Fish celebrating Christmas underwater, with kelp Christmas lights around a coral tree and all.

Because deadlines tend to wrap up at the end of the year and clients simmer down, December provides me time to design/illustrate this Christmas card for our fellow offices and clients, and for all of you too. In case I don’t get around to updating during the holidays, enjoy this e-card with an image of how I imagine fish celebrate Christmas under the sea. Merry early Christmas and Happy New Year!

According to New York designer, Dan Cassaro,

“There are two types of designers: Lennons and McCartneys. As a John Lennon, you create work that is message-driven, stark and serious, but you run the risk of seeming pretentious and/or naïve. (In John Lennon’s defense, he was unfortunately married to the world’s worst art director.) To be a Paul McCartney, on the other hand, means creating beautiful, meticulously crafted graphic design pop music, heavy on style but light on content. While either can be successful on its own (I fucking love Wings), the best design employs both ideology and style. (See: popular music group “The Beatles”).”

I reference this because I am a big Beatles fan, and Cassaro’s tip (#5. entitled Suck It, Yoko from 1000 Tips from 100 Graphic Designers) made me wonder. Knowing the music John and Paul had each written, I imagined their songs transformed into posters or brochures and it did seem clear to me. (It almost seemed like fine art vs. design, but that’s just in my head perhaps.) Since George Harrison is my favorite Beatle, I’ll have to say I’m neither a Lennon or a McCartney, and that’s perfectly fine with me.

Catch all of Dan Cassaro’s 10 tips here.

Moving Brands/ Moving World from Moving Brands on Vimeo.
A piece by independent brand agency, Moving Brands.

It visually describes how I have been thinking/feeling lately, which is not uncommon in graphic design. Keeping up with society’s desires and ideas of what is good design vs. what is successful design from a designer’s point of view is repeatedly overwhelming. When you learn one thing, how long does it have ’til it becomes obsolete? Perhaps that’s why innovation is so sought after. One step ahead.

Speaking of repetition, my little brother and I had an interesting conversation last night while watching Family Guy (which, for some reason, causes one to think a great deal). We wondered if everything humans had ever made had already been made a previous time, but buried beneath oceans and earth, destroyed in war, and covered in ice and that this whole thing called technology–mobile connections, social networking, internet–is a process we constantly try to outdo each time it’s been done and redone? Or, what if this happens one day?

It reminds me of design. It’s an ongoing process, headache and adventure all rolled into one… one work day, one project, one cycle. How and when will ideas become recycled, or bad trends become ‘retro’? Picasso said, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” With all these influences, access, and guidelines when will stealing be all there is left to do? Is stealing a facet of innovation? Whatever the answers may be, change never ends.

I never usually post about my job, let alone talk about it when the clock hits 3:30, but today, I sat back and realized (even more so) that art does have a function–contrary to popular belief.

Today I am officially, well, discombobulated (like people at Milwaukee airport after security). Designing for one of the largest marine research organizations in the world in the daytime, and working freelance for musicians, photographers and all around art lovers in my free time is natural to me. I can separate the two–leaving work at work, and freelance at home. But, today, oh today, I felt like I was a Biology major again (which I was, for a short stint).

Site mock-ups and revisions in their very early stages. Long, long process.

I’ve been designing a website for salmon monitoring (then eating salmon when i get home… does that correlate?), creating 75+ illustrations for a climate change textbook, designing a flow diagram for a really complex system, and designing a logo that involves, yes, more fish. It’s all great fun, but what’s more, knowing that art has a function (as most complainers argue that it does not beyond selfish ones), makes me leave the studio at the end of the day happy that some people can realize the value in good visual communication. It’s not about money and how much one’s time costs–it’s all about what you need to say, and how you’re going to say it successfully.

Just something to think about.

Today’s quote: “It starts with an air pump connected to a condensing coil, that connects to a water removal unit, two drying columns, a particle filter, releasing CO2 free air which enters Air MFC’s through three backflow prevention valves. Then, here is the MFC DAQ that connects to a computer that connects to 5 Solenoid Valves, a flow meter and a CO2 Analyzer.”

Sure. I’ll draw that.