Shrouded in sanity salt series#

Just as you canвЂ™t spend your life working hard at a job you barely like because of the retirement benefits, the end result canвЂ™t be the only thing keeping you going, or it will all feel like a massive waste of time when things donвЂ™t go your way.

If you donвЂ™t like the actual day to day process, when a project gets killed (or fucked up) it destroys you. but itвЂ™s very important to not lose sight of what you actually love about what you do. Even as a freelancer, itвЂ™s easy (as your career advances) to focus on bigger projects, bigger budgets, sexier clients, etc. You can focus on the fact that as a high level decision maker you have a huge hand in what ultimately gets made, but it still doesnвЂ™t change the fact that your day to day life is a lot of phone calls and meetings.not a lot of making. If you work for an agency or at a company, the more вЂњsuccessfulвЂќ you are (the higher up the corporate ladder you travel) the further removed you are from the physical process of making. There is a definite cap on what youвЂ™re capable of achieving with your own two hands. If I wanted to scale my business, IвЂ™d be stepping away from my craft. We live in a culture where вЂњscaleвЂќ is really important-and craft doesnвЂ™t scale. There is so much craft involved, and I donвЂ™t have to prove its value to anyone-by the time someone feels compelled to hire me they already understand the value of what small changes and attention to detail can bring to the logo. ItвЂ™s satisfying for so many reasons, partly because I can spend so much time in a work flow state. I feel like IвЂ™m moving mountains even though IвЂ™m only nudging vectors. Generally when I work on logos I like to focus on brand refreshes, which allow me to really max out all of my nerdy crafty skills and donвЂ™t involve me stepping in as a companyвЂ™s temporary brand director overseeing the vision of the company. Soon after that Leo Jung took over as creative director and we worked together to make more headlines and refine the logo further. He hired Carl DeTorres and the three of us worked together on the mark.

Everything would feel more cohesive and whoever he hired wouldnвЂ™t feel creatively pigeonholed by the work I had already done. and then the newly hired creative director and I could work together to create the logo. I insisted that he first find the person he wanted to work with to flesh out the design of the magazine, the style of the photography, etc. They had a vision of what it would be but no visuals. It can make it difficult to hire very talented branding and communication design people if they feel like the job involves more production than creation.Дoug McGray, the founder of The California Sunday Magazine, initially asked me to create a logo for them when the magazine was in the very early stages of development. I donвЂ™t love doing brand extension work myself, and those who do usually prefer not to inherit someone elseвЂ™s core designs.

I donвЂ™t make logos for companies that have no one in place to handle brand execution.

That said, branding can help re-invigorate a company whose culture / product is atrophying (which is the whole purpose of rebrands and refreshes). The product / audience / culture informs the logo.

The logo shouldnвЂ™t guide the direction of the company and product.

I wonвЂ™t do a logo if the product itself isnвЂ™t designed yet.

I have a few personal rules about working on logos for companies and startups: Communication design and branding are important but without the product the company doesnвЂ™t exist.

Shrouded in sanity salt series#

Ben eventually made a new poster in the same series that said вЂњStay focused and keep ShippingвЂќ, which better reflects the views of a вЂњgrown upвЂќ start-up: ThereвЂ™s a difference between being bold and tenacious and being reckless.Д¬ommunication design takes a second seat to product design in tech-as it should.

I think the biggest fear is that, while agonizing about a single leaf on an individual tree in the gigantic forest, you might lose sight of whatвЂ™s important-the experience of using the product. When you're constantly iterating, constantly pushing new versions out, you canвЂ™t invest time in seemingly unnecessary details that will be lost in tomorrowвЂ™s update. Workers in tech donвЂ™t usually feel like they have the ability to focus on craft-especially when it comes to visual design. Ben Barry, when working at Facebook in The Analog Research Lab he helped create, made a poster that stated what was a pretty common belief in tech: вЂњMove Fast and Break ThingsвЂќ. I live in the Bay Area and am surrounded by tech culture.