Priorities…I’m not so sure we have them…

Found this image going viral on Facebook. Makes one wonder what our priorities really are…and where I may or may not want to invest for my retirement. Then again there isn’t much information to say what all this really means other than to say we use more ink than we do human blood…which may be a good thing. Maybe it’s a good thing that blood doesn’t cost so much? What do you think? Are we as human beings be being taken for granted by the cost of ink? Again I don’t know the context or the research behind this infographic…but it certainly gets you thinking.

Found on http://pics.kuvaton.com/kuvei/most_expensive_liquid.jpg#

The Facebook Copyright Hoax

I don’t know about any of you, but I saw this on one of my dear friends facebook statuses today and it caused me to get a little nervous:

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).
For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!
(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place
them under protection of copyright laws.

By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.

Being an artists, graphic designer, and photographer, I know better than to post any of my most personal info and artistic content on Facebook. Having a healthy caution of putting things on the internet is the first step to being a responsible patron of the online community (and respect of yourself). However, whenever I heard of things like this I always tend to get a little paranoid. So, I do what I do best, and take a little peek at the online news to see if I can find enough reliable resources to validate or refute the statements. Turns out this whole thing is a hoax and honestly, you cannot refute the contract via facebook status. That’s not how the law and copyright works friends (and if anyone seriously thought that it did then you’ve been seriously uneducated). Also how can you refute facebook’s ownership with a status when they own the statuses you put up?

If you are interested in legally putting your work under Copyright then please visit the U.S. Copyright Office website for more information on going through the proper channels. For more info on the Hoax and facebook policies read your Facebook Terms of Agreement, and view these helpful articles:

‘New Facebook Guidelines’ Chain Letter About Copyright Laws Still A Hoax |The Huffington Post |   By Timothy Stenovec

No, that copyright thing won’t protect you and 5 other Facebook hoaxes| PopWatch| By Tara Fowler

www.theage.com.au

That Facebook Copyright Notice Is Still a Hoax| Slate| By Will Oremus

 

 

 

 

 

How Creatives Work: Issues of Technology and Graphic Design

I came across this article today on my Twitter feed about the ways that Design Creatives are working and the difference it’s making in the design industry. What this article comes down to is this: we’re wasting an awful lot of time. This article from the 99% website offers an insight into how creatives have become distracted and removed from personal creativity because of access to so many other great (but unoriginal) ideas. Not only that, but communication technologies themselves are actually taking us away from our work as creatives such as e-mail (said to be one of the biggest distractions).

Again we see another issue with our ability to use technology actually taking away from our ability to work. According to this article the average Creative works 9 hours per day, but only 3.5 hours of that is considered productive time. Now I understand that statistics can be misleading, but being a college student as well as a creative intern this isn’t too far fetched from my own experience. The internet is distracting and people are distracting too.

The article goes on to talk about “open offices” which is a set up with an open floor plan that allows employees to have face time, and over all improve community in the work place. The problem is, we’re human. We’re easily distracted from our work, and once our train of thought has been broken by something interesting enough (and people are interesting), we lose our ability to create in a timely manner. In fact, most of our productive time is being done on a laptop in the comfort of our own homes. Even more is getting done when creatives sketch it out on paper (an important point to note).

Perhaps the technology we’re seeing regularly isn’t actually helping us. In most cases, one can’t help but realize how the technology that once helped us “get it done faster” is actually taking up more of our time. As Creatives, we can’t allow this to happen, because it leaves rooms for creativity to get sucked out of us. We often fall prey to sites like Pinterest (wonderful site) that give great design ideas…but they’re ideas already thought of.

Let’s be original and good at what we do. Not too much to ask I think.

Brown is Nothing but Dark Beige

Brown is Nothing but Dark Beige

Let’s combine nerdiness and design! Marketing departments always have long discussions about color, and Dungeons & Dragons is no exception. Check out Jon Schindehette’s article about the color design of the franchise and the difficulties of dealing with period items.

Should Employers Have Complete Access to Your Facebook?

