The Roughstock Library

Education is not neutral

2010-04-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

"There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes 'the practice of freedom,' the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

—Richard Schaull, from the foreward for Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Here in San Francisco, It's Sunday Morning Coming Down

2010-04-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

Piglet No. 2

2010-04-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

I collected pig paraphernalia as a child. Blame it on Charlotte's Web, if you must, but I had it bad. This print from Sharon Montrose available over at 20x200 just might rekindle that obsession. Must. Resist...

Marketing turns us into stereotypes

2010-03-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

Marketing turns us into stereotypes,
Literature turns us into archetypes.

Bollocks, Blogger!

2010-03-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

Google has announced that as of May 1st, they will no longer support FTP publishing for Blogger. I've been using Blogger since around 2000 (when they were just an indie company working with this new format called blogging), and I'm sad to see this critical feature yanked. It's a numbers thing—FTP publishers (those of us who publish our blog to our own server and domain name) comprise .5% of Blogger's user base yet require a disproportionate amount of tech support—but it's a shame nonetheless.

So, after I handle transferring my clients' sites to a different CMS, I'll be trying to get this sucker moved elsewhere. Probably Wordpress, which I've been wanting to use for the Library for years now but have never gotten around to actually mastering.

All this means is that there may some growing pains as I shift the site over. I need to rebuild the skeleton in Wordpress, import hundreds of posts, then handle the formatting issues that are bound to occur. It may look a little ugly, a little dusty, as I do the conversion so please bear with me. And if you have any advice for the switch, please share!

This Is What Politicians Are Supposed To Do

2010-02-25T10:04:00.000-08:00

To be fair, both parties are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Business in general. But I wish, with all my heart, that our elected officials would grow some cajones the size of Weiner's and start fighting for the American people, not the American corporation, because that's their job.

Published: Designing for the Greater Good

2010-02-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

It's always a kick to see your work in print, and even more so when it's in print alongside a crapload of really good work from a group of really great designers. I just got my copy of Designing for the Greater Good: The Best in Cause-related Marketing and Nonprofit Design by Peleg Top and Jonathan Cleveland, which includes two of my posters.

The first is my No on 8 poster, which is also on display at New York's Center Gallery (hurry, though, the show closes on Wednesday):

The other is my Stop the Spray poster:

Author Peleg Top is generously donating $10 from the purchase of the first hundred copies of the book to Haiti relief, so I'd highly suggest grabbing a copy and sending him your receipt.

Help Empower a New Generation of Sustainable Designers

2010-02-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

SUPER BOWL! Thanks to Pepsi's decision to spend their Super Bowl ad dollars on social change grants instead of crappy TV spots, Re-nourish is now deep in the game for a $50,000 Refresh Everything grant! But we really, really need your help for this. I know you're constantly bombarded by requests for help, for money, for time, but I am shamelessly asking for your vote. It takes just a few seconds, and it could change everything for us.

If you're a graphic designer, Re-nourish is a resource built just for you to sift through the greenwash to get to the real information about sustainable design. We believe that empowering designers to integrate sustainable design thinking into their work is the key to keeping our industry competitive in a rapidly changing economy.

If you're not a graphic designer, Re-nourish is still working on your behalf by reaching out to the creators of all the printed stuff you interact with every day, helping them make it better, safer, and more responsible.

The bulk of the money will go toward overhauling and expanding Re-nourish.com—making it more user-friendly, improving the interactive tools, adding new tools and educational resources, and so on. A good chunk will also go toward launching a couple of wider initiatives to make the supply chain all of us designers depend on more sustainable. So far this has all been a labor of love, but to really reach the growing number of working designers out there, we need you.

You can read all about our plans, and then you can vote for us—once a day, every day, through the end of February if you're so inclined.

All we gotta do is make it to the top 10 by the end of the month—and we're already well within range! So, please, take just a couple of seconds if you can spare it, and don't hesitate to leave any questions in the comments below.

The Problem with Green Marketing

2010-01-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

The following post comes from my notes for Keeping It Real Green: How to Market Your Efforts in an Age of Greenwashing. I'm expanding this e-book (the new version is currently weighing in at 25 pages and is promising to get even longer), and I find myself still struggling with a number of both philosophical and practical questions.

Genius comedian Bill Hicks liked to call marketers the "ruiners of all things good." He wasn't far off the mark.

Marketing has always been an ethically conflicted business, and the act of green marketing requires us to face this conflict head-on. Marketing has one simple purpose: to foster the exchange of money for something of value (generally a service or product). Marketers, however, have traditionally been relegated to a discrete role within an organization's hierarchy, one that is siloed off from product development, operational logistics, and so forth. The result is that the marketer ends up investing himself not in value but in perception of value.

