As passionate food freaks, it’s all too common to get caught up in the tastes and exoticism of what we are experiencing, rather than in what makes the most sense and is good. In fact, if you look at what makes something ‘gourmet’ these days, more often than not it’s the item that has taken great effort and care to produce and spent the least amount of time traveling from the farm to your table.

A good example of this in Vancouver is asparagus. Ask around and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who can tell you specifically that they’ve even tasted fresh, local asparagus. Seriously. Most of what people buy comes from Mexico or California with little thought to the seasonality, or what was done to it to get it to grow, or survive the long trip here. In contrast, the local season for asparagus is very short—a few weeks at best. If you’re not quick, and early, at the farmer’s market, you might not even realize we have an asparagus supply here!

Enter Foodtree.

Although manifest as a website and mobile app to share fresh, mouth-watering photos of food in your community in a fun and simple way, Foodtree is a philosophical and fundamental shift in our approach to understanding the where, why and how of the food we consume. If information is power, then this is one of the key ways we as consumers can control our food supply future. Until we empower ourselves in this way, organic and healthy food will remain a novelty and just slightly out of reach of the mainstream.

Yet, mainstreaming this concern about where our food comes from and what’s in it, is precisely what’s required.

Inspired by the symbols, styles and ideology of the Homesteading movement, the new identity hearkens to a simpler time of getting back to the land and a self-sufficient lifestyle. The hand-crafting and do-it-yourself ethic also produced a unique aesthetic evocative of an era past, but also in resurgence.

Our future may very well lie in the successful merger of a new integration of technology with the sustainable methods from our past. This is what Foodtree represents and the logo and its application is meant to evoke.

Used in situations where two adjacent characters would bump into each other, there are two types of ligatures, standard ligatures and discretionary ligatures.

Most people are acquainted with the ampersand, the celebrity of the ligature world, but that is comparable to the ability to identify Jim Morrison–it doesn’t mean you know the entire Doors discography nor the history of Classic Rock. Knowledge of design holds a certain amount of cultural capital in our society, and although some seem to have a certain proclivity for it, for most it takes effort, training and practice to speak it fluently.

We had a recent situation where a client wasn’t versed in design language and we failed to interpret. In this particular situation, the kerning (space between letters) came into question. Actually, the design had been kerned, but it was re-kerned and resubmitted only to have it returned with the same comment. As a designer being able to take criticism is a required skill, but there is no guarantee that a client has the vocabulary to communicate the issue. Resolution finally came when we switched to the telephone and were able to ask the client to point out the problem, it turned out that the “letter spacing issue” was that the “f” and “i” were touching.

It was a ligature.

To us, it was design love and attentiveness; to them, it looked like an error. We were speaking different languages. The fact that the client did not know what a ligature was flew under our radar, but had we stepped back from their initial comment and considered its context we may have saved time and irritation for us all.

So why hasn’t the ligature passed into the realm of common visual vernacular? Why don’t they feel as natural to clients as layouts designed with the golden ratio? One reason ligatures have not saturated the designscape is that in recent history many typefaces did not included them, so the designer had to choose to change faces, or create them by hand. However, with the dominance of OpenType, this seems to be a problem of the past as many typefaces are equipped with a large variety ligatures. Another force working against the pervasiveness of the ligature is the designer’s nightmare–the dreaded word processing program. Fortunately, fixes have been created for Pages and you can now choose to “use ligatures” and Microsoft Word 2010 has added support for OpenType ligatures, (for help enabling them you can find a tutorial here).

Technical functionality is not the only hinge when it comes to ligature use; personal taste is also a factor. To some, the use of ligatures is on par with the choice of serif or sans. With roots in early writing, some see ligatures as carrying a certain rare elegance, adding class and refinement to text. On the opposing side, some view them as antiquated, traditional and superfluous. Lovers of the ligature will argue that they are not merely ornamental, but efficient, replacing two letters with one and simultaneously increasing legibility–exuding the modern ideals of form following function.

Ligatures are a decision that every designer must make for themselves. To me, they are something special; so efficient, so thoughtful, so graceful, so salacious–and when I come upon them in life, I can’t help but smile, as I imagine two letters making love.

So we pose the question to you, are ligatures an element of typographic style you cannot live without? Should we as designers come together and create guidelines for their use? Or, are they archaic and a tradition that needs updating or better yet, to just go away?

