This isn’t so much a lament as it is a confession. My desire for perfection, for (marginal) originality and creativity simply met an impasse with the many other things I was required to do, until I no longer knew how to do any of them with great skill. I’m almost 40 and I feel that I can do nothing great, perhaps a few things well, and many things awfully. I’m still not sure what I am.

But things are changing.

For several years I’ve realized I’m no longer just a graphic designer. Certainly not an artist. Certainly not a programmer — though I do it, I know my shortcomings and lack of training and skill — nor even a good businessman — I can barely manage my clients and schedule, let alone the invoices, writing proposals and generating new clients. Whenever I tell people that I’m a graphic designer, somewhere inside me I feel like a fraud. I feel as if I’m a marginal designer (obviously I have pretty negative view of myself. This isn’t any whiny poor me rant; just an honest assessment of how I see myself); just decent enough to impress the client, but hardly ever internally pleased with my own decisions. I compromise and hurry and rely on tricks and gimmicks and have lost sight of what I originally loved about the process — concept, execution, creative simplicity (unfortunately my measure of “good” is in comparison to the best designers in the country, I know it’s completely unrealistic and unfair, even unnecessary and unhealthy, but it’s what has been ingrained in me; to not only try my best, but to be the best). I am a thief to my own ideas. Pushed between timeliness and cash-flow, design has become merely a Bob Ross-esque slight of hand and techniques.

But things are changing.

I have a hard time trusting anyone. It’s a flaw. A defense. A learned pattern of guarding myself against pain that I mask as a cautious plan of growth. But a few years ago I brought on a partner; Chris Bergman (we meet, through where else, but the internet; not a dating site mind you — what dirty minds you all have). Having learned from past experience that a business full of people who do the same thing leads to; well, let’s just say “issues”. I knew I needed someone to compliment my weaknesses (of which there are many), and there was no one better equipped than Chris. The business grew. We gained clients. The projects got bigger. The budgets larger. The markets expanded. There were hard months but overall things improved greatly; moreso than either of us could have imagined. Than a chance came to us.

Chris approached me with an idea he had about kids and chores; using the monster drawings I’d been toying around with for over a year as a catalyst — using the idea to enter the chance to earn $20,000 from a Cincinnati based start-up accelerator. With little more than a logo and a concept, ChoreMonster™ won a place in The Brandery for a 3 month development time from August to October with eight seven other businesses. We worked on building the brand, developing a functional (but limited) product, honed the vision and mission of where and what we knew ChoreMonster™ could become.  On October 25th we presented our “Demo” to over 350 potential investors. At the time we felt there was little interest, and we were slightly disheartened; but hell, we took the chance.

Things have changed.

A few days ago we signed some papers which give us — ChoreMonster™ — the opportunity to explore further the concepts and ideas we developed over the last several months. In short, however inexplicably, Chris is now a CEO and I’ve become a CTO. With a steady paycheck. Benefits. A clear vision and the ability to focus my talents, my time, and my creativity on a unified direction for a product and service that I am passionate about. Whether I can rejuvenate my design passions, find a deep well of creativity and if nothing else, achieve the standards I set for myself while making our customers delighted; I can only hope. But I haven’t felt this ready for change in a long time.

I’m very proud of the work I’ve done with Wiseacre Digital (formerly Wiseacre Design, formerly JPaul Design formerly What-the-hell-am-I-getting-into) these past 10 years. While I’ve not achieved my (shallow) goals of design super-fandom and riches, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to learn, become more well-rounded, meet amazing people, work on interesting projects, be inspired and hopefully maybe even inspire a few people here and there (which most likely never happened with my design, and I’m trying to be ok with that). While we’re not actively taking on new clients or projects, this site will remain (and maybe eventually actually have work to show) as a testament, a reminder, to me at the very least, of what has been accomplished.

This is not an end, just a new beginning.