This difference is critical, because it cuts right to the heart of why marketing has for so long embraced the tactics of smoke and mirrors, rather than the development of true value to the consumer. Marketers simply have never been considered worth including in the value creation side of the equation—and they've been perfectly happy with that. Their job is to sell what already exists, and to do that, they must make the consumer feel a certain way about it, whether or not that feeling is based on the existence of something real.

Whether or not this is good or evil is beyond the scope of Real Green, though. My concern right now is with the implications this focus on perception over substance has for green marketing specifically. If the goal of the conventional marketer is to create a perception in the mind of the consumer—rather than match the consumer to something of real value—then the goal of the green marketer must be to create a perception of socio-environmental value in the mind of the consumer—regardless of whether that socio-environmental value truly exists in the thing being marketed.

This presents an inherent contradiction: if green means socio-environmental value, but marketing means perception over value, how can green marketing legitimately exist?

I believe it can, but I'm wondering if it hinges on changing the definition of marketing to one that moves beyond creating a mere perception in the mind of the consumer. If we accept that the marketer's job is to encourage the exchange of money for value, maybe it becomes an issue of equalizing that exchange. In other words, marketers have sacrificed measurable, demonstrable value and replaced it with smoke and mirrors—because it's a hell of a lot easier than being accountable for the crap you're marketing.

But if we refuse that allowance and instead require marketers to be able to measurably demonstrate the value of what they're marketing, all of a sudden we've created a more equitable exchange (which is what the whole thing is supposed to be anyway).

This would make green marketing a "simple" matter of marketing stuff with demonstrable socio-environmental value. To make this real, of course, businesses would have to give marketers a vested interest in operations and product/service development—so that the marketer is ultimately accountable for the thing s/he is marketing. Easier said than done of course, because nobody seems to want any accountability these days.

In the book Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences, the authors call for company-wide cultural change in order to develop products and services with real value:

"The team for creating meaningful experiences should not consist solely of any one profession but should integrate representation of the company's designers, researchers, developers, marketers, and senior executives at a minimum. The right team represents each of these functions and synchronizes their collaboration toward a shared outcome. Rather than one department or function "owning" innovation, the team owns the overall design vision and ensures that its delivery is consistently coordinated across the company...This ability to foster cross-boundary collaboration and to recognize that every major department has a role to play is critical to designing meaningful experiences because it heightens the likelihood that all customer touch points of the experience will be cohesive and consistent. Pursuing this type of collaboration also helps ensure more internal buy-in of the process and its results, typically accelerating development and increasing the intensity of everyone's participation." (Emphasis mine.)

The net effect of this cross-collaborative approach—in addition to the increased buy-in from marketers among other company players—is increased buy-in from customers as well. In other words, real value benefits more people, and more deeply, than smoke and mirrors. Unless the business sector recognizes this en masse, the green movement—and green marketing along with it—will spin its wheels.

I'd love to know what you think about all this. As I mentioned, this post is really a stream-of-consciousness lifted from my Real Green notes. It's a huge subject, but one that needs to be tackled if anything substantial is going to change in the world of business, marketing, and green. what say you?

Who Is America?

2010-01-18T14:14:00.000-08:00

And how will we know when all our voices have been counted?
What will it look like when all our people are protected?
How will each one of us know we have done our part?
America is so much more than our borders.
We, the people.

What Type Are You?

2010-01-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

According to world-famous Pentagram—and they should know—I am Archer Hairline, designed by the lovely Hoefler & Frere Jones.

"...outbreaks of elegance and tiny dots of emotion only apparent on closer examination..."

I can live with that.

So, what type are you? (The password is character.)

Technical Difficulties

2010-01-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

My grandmother used to raise her sharply pointed eyebrows whenever someone complained, and say "man plans, and God laughs." Indeed.

Dreamhost is experiencing some funkiness on their servers, which happens to be giving Roughstockstudios.com a bit of a headache. They are working on the issue, and hopefully you'll be able to browse smoothly in no time. In the meantime, certain "Categories" (on the left) are getting scrambled when clicked. All seems to have been restored. Proceed as you were.

Thanks for bein' patient!

Rollerball, 1975

2010-01-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

I just caught Rollerball (the original, from '75) on TV, and was reminded how much I love that flick. From the melodramatic score to the prolonged track scenes of some future-barbaric blood sport, to James Caan's crazy square shoulders, I can't ever flip through - I just have to watch it to the very last freeze frame.

Dystopian blood sports never looked so fun

The future is now

So long, 2009!

2010-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

And hello, 2010!

Let's make it a damn fine decade, shall we?

On Exhibit: Visual Voices

2009-12-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

If you're in New York during the next couple of months, you may want to stop by the Center Gallery at Fordham University to see the gallery's current exhibition, Visual Voices: the Freedom of Expression.