Speaker Elliot Jay Stocks at the Interlink Conference. Photo by Steve Mynett

An edited version of the following article was published on DesignEdgeCanada.com on June 7, 2011:

Walking into the Interlink Conference felt a bit like witnessing two worlds collide. Half the audience was the hardcore designer set, with their retro haircuts and designer eyewear, the other half developers, with their nerdy t-shirts and techno-gadgets. Or was it the designers with the tees and toys and the nerds with the hipster fashion? The crowded auditorium at Capilano University was a sea of glowing Apple logos, and the line between designer and developer was so blurry it didn’t seem to matter anymore. In fact, perhaps that was the point. All of the more that 300 attendees and 15 speakers that came to Interlink Conference June 2 to 4 were there to share and learn from each other about how to make the web a better place and help people make their lives better.

Being the first ever edition of this conference format, rookie organizer Shawn Johnston opened the day by sharing his vision for Interlink, explaining that his intention was a “peer-to-peer discussion both among the attendees and between speakers and workshop leaders and the audience”.

The topic of inspiration sometimes seems ubiquitous at design conferences, but web industry veteran Denise Jacobs kicked off the conference by sharing practical tips for embedding this often elusive muse into a creative process “on demand”. Jacobs countered basic ides like ignoring our inner critic or giving ourselves permission to produce bad ideas with examples of strategies, habits and tools a web designer can use in the daily pursuit of creativity and inspiration.

“It doesn’t matter how much you like some ideas, as they may not like you back.” explained Portland’s popular and well-spoken design guru Frank Chimero. Stunning the audience by declaring he’d scrapped his planned presentation, instead talking about his personal journey, and the frustrations and revelations he encountered in his design practice. Using the metaphor of the painter stepping back from the canvas to evaluate the process itself, Chimero discussed the difference between the “how” of design (the techniques and tools we use) and the “why” (the choices we make). Chimero presented an argument that it was where these overlap that real design happens. Referencing the continuing rapid changes on the web, Chimero challenged the audience to consider that designers “don’t actually solve problems, they produce design responses” with a myriad of possibilities for most design challenges. “If we solved design problems, there would be only one Twitter client app.” joked Chimero to chuckles from the audience. “There’s a different between good work and valuable work, and we don’t have to choose.” Chimero continued “But valuable is how you get to good. The point is to make stuff to help us live better.”

The first of many UK designers was Elliot Jay Stocks, who used humour to challenge the audience to move past established Web 2.0 aesthetics with a straight-talking rant about “cheesy effects” and illogical choices so commonly made by web designers. Refreshing was Stocks’ contention that it was the obligation of serious web designers to learn the fundamentals of traditional graphic design and apply it online. “Bogged down by web design?” asked Stocks cheekily, “Then go do some print design—it’s so liberating.”

“Good design does not necessarily mean good experience”, argued New York-based designer Whitney Hess, as she explained her user experience philosophy and introduced the audience to a set of ten design principles anyone could apply in their own practice. The foundation of Hess’ approach was the notion that “user experience is the establishment of a philosophy about how to treat people,” echoing Frank Chimero’s earlier sentiment that good web design is about making people’s lives better, not just creating pretty graphics or cool effects. Through creative use of striking photography and a charming presentation style, Hess inspired many in the audience to frantically jot notes, a sure sign of a compelling conference presentation, and more than a few attendees posted tweets about how they planned to initiate a set of design principles themselves.

Still reeling from Hess’ inspirational talk, the audience next met UK-based mobile interface designer Sarah Parmenter, a straight-talking (and striking) Virgo perfectionist who claims she started designing iOS apps “because she likes surrounding herself with aesthetic things.” From the benefits of an application definition statement to a series of examples and techniques, her glossy presentation included practical tips and tricks for any web designer wanting to make the leap to designing interfaces for mobile devices—something she claims is inevitable for anyone in the web design field these days. Parmenter also emphasized the importance of respecting the user experience, a theme woven throughout the entire conference.

The most technical presentation of the day, Yahoo designer (and one of only two Canadian speakers) Jonathan Snook walked the audience through an overview of the evolution of CSS and demonstrated a series of useful techniques and tips. While not everyone in the auditorium were as engaged by this code-heavy presentation, Snook’s talk reminded all that using technologies such as HTML, CSS and JQuery is an important part of being successful as a web designer—and not nearly as daunting or awkward as in years past.

