, and what it’s like to run your own independent practice.
Beacon: Buy a Print
You can now buy posters from Beacon, a Disaster Relief Project. Buy prints and benefit people affected by disasters. All profits generated by poster sales will go straight to Direct Relief, California’s largest international humanitarian nonprofit organization. I love this project. It’s great to see such a powerful expression of hope and healing. Lots of great design work here.
SHOW me your design awards
The organization is Nebraska’s chapter of AIGA. The event is called SHOW. The purpose is to celebrate the best design the state has to offer. And in 2017, it all went down at KANEKO. It was pretty neat. The judges were particularly good this year. The talks they gave before opening the winners exhibition were well-timed for the moment. Way better than the standard fare of I’m a designer and this is my design work.
Jessica Arana recently launched Across Borders: A Look at the Work of Latinx Designers. She has a background in cultural studies, art, social justice, education, and activism. Her talk was on the importance of storytelling and pulling together the pieces of your particular story. In her case, being both Mexican and American and being able to to re-imagine and rewrite the personal and the cultural. From the pink kitchen walls of her grandmother’s home in Mexico to the way her father dreamed with a chicken on his head. More on Reveling Borderland Identities.
Robyn Kanner had the best punk rock intro to an AIGA talk ever. She co-founded MyTransHealth, said bathroom signs are not enough, and asked designers to show the fuck up. (Posters are also not enough.) Yes, the election made us all want to cry and flying into Omaha means being on flights with people who are definitely not bored with trans people. Are you ready to get to work and give money to black trans women? Read more in TGD.
Timothy Hykes co-founded the Design + Diversity conference in St. Louis and created 28 Days of Black Designers. If you’re black and you want to be a designer you have to want it as much as you want to breathe. Yes, black people make up only 3% of the design community so you have to be better than good, you have to be great. When Charlottesville happened, with all the tiki torches and the chanting, he wanted to know why people hated him and what he ever did to them. But we’re designers, we stand together, and we can ultimately create a more beautiful world for everyone living in it.
Also, JKDC won a few awards:
GOLD + Judge’s Choice: Heath Mello for Mayor
GOLD + Judge’s Choice: Film Streams at 10
GOLD: Bring Back The Dundee
Silver: Love v. Fear
Bronze: Power to the Poster
Bronze: Lincoln Calling 2017
Bronze: Nebraska AIDS Project Brochure
I’m very proud of all this design work. But I’m particularly proud of the clients it was created for: do-gooders and changemakers in our community working hard to make things better.
Judging The BIG One
The BIG One is Alaska’s Annual Design Competition. I was on a panel of established designers from the Lower 48 who judged the submissions this year. It was super tough! Lots of stellar work up there, as you can see from the 2016 winners. But I did it, scoring is a wrap, completed by the deadline. Stellar poster design, solid logos, wonderful environments, and compelling books. And this website, which is probably my favorite piece from the competition. AIGA Alaska put everything together. Give a shout here.
If Facebook went away tomorrow...
... that wouldn’t be a bad thing. It’s become a place I look upon with mild annoyance and snark. I don’t take it seriously and while I like the people I’m connected to on the platform, it’s something akin to a shot of Jägermeister these days. Sure, it used to be amazing but now it just tastes too soupy. Maybe it always did.
Twitter however, even though Twitter pisses me off in big ways, if Twitter went away tomorrow, that would be a bad thing. Despite the strange feature updates, its odd policies around cyber bullying, and the way it can be like a cesspool of hate, Twitter is still super valuable. So much so, that it would be better if it was just a public utility. A part of the government that had real rules and guidelines for engagement. These rules would be enforced and people would adhere to them, even far right nut jobs (yes, even @realDonaldTrump), because the fact of everyone being in one place talking about the big things that are being talked about is something that cannot be passed up.
In this universe of Twitter as public utility, it would have to go through a redesign. Too many people don’t “get” it. And it’s currently just too, I don’t know, round. It’d be a massive project that would need to involve more perspectives than the makers of Twitter have now. If done right, it would be the new CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite where everybody tunes in and everybody is talking about the same things, at least more than we do now. Young and old, black and white, liberal and conservative. All in one place together. All being heard, all having a voice, all sharing the same reality.
Poster: Love v. Fear
How you choose to see the world takes effort. It takes hard work. It takes commitment. There’s a battle going on between two epic forces constantly at odds. Who wins ultimately comes down to a choice. Do you choose to see the world with fear? Or do you choose to see the world with love?
Included in a collection of posters released at the 2017 Good Apple Awards hosted by Nebraska Appleseed. This year’s theme for the 7th annual poster show, Root Down, Rise Up acknowledges the confusion, frustration, and hopelessness many Nebraskans face while alluding to the strength within local grassroots organizations. In the long fight for justice and opportunity, we must all rise up, again and again. Curated by Colleen Syron.
