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I’m starting to realize that there is a large population of graphic designers that only design in preparation. They are knowledgeable about emerging trends, know all the new styles, the new techniques, the new visual language of the design world. They read all the trades, they read all the blogs and they soak it all in, and wait. They wait til they can apply it to their own projects, til they can find a way to make it marketable, til they can use the abundance of the “emerging” style as evidence of being “cutting edge” and “ahead of the curve”. They don’t set trends, they don’t take any chances, they wait.
I am going to coin this anticipatory design. Its the idea of people who watch all the great, experimental, risky design and then wait until its been hashed out across the cusp of the design world. Then they adopt the style, hawking it to clients as if they’re being original. Peddling off others ideas, feeling as if they are being creative and risky.
It’s not imitation, its not copying. Its market research done by others. Its the reason flourished decoration, vector circles, and grunge backgrounds are so popular and rampant in designs today.
What I think is most interesting about this though, is my theory of the origins of the designs. Who are being the most experimental, the most willing to take risks, try things and put them out there for the world to see?
4 comments. Posted by md in advice, opinion on 7 October 2008.
I would suggest taking this article and talking about it in interviews, if you find someone wary of hiring a new degree card carrying member of the “Recent Grad” club.
…this should be a reminder that hiring a young designer should not be seen as hiring as someone without experience, but hiring someone with potential.
Dapper Pipes: Aggregating your job search.
What’s that you say? Dapper pipes sounds like fancy plumbing and you want nothing to do with this article now? Well, give it a second.
With how today’s economy is going, it’s increasingly difficult to find jobs. A lot of time and effort goes into the job search itself, and it’d be nice to have a easy way to check all those many job sites at once, making it easy for your unemployed butt to do more important things, like work on your website, or finish off that last row of oreos.
2 comments. Posted by md in advice, featured, interwebs, jobs on 27 July 2008.
I found this gem floating around the blogs, and I think it’s just excellent.
The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don’t you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.
3 comments. Posted by md in advice, writing on 19 July 2008.
Insure me has an interesting post from a recent Edward Tufte conference in Denver:
Tufte makes his living by telling people how to give better presentations, so the bar was pretty high going into the day-long seminar. He sure delivered—all without using a single PowerPoint slide.
Jeb paraphrased Tufte’s notes into nine tips.
Read more. →
No comments. Posted by tanner in advice, presenting on 15 July 2008.