Ever walked into an interview and been asked for your facebook username and password? Apparently this women has. To get the full original story click here.

Big controversy over employers asking for full access to prospective and current employee facebook accounts. As I understand this was recently voted down in the House as reported on March 28th (due to a few holes in the proposal as well as other arguments), but there is still legislation that can be made within states wether or not to allow such information to be available to employers (click here for more info). It’s not a wide spread practice, but one can’t help but be unnerved. We’re not obligated to give our e-mail and zipcode to stores for marketing reasons. So why should we give our employers our private and personal information? They have our Social Security numbers for heaven’s sake! As if that isn’t unnerving enough.

I understand the desire to check personal information and make sure you’re hiring a quality employee, but what does a Facebook page have to do with it? Sure there are privacy setting people put up, but usually those are specifically to prevent undesirables from contacting you and knowing where you live. What could you possibly be keeping from an employer that they couldn’t see my looking at your facebook profile? Personal and professional lives are meant to be separate aren’t they? Have we lost the art of switching hats? Are we that desperate that we need to have constant access to our workplaces?

I usually try to remain objective in my posts, but things like this friggin’ irritate me. We should have some kind of protection under the law that allows us to ask the same of our employers if we’re not able to have protection to keep it to ourselves. If I were ever asked to do such a thing, I’d ask them for their passwords so I could figure out if they’re the kind of person I’d want to work for. I as an employee have to protect myself too right? And how do I know my boss is a trustworthy person? How can I look for red flags if I don’t come into contact with them often (an issue with large companies)? I feel if employers want to ask high standards of their employees they should also be held to the same standard to their employees. A “Golden Rule of Private Information” if you will. I’d bet if something like that were to happen, very few employers would ever ask for Facebook passwords ever again, much less have anything good on there to begin with.

As usual I highly recommend to you read the provided links in this post completely so you can fully understand the extent of these potential laws.

Design Resources: Personal Online Portfolios

As students we’re all looking for the best exposure, and what better way than with the ever increasing infinite internet? The only problem is where to go to make a secure online portfolio? With help from my professor and fellow students we’ve got it down to our top 3. Here are a few suggestions for you:

Behance — standard for creative portfolios and great for networking

Squarespace — Nice option with more advanced features, but requires a fee

Cargo — Best used for personal portfolios

Pinterest Users Beware

Found this article about Pinterest recently, that you may want to look at if you’re a Pinterest user.  Click here.

Google

There has been much controversy lately about Google taking liberties in their privacy statements and altering their ability to access information. However, many people don’t know how Google really works and in what ways they access your information and what that information is used for. In this particular case, the content of your writing or blog posts is the subject of search information. Here is a simplified version of how Google tracks down, processes, and saves information.

Design Inspiration: Masters of Book Design

I don’t know about anyone else, but I often do judge books by their covers. Literally. It’s the story you encounter before the story ever begins. I’ve been notorious for buying attractive (I was going to say “sexy” but thought you may think I was taking it a bit too far) books regardless of their content. Why not right?

Anyway, book design is a large part of daily graphic design encounters. Speaking as an avid reader, I’d rather have my eyes rest on a beautiful design rather than an eyesore. Otherwise it’s like dragging nails across a chalkboard, but with your eyes….yeah…something like that.

Here is a list of sites to help inspire your inner book drunkard and designer.

Master Book Designers

Salamander Hill Design

Peter Mendelsund

Chip Kidd

John Gall

Henry Sene Yee

Tobias Design

DIY Design

Reblogged from Kaz21's Blog:

Doing art during my senior high school years I’d consider myself to be somewhat creative, but tell me to design something on the computer and I freak. So many programmes, so many features I swear it’d be easier to design by hand. However I’ve come to feel my opinion has become a minority in today’s society where manual design has become devalued and our society has become dependent on the ability of digitalisation and design stemming across a variety fields.

Read more… 429 more words

An interesting view of DIY Design and how it has changed the way we consume, create, and live.