“At less than 15 years old, our industry is still young—it hasn’t even had sex yet.” began DIBI Conference producer and English web designer Gavin Elliot. He certainly got the attention of those in the auditorium, but it didn’t get much better unfortunately. His presentation, called “A Better Process” was billed as an intro to web design process which we could put into action to make our own work better than ever. “We don’t build websites, we build systems” was the most memorable statement in his slick presentation, while the core of Elliot’s talk lacked much practical or applicable learning suitable for this well-informed audience.

The final conference presentation was by yet another Brit, this time web designer Simon Collison. His presentation was arguably the most academic, rooted in the fundamentals of visual language as he discussed applying a more analytical approach to content and structure and how they affect the choices we make as designers. “The influx of type choices online requires us to think smarter about type design choices” argued Collison, echoing the sentiments of Ethan Dunham and others. His contention that static web design, versus adaptive or responsive web layout resonated with numerous attendees who could be overheard discussing ways to make their own interface designs more flexible.

Still buzzing from a jam-packed day of conference presentations, attendees returned to Capilano University on Saturday for hands on workshops by industry experts. Simon Collison continued his theme of the importance of visual language with his “Analytical Design” workshop, explaining some of the science and meaning behind the decisions we make and offering ideas and methods for improving design process. Canadian Steve Fisher, who argued that there isn’t any fundamental difference between UX and design, gave attendees practical tips on how to spend more time examining the reasons and motivations behind the functions and interfaces we create. “I’m in the process of blowing out at least 30% of my process because I think it has been lying to myself, stakeholders and other team members.” Fisher explained. “Things like static wireframes essentially lie.” Wrapping up the workshops was a pragmatic, no-hype introduction to HTML5 by Manchester-based developer and Opera Web Evangelist Patrick Lauke. ”HTML5 is a huge topic.” says Lauke, “People use it to refer to “really cool shit” for everything that is out there.” explaining that HTML5 is still basically a proposition under development, but in the final stages of review for W3C recommendation. “What people think of as HTML5 is most often javascript or CSS3.” explained Lauke. Attendees were treated to an overview of this new specification along with some useful training in new syntax/semantics, improved form interactivity, and the “flash-killer” features like native support in browsers for video, audio and canvas.

Aside from a few comments about the inconvenience of the venue location in North Vancouver, and the mayhem of the Stanley Cup playoffs (go Canucks!) interfering with some social activities, Interlink successfully delivered on its promise of bringing thought leaders together from all over the world to spark discussion and debate regarding the evolving and constantly changing face of the web. One group of attendees chatting over drinks on Saturday night discussed a longing to see more real-world project case studies and panel discussions next year. ”Apart from a few hard to follow and slightly obscure talks, I was thoroughly impressed with the level of quality of the discussions.” offered Calgary-based designer and developer Matt Trienis. ”Lately, I’ve been feeling like I need to step up my game, and Interlink really confirms that.” said Vancouver web designer Catherine Winters.

Congratulations to Shawn Johnston and his volunteers for hosting the first of what will surely be many more successful Interlink Conferences.

Photos from the conference can be on Flickr.

The Interlink Conference started with designers dodging balls

The following article was published on DesignEdgeCanada.com on June 2, 2011:

Web design veteran Shawn Johnston was frustrated by a lack of local forums for progressive conversation and collaboration aimed at propelling the web from a new industry into a mature and self aware craft. His response to this angst was the Interlink Conference, which launched this week with a dodgeball game. That’s right, dozens of the best and brightest in the field of web design and development from around the world kicked off what Johnston calls “an adult conference for serious adults” by throwing rubber balls at each other’s heads.

Taking place June 2 through 4 at Capilano University  in North Vancouver, the Interlink Conference website promised “discussions to inspire the web we imagine”. But aren’t there already a bunch of conferences with a similar mandate?

“SXSW was a disaster for me,” said Steve Megitt, a web designer from Toronto. “To me most conferences like SXSW or HOW feel more like hero worship with designers on stage showing off portfolio work more than a real learning or dialogue and debate opportunity.” This sentiment was echoed by others at the conference who felt that many large conferences have evolved into big parties better suited to industry juniors than anything suitable for a seasoned professionals seeking new connections and paradigms.