— Paul Armstrong, January 2nd, 2012

As many irksome and overused terminologies as we have in the graphic design realm, my personal (least) favorite is the term : brand. A “brand” in our designer vernacular, might be defined as an identifiable imprint or symbol that specifies a company or product. Overall a harmless and true definition. Another, more precise definition might be that a brand is a unique, permanent, cultural icon — so much so that the imprint itself is what it represents. In other words, a brand is not only a strong visual symbol but also a strong verbal symbol; it is what it represents.

Our (and by “our”, I mean designers in general) rambling and grand-standing about “creating brands” or “brand strategies” or “brand recognition” or “brand research and development” are really nothing more than logo and logotype corporate collateral. Perhaps unique, but not always easily identifiable (nor the product or company it represents).

A brand is not made or created. There is no secret brand committee that stamps their approval in an executive board room. A brand is cultivated. Born though decades of service, commercial success, marketing saturation and cultural awareness. A brand has an earned, and merited reputation, which can’t be accelerated by telling everyone that it must be so.

There are several types of brands. Global brands, national brands and local brands. And several methods of brands — namely verbal, visual and verbal visual recognition. Coke. Nike. McDonald’s. Honda. These are global names with immediate understood meaning — what they represent (the products, logos, look, colors, commercials, spokespeople, etc). These are global visual verbal brands. Not only are the visually know (the swoosh, the golden arches, the red can) but verbally known. Kleenex. QTip. Band Aid. There are examples of national verbal brands. So entrenched in the cultural lexicon that the brand replaces the proper name of what they promote (at least in the US). When someone asks for a Kleenex, we pass a tissue. When we need a QTip, we grab for a cotton swab. A Band-Aid is an adhesive bandage. In Cincinnati when you hear someone say they want Skyline, usually you know that means (Cincinnati style) Chili. When you go to Kroger, everyone (locally) knows that means a grocery store (not clothes or a restaurant or hardware).

As hard as we try to distinguish ourselves and conform to the ideal of “fitting” into the graphic design culture, designers can only offer a road or path to a brand, but culture determines who passes and who fails.

Netflix Increases prices to $16 a month, people die.

The fuss comes on the heels of another Netflix rate increase (wherein the company raised the prices of their DVD services by $1 and introduced the streaming only service for $7.99 in November 2010). All that Netflix has done is eliminate their $4.99 DVD service (which gave users 1 DVD, and no more than 2 in a month), kept their streaming prices and decreased 1 DVD (as many in a month as you want – which was $9.99 and will now be $7.99). What they eliminated are the “bundle” system of streaming/DVD, clearly moving toward a more profitable revenue model, as well as moving the company and it’s users into the future of entertainment content consumption (and eliminating DVD’s all together).

As the demand for streaming content increases, so do the costs of not only providing the bandwidth to serve the content but also the distribution deals necessary to deliver timely, popular content. A recent deal struck with AMC to bring Mad Men to online streaming (no one company has been successful at inking a deal) cost Netflix an estimated $75 million. The cry for successful and popular films will no doubt have similar price tags. Add to the cost the fact that distributors are unlikely to want to eat into their DVD sales by offering streaming content after a films theatrical release. But money talks. And the best way for Netflix to grow is to expand their offerings and deliver more timely content — all of which will cost them money.

The alternative options for users is to unsubscribe and either pay per film or television show (which can cost from $5 to $75 either from Amazon, iTunes a physical DVD or a trip to a movie theatre — again, all for 1 item), stay on cable (setting you back $80 to $150 a month, which limits your choices and means of viewing to a TV and an air date, unless you have DVR which usually costs $15-2o a month, add premium channels which again do not offer thousands of movies at your disposal at any time for unlimited viewing on nearly any device; let alone the fact that you probably only watch 15% of the available channels making it a colossal waste of money). If you believe the future of entertainment is in Blu-ray and DVD’s, you’re welcome to it. If you think that $8 (or even $16) is too much for streaming content to numerous devices is too expensive or doesn’t offer enough options — then you need to evaluate what you expect for what you pay (and read again your other options). Better service comes at a price and sadly in this country we expect far too much for far too little.