On display are posters from fifteen artists and designers, including the likes of Luba Lukova, the Guerilla Girls, and...get this...myself. It's pretty snazzy to be included with such good company.

The show has been extended through February 10th, with a closing reception on January 26th. For more details, download the announcement (PDF).

Visual Voices: The Freedom of Expression
Center Gallery, Fordham University Lincoln Center
113 West 60th Street | New York, NY 10023

Hours: Monday-Friday 10-8 | Saturday & Sunday 10-5
Through February 10th
Closing Reception: Tuesday, January 26th 5-7pm

Holiday Hours

2009-12-22T11:58:00.001-08:00

Just a note to let y'all know that I'll be out of the office for the holidaze:

Wednesday, Dec. 23 - Friday, Jan. 1

When I get back, I've got some serious house cleaning to do around these parts. Things are changing, folks, and it ain't just the date. Nothing fancy, so don't go stopping the presses, but it should be a refreshing change of pace.

Enjoy the new year!

Actual Content vs. Perceived Content

2009-12-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

A beautiful piece by Clemens Kogler and Karo Szmit:

[via Brand66]

We Are All Environmental Journalists Now

2009-12-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

Interesting take on the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen from the Guardian:

"The problem is getting anywhere near the truth. Most countries do their diplomacy in private and do not want anyone—let alone the press—to know what goes on in the negotiations. Beyond that, the talks are so technical that few can understand them even if they are explained. Moreover, meetings are closed, all decisions are dependent on others and are made in secret, the UN secretariat is opaque, the diplomats and negotiators are unaccountable and speak in code, and because of the insane complexity of the negotiations, there is probably only a handful of people who actually understand what is happening at any moment. The drama at the very end when world leaders start their horse-trading will be genuinely dramatic, but no one will actually see it take place."

[Read the full article]

Zip Code Map

2009-12-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

Just a cool little visualization experiment by Robert Kosara over at Eager Eyes:

The map connects all the zip codes in the U.S. (save Hawaii and Alaska; you can view those at the original blog post) in ascending order. Although it doesn't reveal any grand meaning (it shouldn't be any surprise that clusters of zip codes remain within their given state's borders), it is kind of an interesting twist on community, regionalism, and the systems behind aging infrastructures.

Using Design Elements to Support Meaning

2009-12-04T13:52:00.001-08:00

Nice example of meaning manifested through a carefully chosen design element:

The postcard above accompanied a magazine insert encouraging breast self-examinations. I'll bet it would have been even more effective had the emboss been of an actual breast, requiring the reader to actually practice a sort of self-exam.

[via directdaily]

Perhaps I forgot to mention?

2009-12-02T12:51:00.001-08:00

Just a couple of quick, albeit shameless, plugs:

GD USA featured me in their current green issue (pictured above). You can read it online by clicking on my lovely mug (lower left corner), or download the PDF version.

"Why did your firm become interested in environmentally friendly graphic design?
One of my very first jobs included ad layout for a magazine, and in the midst of churning out these quarter-page ads for local businesses, I found myself laying out an ad for a liposuction clinic. I had a visceral reaction to this. My personal values lean toward the anti-establishment, the feminist, the progressive. I immediately knew I would have to find a balance between the commercial side of design and my own personal values if I was going to sleep at night. I don't separate environmental responsibility from social responsibility, since people and our systems are as much a part of nature as forests or climate issues; this kind of integrated approach to design really just became a survival tactic for me." [full interview]

Also, GreenBiz.com ran an article of mine on their Greener Design channel last month, focusing on Re-nourish's efforts to facilitate industry-wide change in the way designers do business:

"...Our ranking in the People's Choice Award is more than a simple endorsement of Re-nourish. It represents a challenge for working designers everywhere to reconsider the status quo's current definition of 'good design' Re-nourish believes the design industry needs to move beyond politics, personalities, aesthetics and trends, and embrace a definition of 'good design' that addresses -- in real terms -- both social and environmental impacts. This is our first and only goal." [full text]

Flickr Upload: The Argus C3 Brick

2009-11-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

I picked up this Argus C3 "brick" camera a ways back in Rhode Island, and am still in love with the manual that came with it. Based on the camera's serial number (and the stunning layout of the manual), it looks like this sucker dates to 1956.

To check out the entire manual, visit the Flickr set. Clicking on the images below will also take you there, where you can view them full-size to really appreciate the sexiness of that script font.

And then there's this film processing guide that was tucked into the camera bag:

Happy Thanksgiving to All of You Out There in Internetland

2009-11-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

Communication Breakdown

2009-11-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

When your communication strategies aren't working, you probably identify with one (or more) of the following:

Larry David vs. The Package

2009-11-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

If you're still not considering the user's experience when designing your materials, you're making a big mistake.