“My body is sore all over from dodgeball last night,” said designer Dan Rubin who kicked off the workshops on a rainy Thursday morning with a presentation about hands-on prototyping and user testing. The primary takeaway of this case study-based presentation seemed to be a focus on designing for user goals before company goals as an approach. In another popular workshop, Washington DC-based designer Samantha Warren lead a group through her approach to working successfully (and efficiently) with web clients. “She presented really well and gave awesome advice & tools” said recent interactive design grad Stephan Rosger. One notable example of this was Warren’s “style tile” approach of rapidly creating multiple examples of colour options, patterns, button styles, navigation treatments, and typographic possibilities on a single browser page. Inspired by swatch boards commonly used by architectural and interior designers, these early conceptual style tiles allow a client to consider and approve early expressions of mood, tone and style for their website design before much time has been invested in a particular interface design, essentially eliminating the need for multiple design mockups.

In another classroom across the beautiful Capilano University campus among the trees, a packed room of eager webbys hung on every word from Brooklyn-based designer Meagan Fisher. Attendees to Fisher’s workshop were treated to a peek into a master’s CSS toolkit, showing the power and capabilities of CSS beyond common simple effects. Fisher, who famously argues that web designers should literally ditch Photoshop (gasp), demonstrated in real time how to design rapid prototypes directly inside a web browser, where changes can happen quickly and evolve to better suit user needs or project parameters as they come into focus. Her argument is that not only is it faster with some practice, but leaves your developer with a solid framework for production without needing to slice and dice pixels.

As the gloomy rain gave way to a beautiful Vancouver sunset, webfont expert Ethan Dunham  closed the day with a workshop called Web Font Revolution. Dunham, who is the man behind
FontSquirrel.com and FontSpring.com, presented a three-hour crash course on the history of webfonts and demonstrated that web designers have essentially run out of excuses for bad type online, with nearly 100% support for webfonts and the technology to deliver and create them. Even so, he explained why it is continues to be a challenge to render fonts well in Windows, and encouraged attendees to join him in pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and demanding greater simplification of the current fractured licensing landscape. Shocking to many in the audience was Dunham’s disdain for fonts-as-service providers such as Fonts.com and Typekit. “Users should be trusted and offered webfonts the way desktop fonts have always been sold” argues Dunham. Dunham concluded with a challenge to the audience to take the time to learn the art and rules of beautiful typesetting and apply them to the web better than has been the recent norm.

“My goal with Interlink was to connect peers to peers rather than teachers sharing their wisdom with a room full of students.” says Shawn Johnston, “No craft is ever mastered.
We are all students.” Perhaps this youthful perspective is what motivated Johnston to kick off the conference with a game of dodgeball. Will the main conference day of presentations truly break down this teacher/student paradigm? We’ll see in the coming days. But the theme seems to have been embodied in the first day of this new conference with ideas and techniques delivered like a dodgeball thump to the head. Only in this game, everyone goes home a winner.

For more on the Interlink Conference.

I’m basically a print designer, and even though I have done web design I worried that they would be “talking in code” and I’d be lost. I was pleasantly surprised—the presenters who showed some code did it in a way that I could understand. Even Eric Meyer’s chat on “CSS for evil” was presented in a way that made sense to the print designers like me!

Monday morning started with AEA founder Jeffrey Zeldman giving a history of Emoticons. From the simple smiley face to winking emoticons with hats and mustaches to the difference between eastern and western styles, we were impressed with Zelman’s vast knowledge.

Just joking :)

Seriously, you know that the next two days are going to be great when you hear things like “Beautiful no longer means flash-based.” Zeldman’s passionate opening on the history of the web—Web 2.0—set the tone of the conference. He kicked off AEA by showing inventions from history that led to the web, and showing why we stand at the dawn of a newer and more mature web powered by standards.

Following Zeldman, we heard from Sarah Parmenter on Crafting the User Experience. She discussed principles from human psychology, such as speed, simplicity, surprise, social behavior and stirring emotions, and she gave practical advice for using psychology when thinking about web design and user experience.

Rounding out the morning was Jason Santa Maria’s session On Web Typography. He began by talking about what makes a good web typeface and major typography considerations, such as dimensions, special features, prolonged reading and internationalization. “Good typography is invisible. Don’t make me think about reading, just let me read!” Then he talked about the advances and choices we now have with web fonts. Even though those advances are exciting, he cautioned, we still have to use good design and web standards.

The afternoon started with Scott Berkun talking about Why Designers Fail and What to Do About It. He gave us his thoughts on how we’d never learn and move forward without failure. He said all designers fail 95% of the time, but design suffers from a lack of failure analysis—how to look at the reasons we fail and what to do about it.