It’s fairly obvious that what you create will determine the tools you use. You can’t make a salad with a pencil and you can’t cook a steak with a mouse (well, a rodent, sure, but why would you do that? Why I ask? Why?). The medium used is the expression of the creativity. For a designer in 2011 that tool — though it might start with a pencil to paper — in the end, is almost always a computer.

Fifty years ago design was practiced with (what we think of now as) antiquated tools  used to facilitate the vision of the designer. While the craft of design was (and always will be) subjected to the tools, the primary focus of design was why. Why am I using this typeface? Why am I using these linear graphical elements on this specific grid on this paper finish and size? Why am I choosing this text as the most important visual on the page? Why is this text considered less important? Why am I using these colors on these elements? Why am I placing these photos or illustrations in this area, and cropping in, and rotating? The concept and execution are then filtered through the tools at your disposal. Design started with a purpose and an intent (and let’s be honest, a solid foundation on which to defend your visual choices). Not much has changed in theory — the tools have gotten more sophisticated, the process quicker — but have have we lost the art of why? Have we lost the high regard designers of the past had for concept and purpose?

Today it seems we seem very preoccupied, nearly obsessed, with how we design. How are you making this mobile app or web page? Are you using CSS3? Are you using standards compliant HTML5 markup? Is it a responsive design layout? Are you using robust SEO practices? Does your work display correctly in IE (and by default, the answer is no; nothing works in IE)? How are you using the available font-face libraries to create a more print-looking design? What CMS are using to generate and manage your content — is it ExpressionEngine? Or WordPress? Or Django? Or PHPNuke (because you’re still stuck in 1998)? We’re so preoccupied with our tools and technology that we forgot the very “art” of creation. Did Picasso obsess over the many types of brushes and canvases he could use? Did he travel the world giving speeches and panels on why a specific brand and type of brush was the best way to paint? No. He created with what he had to execute the vision and message in his head.

Great design is a rarity; and as much luck and the perfect alignment of client, project, time and collaboration as it is planning and purpose. But great design has purpose. Great design has a message. Great design has thought and execution. Great design isn’t great because it was done with Illustrator or CSS3 or ExpressionEngine. Great design is great because it’s about the why, not the how.

Your duty as a designer is to eliminate any possibility of misinterpretation by exhausting all manner of definitions for any given word or phrase. It seems daunting (and yeah, it really is), but the quickest way for a project to fail is to assume that our words mean what they imply. Don’t take for granted that something that seems obvious, is actually obvious. Perhaps the word “bright” means color, but bright may also mean sunshine, light, glowing, full of life or effervescent. If bright is about color, than what colors are bright? Yellow, sky blue, red?

One word contains hundreds of pathways to visual and verbal solutions. Without clearly pinpointing the intention of a word, you can never successfully create a solution. Instead of blindly walking without a map get the directions you’ll need to find the intended destination of your design.

Every person comes from a certain preconceived set of verbal vernacular–usually a vernacular that applies to their specific industry or even personal perception. This verbal palette, while understandable to those inside the group, is meaningless to an outsider. Within any corporate or nonprofit culture there are terms and words used that have an expressed, understood meaning to those within that culture. Add to that the individual macro-vernacular, words that have an understood meaning to a single person (but not necessarily to another person).

While meaningful, words like “saved,” “faith,” “spirit-filled” and “called” are meaningless to any outsider and obfuscate their intention and impact. Using our own “short cuts” to language is simply poor communication. Your primary goal as a designer is to clearly communicate (visually and verbally) and the only way to communicate clearly is to remove the barriers of ingrown vernacular.

It’s your obligation – yes, I said obligation – to help guide your “client” in how to articulate what they want. You become 50% psychologist, 45% linguist and 5% sherpa. This will often annoy and frustrate your client, because communicating outside one’s comfort zone is amazingly difficult. So with every generic comment received you will have to push back for more clarity until you’ve uncovered the full meaning of “bright” or “bold” or “grungy.”

Choose not to accept what you’re told at its face value. Eliminate doubt in communication by asking more questions and seeking more answers, it’s the best way for design to reach its desired impact–and your entire team will feel more unified and energized, and it will show in your visual communications.

