Now, like a lot of senior designers I have been in the industry for many moons and seen fads come and go, but one thing that has puzzled me over the years is the amount of people in our industry with an enormously bloated sense of self. Well you may be saying, David, how would we know you aren’t exactly one of these people. Well you don’t, and wont, but it’s my article so let me finish it, thanks.

Anyhow, I’m sure you have all been to parties where all the cool, trendy people turn out to be designers, which is fine, we are a pretty trendy lot, but when said people start opening their mouths they seem to come across as someone who is performing life saving surgery every day, or someone who works for St Vincent’s helping the poor and underprivileged. There is nothing at all wrong with being proud of your work, that’s what should drive us, but let’s put this into perspective. The majority of us work (making ads, websites, commercials or movies etc) that have one aim, and that is to sell a product to people who generally wouldn’t want to buy it, have no need for it, and shouldn’t be spending money on it because they have a credit card that is maxed.

So I have always wondered what causes many of us to behave like prince poncy? Is it a societal thing were we are generally becoming ruder and more arrogant? Or has this always been the case, where, like most architects we are generally social wankers? (Hey, it’s not us wearing the square framed black glasses and polo necks)!

Whatever the reason be, I have a vip gallery opening to attend to later, so I must get out my craziest t-shirt and mess my hair up. Tootles.

Thanks to David Goldberg & Design Federation for the article.

A monumental event in human history such as the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall has been seized upon left right and centre by Big Business this year. One major alcohol corporation has decided to cash in on the blood letting and horror that went into bringing Democracy to the Eastern Bloc and add Über money to their coffers by tapping into the Über cool market of 18-35 year olds with this Über now concept.

It seems the formula is this, find an iconic event in history (something like Tiananmen square for example which hasn’t been used yet but you can expect to see edgy comps requesting participants to create a red t-shirt depicting Über cool tanks and dead people for their latest range of products and you can win big!) Then – with lots of gritty graphics and Über modern styling – promote it as though your Brand somehow has something Über significant to contribute to the epic sweep of the human narrative. Guaranteed to promote your company to the ranks of Über cool via the process of association.

Get your Über on via this link

Article written by David Goldberg via Design Federation

I’m sure almost all of you would be on a mailing list of some sort, it’s unavoidable these days. It is the no-brainer PR tool of our era. When most people spend their working day sending and receiving, the easiest way for websites to target their market directly by getting you when you’re guard is down at the counter of your favourite store or at the door of a nightclub. It seems harmless enough at the time to scribble down your email address, but in fact you are soliciting a potential floodgate.Here in Australia, we have a adopted a law based on an American model.

The Spam Act of 2003 states that companies or websites using mailing lists are obliged to address specifics such as: –

- Consent – must obtain proof of consent to contact the recipient

- Identify – include accurate information to identify the website/organisation as the authorised sender of the message in the email

- Unsubscribe – email messages must have a functional unsubscribe facility allowing recipients to permanently opt out of the list at any time.

Now, as long as I can easily unsubscribe at any time I have no issue being signed up to a mailing list. What really is annoying is when you have no way to unsubscribe or the mailing list breaks and then all sort of nonsense happens. This was the case last week with a mailing list for a methodical NY Street label. Their email list broke and all of a sudden every reply back was sent to everyone on the mailing list so it has become one big email orgy and so far it hasn’t occurred to anyone controlling it to shut it off.

I have had the pleasure of experiencing this in the past when the sender was too cheap to use a third party web based emailer for sending out e-flyers. The result is a million people asking to be unsubscribed and telling everyone else not to reply all.

I suppose these things happen, but there are A LOT of Australian small businesses and designers who fall into the same trap out of ignorance. This may well be a cheaper option, but you run the risk of breaking the law (OK, so who cares?) or alienating the exact people you are trying to win over which is far worse a crime!

- David Goldberg – article provided by Design Federation

Now, I am yet to see a proper news article on this written by reputable news outlet, but this is the internet so anything can be seen as real.

So the story is this. A man named Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, allegedly exists, and allegedly did an art installation where he tied up a stray dog as Art and it died. What his alleged point was, is that there are thousands of dogs around Costa Rica dying every day and nobody cares.

Now first off, I am a dog lover, I have a dog, and it’s like a best friend.
So I should be appalled and shocked at this. I should call for this man to be murdered the same way that poor dog died. I should help organise a lynch mob to hunt this evil demon down and string him up.

In the event that this story is true, I will raise my hand and say yes I think it is awful, it was cruel like life is, and that the dog was poor and defenceless and the man had no right to torture it for arts sake, I will raise my hand and say, this is not art. Guillermo Habacuc Vargas could have taken photos of stray dogs, he could have filmed them, and he could have done all sorts of other things that would have conveyed the same message without degrading the living and the dying.

But will you raise your hands and say, people die in Iraq everyday for a war on oil, or hundreds of people die making the shoes you wear, the gold around your neck or coffee you drink, yet you are more likely to get upset and outraged about a stray dog dying in a gallery.

We consumers are as much to blame about this as this alleged artist is. Check out the full article here .

– Written by David Goldberg.

I have always questioned the need for shocking imagery in art. What drives an artist to create works that have no purpose other than to shock? In addition to being offensive, a lot of this work is awfully crafted – badly photographed (with too many light room effects) poorly drawn or painted, montage images which seem to be always smeared onto cheap canvas, or big ugly “statues”.

What leads someone to create these works?

Perhaps the artist is not very skilled, and he or she requires a way to stand out from the crowd, Or the artist is lazy and not willing to put time and energy into something of value,So this leads these types of artists to reach for lowest common denominator. SEX

Just because something sells for a million dollars, doesn’t mean that its any good, for example, look no further than Jeff Koons, he sells like nothing else, but is a cheesy grinned ‘artist’ who produces rubbish. Just look at his ‘Made in Heaven’ series, which is nothing more than bad porn. OMG, Jeff, your art is so shocking and fascinating, its amazing! Please, can you tell us how to take photos of our members entering a porn stars arse?!?!

(a Jim Klutz super original)

Blatantly sexual art for no other reason than to shock just reeks of I want my 15 seconds of fame and I’ll do a Brittany Spears if I need to. Shock art – or pornography art, is not art – it is merely generic, pointless shit which serves only to reinforce the naivety and laziness of the ‘artist’.

Art worth looking at should take time and energy to create.