One of my favourite sessions was A Content Strategy Roadmap with Kristina Halvorson. She provided valuable insights into how we spend a lot of time on strategy, wireframes and design before obtaining content for our websites. Content often comes last, when it should come first. The bottomline: “Start designing from the content out, rather that the canvas in,” she said.

Finishing off the day was Luke Wroblewski, whose presentation Mobile Web Design Moves left me eager for his full-day mobile web design course. It was exciting to hear about the huge growth in mobile usage, the immense possibilities of mobile web design and how we need to think differently when designing for mobile devices.

Day two started off with Eric Meyer and his talk The CSS3 Anarchists’ Cookbook. Basically, he gave us tips and tricks on how to use CSS for “evil”—how to mess with your co-workers by changing up code in their browser’s user stylesheets. I was a little scared of this talk, but whenever Eric showed the code he showed examples of what it did so it made sense. It was a cheeky way to show the new tools in HTML5 and CSS3.

Jeremy Keith followed with a discussion of Design Principles. He talked about how your principles and design should match, and how this will help you reach your goals—“The more you can boil down your design principles, the better.” Aarron Walter then did a presentation titled Idea to Interface. It was great to learn how those iPhone apps you have in your mind would translate from just an idea into actuality. He said you need to give yourself permission to be the person with the idea, and he outlined how you would carry it through.

The afternoon continued with Andy Clarke and his presentation Smoke Gets in Your Eyes about CSS3 web animation. We learned about the latest CSS animation techniques, and he showed some entertaining videos, such as the Flash vs. Web rap battle.

Alexa Andrzejewski, the founder of Foodspotting, followed with an intriguing presention The Dimensions of a Good Experience. She talked about evaluating experiences using 10 principles from urban planning, and how these same qualities could be applied to digital experiences—“Design influences our experience of the world.” It was the process that led her to create the Foodspotting app.

Finishing off day two was the humourous and incredibly passionate Tom Coates talking about Everything the Network Touches. He reminded us all about how exciting and powerful the web is and how the network is not only extending to people but to objects and places. His final thought: “I am going to say something controversial: I don’t think we should have web standards. It’s only with the ability to explore and not be bound by rules and regulations that we going to create and discover new realms.”

With our minds on overload from these two days we headed into day three, Mobile Web Design with Luke Wroblewski. Again, I had no reason to worry that we’d be doing something super techincal. It was all digestible information. Talking to a crowd of 300, Luke did a great job of getting us to interact with him and each other. He started by asking the audience what we’d like to learn. We also did a few interactive projects by sharing in small groups. Throughout the day, Luke took us through the major considerations when designing for mobile: what the constraints are, stats on usage, what behaviours drive the use of mobile devices and how they are used.

AEA, you know how to throw a conference: 12 exceptionally fantastic speakers, a live Twitter feed, three parties and a soundtrack! If you’re looking to attend a fun web design conference that runs seamlessly with loads of exciting and passionate people, check out An Event Apart. Having attended many design conferences I found AEA to be among one of the best experiences I’ve had. I went from not knowing anything about this conference to coming back with practical experience and tools ready to be put to use in our office.

Further reading:
A List Apart
World Wide Web Consortium
Luke Wroblewski’s Notes on AEA Presentations

WHERE

Ledalite, is a Phillips-owned company that creates ergonomic lighting products and technologies for commercial and institutional markets across North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

With a growing consumer demand for LED (light emitting diode) fixtures and a general perception that LED represents the technology of the future, Ledalite saw an opportunity to leverage its position as the industry’s leading innovator of architectural lighting to bring LED to their latest product. Dubbed JUMP, this product would position Ledalite as the preeminent player in this emerging technology. Following our past work on Float and Airwave we were asked to take design lead for the overall look and feel of the product and design the brochure for this International product launch.

IDEAS

Design began using the working name for the product, something that is always a challenge since this is a critical component to the conceptual development of the piece. As such, specific product attributes such as the translucent ribbed lens and unique perforation options of the product figured prominently as inspiration for the brochure design.

In addition, though the mandate was to break free of the standard Ledalite brochure look, there were to be some corporate brand and mandatory content elements we’d have to conform to.