The following was originally published on Church Marketing Sucks; as a five part series titled “5 Tools Church Designers Need“

“I don’t like this. Can we start over and see something that we’re used to, like this (shows you WordPress blog theme).”

“Hmmmm, that’s not at all what I had envisioned in my mind. I don’t know what I was thinking about specifically, but that certainly isn’t it.”

“It doesn’t speak to me. I don’t feel it. Could you just use this design (shows you CNN)?”

“It’s missing something, I don’t know what, but why don’t you keep trying. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Can we make it more grungy looking, you know what MTV would do, or what (fill the in the blank of the corporation you’re attempting to mimic) does.”

(Cue the sad Charlie Brown theme) As you shuffle back to your desk. Dejected, confused and angry; but mostly confused.

All ideas — whether they’re new, uncommon and unexpected, or simple, obvious and clichéd — will encounter some sort of resistance and questioning. This isn’t a bad thing, but happens frequently (and by frequently I mean 9 times out of 10), and not all is lost. You can still resolve the situation and develop a great concept (and more than likely pursue those you’ve already developed) as long as you’re determined to fight for your ideas.

Now is the time to use this opportunity to learn how to deal with conflict. Conflict should not be negative but should be determined to come to a mutually beneficial conclusion. Being a part of a team requires collaboration and a certain amount of give and take and push and pull. The process of resolving conflicting opinions can help bring about a better solution through mutual cooperation.

Your client (and I say “client” because you should treat your team leader or boss or pastor — whoever has final say in what you’re doing — as a client, because you are working in their best interest, based on the criteria given to develop a design for them like any client if you worked in a design agency) is not your enemy, though at times it might feel that way, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to battle. The key is knowing when to fight and when to surrender. Determination isn’t about fighting for any solution, but rather fighting for the correct solution.

Design, by definition, seeks to find the visual solution to a certain set of problems. Those problems become the criteria of your project. Your determination to create an appropriate design can help to resolve any given problem you encounter (whether a brochure or book or billboard) with a direct and definitive result. Determination is the action that brings about a successful design solution.

Determination doesn’t settle for the first concept, or second or even third, but it pushes back against the obvious and the easy. Chances are that your first thoughts are the exact same thoughts and solutions that have been executed a thousand times before (and often those ideas have been executed much better). Determination fights for a worthy idea, fights mediocrity and safety for the challenge of doing something new and unique. And while nothing is truly original, the desire to go beyond the expected always yields a lasting and impacting result.

Never operate under fear in your design duties; if it is truly your “job” to be the designer, then it’s truly your job — even your duty — to present and fight for concepts. If you’re unwilling to say “no” and stand firm for fear of confrontation or even losing your job, then you will constantly be living with frustration. You will inevitably be asked to create something that is imitative, unoriginal and without impact or meaning in an unrealistic time frame.

Value yourself and what you do, find that confidence and determination and your ideas and concepts will be heard, and perhaps even embraced.

The following was originally published on Church Marketing Sucks; as a five part series titled “5 Tools Church Designers Need“

Why Critique?

I would hope that it’s obvious why the practice of critiquing is important to the design process, but perhaps it’s not. In an every growing market of “companies of one” (of which I was once a part for a long long time — I also will not use that vulgar “f” word) and people entering the field without formal training, I feel there needs to be a reminder of not only how to critique, but why to critique.

Critiquing isn’t an opportunity for you to tell someone how you would design something — that’s like telling someone the issues you have with their height — but an opportunity to explore alternate ways to come to a solution. The goal of design is to find the best solution for your client’s problem. Period. The critique allows you to gain insights and perspectives beyond your own, and thus (hopefully, when done right) creating to a better solution.

