March Exercise —day eight— When your “cheese” has been moved, it often takes time before disbelief gives way to action, but unconscious denial is complex, and it peels off in layers like sunburned skin. I’ve been slower to adjust in some areas and quicker to respond in others. The core aspects of being a graphic communicator were disseminated into lay culture in such a gradient way that it was too easy for me to believe that people still valued the basic skill set. Which services a customer might now consistently look to the professional to achieve is increasingly more difficult for me to identify. For over 30 years we have scrupulously avoided working “from the hands down,” convincing ourselves that what clients really wanted were concepts. But now that nearly anyone can quickly execute one’s own ideas in an adequate fashion, I’m beginning to think that what most of them desired all along was someone fluent in an esoteric technical process beyond their ken. Question: What shall I do, now that producing graphics is no longer mysterious?
Today’s sight bite— The shapes, colors, and textures of downtown, —c-l-i-c-k— ready to shake off drab winter and preside over another season of human activity.
Tomorrow— Publication design continues to be the counterbrace of my life as a functioning designer . . .