WORK

Often in past brochures, we had to work with standard photography of the product shot dead-on or in a standard three-quarter foreshortened view. Not this time. We worked with local photographer Joe Borelli to create a series of abstract images and photographic textures, pattern and rhythm we could weave into a story in the establishing pages of the piece, and throughout. Layering this photography with the visual and tactile texture of Classic Columns paper (to mimic JUMP’s lens), diecutting and vibrant pink as the product brand colour, brought a distinctive and unique feel to the brochure not seen in any previous Ledalite launch.

Our work led the way for advertising in top design magazines such as Architect, Architectural Record, Form, Architectural SSL and LD+A, and a 4,000 piece dimensional direct marketing campaign.

JUMP was introduced to the world in January 2011 to over 6,000 architects, lighting designers, engineers, and others to great success. JUMP has also been internationally recognized for product innovation and design evidenced by winning a Red Dot Design Award and Architectural SSL Product Innovation Award.

There’s something happily surreal about sipping on your morning coffee and reading the newspaper when you stumbled across a story about a client’s success story. Very nice indeed.

A few years ago we designed the logo, brand identity system and website for a proposed state of the art sports training, medicine and therapy complex in Burnaby called The MultiSport Centre of Excellence. After years of delays, the construction has finally begun with a ground-breaking ceremony.

Congratulations to all involved in the project!

Our firm is entering its 15th year, and despite being frequently hailed as successful design industry veterans, my partner Ben and I often feel like we have much to learn—both personally and professionally—hence our recently joining The Association of Professional Design Firms (APDF). The Leadership Forum in Santa Monica was our first exposure to the group, and we were uncertain what to expect or even how we’d fit into this established community.

The warm weather and beautiful hotel near the beach made for an idyllic setting for this type of event, requiring us to step out of our reality and objectively consider our business situation and personal leadership styles and management approaches. From the moment we joined the group for cocktails on the first day and met the group, we knew we were among like-minded peers.

The materials presented by Dr. Henry Cloud and the discussions during breakout sessions can be classified into two categories for us. The first being things that re-contextualize how we look at situations/people/ourselves and our company. The second being tools or strategies that we can apply that will allow us to more effectively manage our people, company—even ourselves personally.

Considering how our past experiences contribute to how we react to situations, and the notion that consideration of the wake you leave behind (like a boat) forces you to make adjustments as you move forward seems mildly obvious in hindsight, but it was a good reminder for us. And the idea that only by making colleagues understand that you understand (them and the situation) will you create trust and establish credibility with people was a terrific reminder that a human approach, including really listening and acting with humility, are key characteristics of successful leaders. This, combined with the idea that highly successful leaders spend a considerable portion of their time training and coaching team members and not only encourage failure in their staff, but require it of them, left us wondering how we could incorporate this into our own studio management practices.

The lessons surrounding differentiating between “urgent” items versus “vital” ones hit home for both of us, as we both tend to get caught up in the daily distractions as critical tasks gather dust on our to do lists. Similarly, the analogy of “pruning” in business, the leadership trait of successfully removing stuff getting in the way of results like pruning a rose bush so it can flourish, was something that excited us. This idea, combined with every leader’s need to fight the natural urge to avoid confrontation and negative issues, choosing instead to deal with them more proactively are aspects of our own management styles that we’ll want to spend more time considering and improving.

Dr. Henry Cloud’s sessions reminded us of the wisdom of another wise management guru, David C. Baker, who encourages firm leaders to work ON their businesses as much as working IN them. But Dr. Cloud’s wisdom was timely and poignant, reinforcing for us that beyond the cunning business strategies and due diligence available to us as entrepreneurs, our leadership styles could include more human expressions of love and appreciation for our team, involve more one-on-one communication and coaching, and involve a renewed dedication to taking appropriate risks and action when necessary as we steer our business forward. In some ways it was a shame that the leadership forum couldn’t be over a full weekend, allowing more time to discuss strategies and learn and practical tools that could be applied in our business back home.

We stayed an extra day to explore Santa Monica and visit a couple friends in the area, which turned out to be a smart choice as the forum left our heads spinning a little, and we never actually spoke about the topics discussed and lessons learned until we returned home.

As our first APDF exposure begins to fade to memory, both Ben and I feel great about the experience and satisfied with the value and outcomes. Besides enjoying a much-needed break and the pleasantries of being welcomed into the group by friendly, experienced professionals we can certainly learn from, it was nice to connect with many design professionals in similar situations to ours that we could share our experiences with and perhaps even assist ourselves. As they say, you often only get out what you put in, so we’re looking forward to contributing to APDF as much as benefiting from it.