How Not To Critique

The Critique is usually an informal conference or gathering where a group of people look at concepts and propose ways of improving upon that concept. There are many ways a critique goes down, but here are a few ways that I have seen, been subjected to and occasionally been guilty of:

• The “I Didn’t Design It So I Hate It” Critique A studio can be a very hostile environment. Surrounded by designers competing for that one client that will allow them to reach their design glory and fame, mixed with dashes of artistic moodiness and ego makes for a explosive mix; especially on critique days. 80% of the time, this is what embodies the critique. Passive aggressive comments about color, layout, the over-done nature of the design and that is overall “sucks”.
• The “Crop Dusting” Critique The preferred studio environment is that of open spaces and work areas. Whoever thought of this ought to be shot. This “open” environment instills as sense of discomfort, lack of privacy and paranoia in the designer. Usually an art director (often unrelated to the specific project) will walk by, see your design, and make a passing and uninformed comments; such as “I don’t like that at all”, or “That sure needs some work”. These comments are neither constructive (they give no concrete direction of change for the designer) or informative (the concepts are usually being worked on, not meant for critique, thus exasperating the designer).
• The “Vague and Pointless” Critique The main focus of a critique should be to clearly, calmly and constructively give the designer the tools to improve upon their concept — through color, layout, grid or element suggestions. Often the commentary ranges from wildly over dramatic (“I hate this color palette, I see it all the time on everything”), to objectively unimportant (“I’d like to see more organic floaty thingies”).

Do It Right

Many critiques fall into one or all of these categories, mostly because we are never taught how to give a meaningful and useful critique. Here are a few of my rules that I follow when critiquing work:

1. Know the client parameters of the design If the clients objectives, needs and goals aren’t readily know or told to you, ask the designer or art director what those are. Without that, your critique will be baseless and often unhelpful. It’s better to keep your mouth shut than to suggest something that isn’t within the scope of the project (“I’d like to see this the brochure larger and in full color”, when the client had asked for a 2 color mailer).
2. Open with what you like about the design You know what your mom always told you, if you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all. Always open a critique with the at least 3 things you like about the design. Positive encouragement helps bolster the confidence of the designer, while making them receptive to hear your criticisms. It also makes you search further than your gut reaction (stripping away your personal preferences).Discussing things that are merely based on your likes and dislikes are unimportant. So what if you don’t like Univers Ultra Thin or background gradients, rather than inject your personality into the critique think about why it is that you don’t like those things before opening your mouth. Informed opinions, coupled with reason and evidence will not only allow you distance your opinion from fact, but open discussion, education and/or dialog. If you don’t have evidence or fact, then learn it (read books on design theory, design history, typography and current trends so that you’ll better understand your own likes and dislikes and how to communicate them).
3. Explain what and how you’d improve the design, not what you don’t like If you like having enemies and hostility in your workplace then just list everything you don’t like about the design. Not only is it harsh, but it comes across as petty and mean spirited. Rather than list what you dislike (which is usually opinion based), talk about what you’d improve and how you’d improve the design.The “how” is very important. Discussing how you might improve the concept allows for an open dialog on design but gives tools and means for the designer to improve the concept. Point out overused or cliched visual device, discuss the color palette and how it accentuates to the tone and mood of the project, observe balance, white space, hierarchy and informational importance. Your how can turn a concept from mediocre to excellent, especially when done well.
4. If you love it, then say so Just because its a critique doesn’t mean you have to find things to dislike or pick apart. If you like it, then say so. Say what you like and why you like it and then shut your mouth.

If you keep some of these techniques in mind you’ll begin to critique with more effectiveness, receptivity and team work; and maybe educating yourself and others around you.

There are (at least) four core groups that collectively formulate a foundation by which you develop visual solutions: 1) criteria, 2) mission, 3) audience and 4) history.

The Criteria

The most obvious place to start is the criteria. Sadly, it’s the place most designers stop. While the criteria encompasses a large amount of the logic put into your concepts, it’s only a part of what can help support your visual solutions. The criteria are the parameters of the project (a logo design, a brand upgrade, a website revamp, a multi-platform marketing campaign, etc) provided by the client. Among the parameters should come likes and dislikes (where the client provides websites, print pieces, commercials, any visuals they like which help to determine their desires for content, structure, functionality and visual preferences), keywords (where the client provides a list of words related to the product or service which helps to determine their verbal acuity and understanding of their own business, develop secondary and tertiary thinking beyond the traditional, develop a verbal dialog to enable the client to help you write their brand story), outcome (this is the literal wants and needs of the project; what they want you to do for them at the spoken level, not implied).

