On the Decades

The 80s were the decade of self absorption and me-me-me. Think American Pyscho. Everyone was too self-absorbed to care Christian Bale was murdering people. (Or maybe it was all in his head?)

The 90s, in response to the hair-sprayed look-at-me bangs of bad metal bands, were all hair down over the face like in the grunge bands that were saying please don’t look at us. We don’t want to be noticed, we want to disappear, and we don’t care about anything anymore.

In the 2000s, we wanted you to look, but it was going to be on our terms. Our voice, our image, our persona on whatever platform we were posting our own little story on.

The 2010s were a total rebuke and loss of trust in everything manufactured, glossy, contrived, mediated, and spoon fed. We don’t want anymore of it because we are most certainly over it.

The question is, how cyclical is all this? Will we return to the self-absorption of the 80s next, or is there another phase? Or do we keep expanding outward because there is so much of us now? Everything will always be new. And why do the framework of 10s matter so much?

If this is all a loop, does anything matter any more other than the present? If it isn’t, does everything matter more? Or not?

This was part of a larger conversation with Joe and Adam over Friday night beers at Krug Park.

Dems in the House

This is a big deal. Our politics may feel like doomsday heading right for us at breakneck speeds, but with the ushering in of the 116th Congress, you can put a marker on the side of progress. Today, we have a Congress that looks more like America than it used to. And it’s gearing up to actually do the people’s work, in the people’s house, because that’s what Democrats do. They represent more of America. An America that’s ready for a progressive burst forward. To start laying claim on the future as we see it. Health care for all, guaranteed jobs, humane immigration policies, climate change ready, free college, reining in capitalism, checks and balances, and on and on.

You want progress? Stick with the Dems, we’re only getting started.

Choose your own adventure

When I was first starting my career, I helped teach a class at the University. It was an advanced class in the communications school. Basically a creative thinking class, I can’t recall its real name. In it, there was a project where we asked students to come up with a new idea for a movie. Inevitably, every semester someone would go with the choose your own adventure concept. Nothing was ever great, but it was always interesting to think about and work through those ideas with the kids.

One thing they always had to deal with was how to get movie goers to interact with the film. Would there be a remote control? How would there be consensus in the crowd? Does there need to be extra light? Never once did we consider the movie taking place outside of a theater in your home while watching Netflix.

True, Netflix didn’t exist at the time. But we were always locked into the theater idea. It was so powerful. Turns out we were poor futurists. Watching Bandersnatch got me thinking about that class experience. If only we had left the theater behind. Once that happens, the idea seems a lot more natural.

In the middle of something

When you can’t do this or do that because you know, you’re in the middle of something. You’re too focused on the task at hand to be pulled away. You’re making or solving or discovering. You simply cannot stop. You’ve conquered the beginning, sometimes the most difficult part, and now you’re moving into the beautiful middle on the way to some kind of finale. But oh what a middle! The heart of the journey, the build up of the song, the rush of the unknown you’re prepared to face because you have all the momentum. It is now on your side. You’re in the middle of it all, and you’re not letting it go. At least not yet.

Scarcity or Abundance

My wife talks a lot about this. A scarcity mindset vs. an abundance mindset. This is the battle. It plays out in how we all approach the world. And it matters greatly. More on this in 2019.

Juggling

This project, that project, this potential, that most-likely. This thing that’s coming, that one that may, and of course the one that doesn’t come at all. It’s very tricky. Lots of balls in the air. I can recall the times I just said yes to everything, and for whatever reason, something falls through, gets delayed, or goes a different direction, and I’m left looking pretty smart. Because everything, with no real assistance from me, falls into place, and I’m able to complete things in an orderly fashion. Other times everything just falls at once, like someone dropped a bunch of empty cardboard boxes on my head from the top of a single story building and I gotta pick ’em all up and recycle them, neatly. Such is the life of an independent designer. Never thought I’d be a juggler, but alas, here I am.

Limitations

Know what you do, what you can’t, when to push it, and when to bow out. Limitations make design projects possible and they mold design careers into what they become. I typically love limitations. Sometimes I hate them. They can make you better, they can lead you down a path where you crash and burn, and paying no attention at all to limitations can be disastrous. They’re always with you, regardless of where you are. If you look upon them as another cog in the machine that is your creative output, they’re an integral part of what you need to make it happen.