The below opinion article was featured Applied Arts Magazine’s website in November 2010:

Design is in chaos, and leadership is sorely lacking.

It’s time for those with the ability to take the reins of power and haul the industry into the modern world.

So often I hear experienced design professionals tell younger designers to get involved or join the local chapter of a design association. Good advice, right? Of course it is.

Wait a minute. I’ve been heavily involved in our national design association for almost a decade now, and when I look at the best and brightest in our field, most of them are not even part of that community. Not only do the experienced among us generally not lend their time and energy as leaders, but most don’t even see the value of membership. What the deuce?

We all love to wax poetic about “back in the day” (a term I only now feel old enough to use), but it’s scary how much things have changed in the last 20 years. Another phrase I find myself using these days is “in the real world,” when talking to design students about the realities of what we deal with in our day-to-day profession. It occurs to me that I haven’t been giving my students the whole story about our industry. And it occurs to me that the opportunities for learning, networking and advancement via design associations aren’t what they used to be.

Enough of that. We need to tear down the walls of complacency and lead by example.

Times Are Changing

When I entered this profession, the designers I learned from illustrated with brushes and paint, drew typefaces by hand and set type on a Linotype machine. Looking back, it felt like at that moment (1989) everything began to suddenly change. I remember the fear and trepidation so many of us felt as we realized how much of our training was already obsolete. Thankfully, we brought with us new skills and perspectives as well as our classical training, and together with the established pros, we forged ahead, evolved, and kept the design community afloat.

But times are changing once again. And nobody likes change. It’s scary as hell. But change is a constant in the design field—like it or not.

Some say that Canada’s reputation as a leader in our field has waned. Many argue vehemently that design has radically evolved beyond “graphic,” with designers around the globe adopting a new perspective and identity. And yet despite all this, Canadian graphic design associations cling desperately to old paradigms, terminology and mandates.

It’s time we told the younger designers entering the highly competitive (and saturated) communication design industry the truth about what skills they’re going to need to thrive—or even survive.

Stop Whining

I’m guilty of it too, but really—let’s grow up. I’m about as sick of hearing about spec contests and crowd-sourcing as I am talking about it. And the debate over what we call ourselves and describe what we do? An important discussion, but god I’m bored of it.

Sure, we can stomp our feet in protest every time a government ministry engages in a practice we view as disrespectful, but have those that represent us adequately secured the attention of Canada’s federal government, educating and collaborating with them? Not so much. Have regional association chapters stepped in front of the various legislative assemblies in the provinces across Canada? Nope. Have we even reached out to our local boards of trade with the message of the value we bring to business through design? Not to my knowledge.

The reality is, the immaturity with which we’re viewed will never go away if all we do is whine about everything among ourselves, resorting to the equivalent of shooting spitballs from the sidelines. And seriously, do you think the best and brightest among us get caught up in discussions about what they call themselves? Or about the quality of typeface choices in James Cameron’s latest movie or how much they love or hate the latest logo designed by Peter Arnell? Of course not. Who cares? Are we artists or are we business strategists? Or perhaps both? Do we really even know anymore?

We need to start looking beyond the ivory tower of design. There are more issues at hand than the improper use of Trajan.

The Associations Are Failing Designers

It’s been an exciting few years in the design industry. But when I look at the broader industry and the leadership within its ranks, I am ashamed. The associations are bursting at the seams with young designers, but there is an embarrassingly low percentage of experienced, successful design professionals among our leadership ranks.

For the most part, Canada’s best designers don’t seem to understand the value of membership anymore, let alone feel compelled to step up and volunteer their expertise, intelligence, creativity and influence.

In this time of change, made worse by economic uncertainty and the threat of overseas competition (when I was in China last year, there were nearly one million students studying design—one million), we need brave leadership, now more than ever. We don’t need the status quo, and we certainly don’t need to cling to old ways of thinking, trying to rebuild cosmetic meaning in an industry that has fundamentally changed.

What we need is unity. Let’s be honest with ourselves, Canada’s national graphic design association isn’t really national at all. Until old differences are set aside and Ontario and Quebec properly join the leadership of this industry, we’re going to be burdened by fractured administration and provincial thinking. If we want to truly make change, we need to quit bickering and navel-gazing, band together and get to work.