The Mission

You’d be surprised at how many businesses — whether they are a start up or a well established business — lack a unified and clear mission. A mission doesn’t have to be a two page document outlining your business strategy, or an eloquent paragraph; just a simple description of what you want to do as a business. One sentence, a full page, it doesn’t matter, as long as their is a common path for everyone to unify around.

For example, Southwest Airlines. Their mission is simple: “The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.” Effective and true through all the facets of their corporation.

A mission is important to your visual solution because it adds to the layer of the conceptualization lasagna (if you will). All of these layers of information only help inform your decisions, if by nothing else than eliminating possible methods of execution.

The Audience

Understanding the target audience of your client’s business is crucial and massively difficult. Hopefully your client can provide you with somewhat reliable statistics to bolster and narrow your focus. If not, in this age of information stew, you should easily be able find the information you’ll need. Yes, this is marketing, but your job as a designer is to help sell (regardless of any literal selling of products or services) your clients brand to their audience. To do that you must have a basic understanding of that audience.

As an art major in college, I often heard this statement (while we spent an entire year drawing oranges and apples and cones) “In order to break the rules, one must know the rules” — which is to say, if you immediately start painting in the abstract, without an understanding of color, hue, layout, techniques and tools, you’re a either a fraud or lucky or just a bad artist. The same goes for design. The rules in this case aren’t merely design rules (which is another post for another time) but the rules of your client, and your client’s audience. That doesn’t mean you pander to them, but it helps eliminate more possible outcomes; adding another noodle to the layer on the conceptualization lasagna (yeah, I’m going to keep saying it until it sticks!). The demographics (or the “demo” or the “d”, if you can’t be bothered with being clear in your communication); things like gender, age group, income level, race, religion; all help in knowing what strokes to make or not make.

The History

Why history? Well, for one simple fact:

“The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again” — George Santyana.

Nothing could be more true or relevant. A successful solution is the one that knows its history.

How old is your client’s company? Are you redoing some previous work? Why was your client unhappy with the previous work? Are you upgrading their design? Why do they feel they need to upgrade? What is their reputation among their audience? In the marketplace? Without answering these questions you can fall prey to repeating, not only the same mistakes of any previous visual solutions, but your own mistakes. You might even work yourself out of a pay check — which on the surface may seem bad, but you’ll be eliminating the waste of time for you both; if your client is merely reacting than enacting, you both lose; and your job is to provide your client with the service they need (while fulfilling your own needs, creativity and monetarily, as well).  It has to be a mutual relationship, or you both fail.

These four core groups equally inform the process of deciphering how to you create final visual concepts, as well as provide you with the support you need to verbally bolster your decisions — because there’s nothing more pointless than justifying your work based on preference and taste.

Maybe you’re the only one in your “department” or maybe you’re a “freelancer” (and let’s not go into how much I despise that term, aside from the implication that you’re either unable to work for someone or that you’re young, unskilled and will work for free drinks at TGI Fridays), but regardless of the situation you’re in, there are more hands at work in communicating your design ideas and concepts than just you. In many ways your job is to communicate the vision of your client (or your bosses interpretation of what your client wants — but let’s not get into that either). Communicating that message is a team effort, and thus you have to use all your tools to work together as a team.

The amount of work you do with others (in a team) varies greatly from studio to studio (office to office, company to company, firm to firm, organization to organization, van to van, you get the picture), but you never work alone. Teamwork doesn’t mean just doing what someone tells you or waiting for everyone to agree. It doesn’t mean singing around a campfire (unless that helps you be creative and all, which is perfectly fine, weird, completely weird, but fine). The greatest designers, designers with prestigious clients and award-winning work, seek the input of others to help sharpen and shape their designs.