There are a growing number of professionals in our field who believes that unless our national association radically alters its trajectory, the only answer is to form a new group. This is a risky approach that would mean discarding more than 50 years of history. But this is the design industry; old things die and new things are created in their place. I’m not sure it’s the right path, but at least somebody’s making an effort—and if things don’t change soon, I’ll be right there with them.

Designers Are Failing The Associations

Most of these well-known designers who have abandoned the associations have elevated themselves beyond the level of merely producing graphics. They’ve acquired business acumen, expanded their professional networks and accumulated significant influence. They’re too busy producing results for their clients to get caught up in issues that don’t seem to relate to them anymore. Few of these successful designers turn their attention, time and energy to leading the Canadian design industry forward.

To fix this, there needs to be constant change at the head of our national organization. There should be a number of candidates in the running for leadership positions. No one should be able to park in a position for years on end and win the same spot by default. Change is healthy for an organization, and I would argue it’s required to keep our broader industry evolving and moving forward.

We need leaders who won’t get caught up complaining about how little money the association has, but who will set in motion a plan to fix that. We need leaders who not only recognize the importance of getting our message in front of big business and government, but who have the experience doing this already—successfully. We need leaders who have evolved beyond graphic design.

So where are these leaders?

I suspect that most of the really influential designers in Canada have become distracted by the allure of fame. Many designers who could bring a lot to the table have opted instead to self-promote, pursuing speaking engagements at design conferences and/or publishing books of their ramblings or works, instead of giving back to their industry in its time of need. Many will offer their design services and create posters, reports, even websites for the promotional opportunities, but these often seem more in the service of exposure in their quest to become the next Sagmeister. Good for those who enjoy this kind of professional success and notoriety, but what about those who follow? Who will be their mentors?

So this is a call to those who have “arrived” and enjoyed success in their design careers. Instead of merely becoming opinion shapers worshipped by young designers, these leaders should step forward and use their experience, position and influence to create real, positive change.

Winners Don’t Make Excuses

By now, many of you are probably thinking, “He has a point. If we want things to improve, we need to put in the work. But I just don’t have the time.” Hogwash.

This issue has been on my mind a lot lately as I consider my own future as a volunteer leader within the Canadian design community. I too have struggled to find a balance between running my own busy design studio and serving on the executive board of my local design association chapter. I recently posted a thread to Facebook that read, “Why do most of Canada’s best and brightest senior designers refuse to serve their national professional association?” I wasn’t surprised by responses claiming successful designers are busy, sometimes timid and often even elitist, but seriously, give me a break. This is not the time for timidity or elitism.

I’m not negating the importance of family commitment or life balance, and we all understand the need to focus time and energy on work itself, but I asked why the upper tier of designers is absent. From my perspective, the people at the top of this game are always busy, but they’re also extremely efficient, tremendous problem solvers and often have deep resources.

The responses that resonated most with me were those centred around the confusion about the value of design associations, which seem to be run by the “old guard” (a term that makes me cringe), which has collectively lost a sense of the state of the industry. Many senior designers replied that they have little interest in lending their talents to a community that still calls themselves graphic designers—a term few of those at the top use any more. And finally, some argued that the way the design industry networks and supports itself has changed and become much more fluid, global and instant, using online tools such as Behance, Cargo Collective, LinkedIn, QBN and Motionographer.

Fine. Things have changed. We can all sit behind our computer screens and feel a sense of community via our Facebook pages or LinkedIn groups, but that’s not community. We need leadership. We need those who’ve come before us to guide and mentor us by sharing their tricks of the trade. We also need those who are enjoying success in the newer areas of expertise, such as interaction design, user experience design and brand design. They can bring to the table their unique experiences, so those who still think like graphic designers can look at the bigger picture and expand their ideas of what we do.

We need winners to put their hands up and say, “It’s my turn—allow me to help out for a while.” Just imagine how many new designers could be inspired to band together as a community if even 10 or 20 influential design leaders stepped forward to compete for a term on the executive board of our national design association?

I’m aware that my ideas don’t jibe with everyone’s point of view, but I believe in the power of design. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a coalition of the best of the design industry can bring about radical positive change, once again positioning Canada as the bright North Star of design leadership it once was.

To do that, walls need to be broken down, and tough decisions made. It’s time to tell the next generation the truth about the mess we’re leaving them, and work with them to build a better future for us all.

Will you join me?