Teamwork is about respect and honor. ?What? Respect and honor?” you say, “isn’t that for marriages and parents?” In order for any relationship to work there needs to be respect and honor — whether that’s your marriage, your friendships or even your co-workers and team members. Each member of a team deserves the respect and honor to be listened to. The respect and honor to be allowed to add input. The respect and honor to be a part of the process. This doesn’t mean your role is less important, but if you’ve cultivated the other tools, your role will be respected and given the proper weight into the decision making process. The hardest part of being a designer is listening to people whom we perceive as the “non-creatives” — the sales people, the marketing people, the corporate suits — but each person on your respective team has a perspective about their client, their market, their product, that we don’t. Without your team, or more precisely, without making an effort to be a part of your team, your ideas will miss the mark and not be well received. Never expect more from your team than what you expect from yourself — excellence, clarity and community.

To the vast majority of those who aren’t designers, it might be hard to understand why anyone would be upset — so what, he wants to write a book and asked people to fund it? Isn’t that what start-up companies do on a grand scale all the time? Obviously the basic premise is not new. Several years ago if you wanted to publish a book you either went the route of using a self-publishing service (Lulu, Blurb, etc) or appealed the ”good graces” of a (fumbling) publishing industry. Both methods had drawbacks. The first relied on your own “sweat-equity” to produce and see profit. If you aren’t well know, well connected, then the chances of seeing a return on your effort was slim to none. The later method meant pleading to a publisher who not only has to understand your vision and product, but also has to determine if they deem it worthy of their investment (in terms of them seeing a return; and month by month I’d imagine publishers are frantic to understand how to profit in an increasing “free” focused industry that reads less overall and has overwhelming shifted toward online content — but that’s a different story for a different time). Over the last few years a new methodology of funding has emerged called “micro-funding” or “crowd-funding” — and in this case, we’re specifically talking about Kickstarter. Now one can appeal to their peers (those like-minded or pre-diposed to want the book) to help fund and create the book — if the money isn’t there, than obviously there’s no market. But when money comes (and in Frank’s case, it came large and quick — stop it, that’s not dirty) you not only can fund the costs of your effort, but also get a return on your time. So what’s the big deal?

Semantics. Sour-grapes. The fear of the non-traditional. These all seem to be players in the small dust-up that have been tossed about in the design realm; most notably by Andy Rutledge (who quite frankly — excuse the pun, or not, whatever — relishes in being the “bad boy”, the contrarian to what he sees as a mostly liberal, ill-informed, ill-prepared design community and using language as a weapon to illicit reaction). One would think a “convservative” or even “free-market” minded individual would champion the rights of individual responsibility in (this is where semantics will derail your perspective and make a reasonable discussion difficult) intimately and directly funding (or donating or financing) a product they believe in.

On the other hand, Frank has 1,236 (at the time of this writing) individuals who have given (in varying degrees) to an unknown product with the expectation of getting what was promised in return. Again, the onus of responsibility is shared by 1,236 people who willingly gave to the book — knowing there was nothing other than an idea and a promise (and Frank’s plethora of experience to reasonably and logically expect nothing other than what was promised). Frank also bears responsibility is setting reasonable expectations for: updates on progress, time till completion, contents and other formats such as perhaps dimensions or paper stock, binding, etc. This is not entirely unlike how people are willing to pay upwards of $150 to for a ticket to sporting event, or concert, based on the team (or individual or band) to deliver what they expect in return of entertainment or victory. We daily make risks with our money. At most the “risk” of “investing” in Frank’s book is that he doesn’t complete it (and you get your money back) or it’s perhaps not a long, or thick, print (on post-consumer waster recycle A4 paper) leather bound with a hologram of bacon on the cover. But logical evidence — just as with sporting events, concerts, etc — suggest that 80% of your expectations will be met. And in terms of what profit Frank will get, that harkens back to his responsibility for the project — researching the costs for production plus his time (which translates to being “paid” for the work).

The most exciting, and sadly lost in this small skirmish, is the potential of great ideas — that otherwise might die in the minds of the creators or flounder on the desks of executives or see limited exposure — have a profound and new method of becoming reality. And that’s good for everyone involved.

*This is important
* So is this