This quote from the San Francisco Sentinel:
“I have guys coming in here saying, ‘I don’t want to look like a banker anymore,’ ” said Eric Goldstein, an owner of Jean Shop, a premium denim store in the meatpacking district. He is now dispensing advice on how to look like a “creative professional.”
Yess!!! My advice to all those bankers wanting to look like creative professionals -- don't worry about stripes and checks and blazers and all of those things the article goes on to recommend for the man looking to move his wardrobe with the times, all you need are rumpled clothes, preferably black or obviously purchased at the thrift shop. And hair that looks stylishly unwashed. And a bit of a louche attitude always comes in handy and makes a great excuse for giving unsound advice. And let's not forget the hobby-attire-at-work thing (biking shorts, hiking boots, surf shirts, rasta hat, beret, the list goes on.)
Also useful are very odd tennis shoes - I saw a great pair on a friend yesterday, japanese plastic in an intense shade of turquoise green. Strange jewelry helps, as do the still-popular geek chic glasses, and it's best if nothing coordinates in any way. It will distract your audience and make them wonder about your hidden depths.
I will say on Martha's Vineyard there is a lot less black in the creative professional's wardrobe -- instead we all, regardless of profession, go for Vineyard Casual, which tends to be some version of LL Bean golf shirt or top, jeans/khakis/capris, and comfy outdoors footwear, the expense and condition of the aforementioned typically varying widely depending upon whom one is trying not to impress.
Vineyard Casual is a look that can be taken from the garden to dog walking to a meeting with a client and then out for dinner, and has even been seen at formal events with the addition of an ill-fitting jacket. The scent of mothballs permeates many gatherings, particularly if journalists have been invited.
We do seem to have come to an odd clash of cultures, however, if the financial set is hoping to camoflauge themselves in the gear of the stereotypically disaffected. Now what will we creative types do to retaliate, starch our Deathcab for Cutie t-shirts? Obsess about which Bruno Magli loafers best complement our cargo shorts?
I think not. Instead we should unmask the pretenders and return to them their three-piece suits and prefolded pocket squares. It is the sole right of a creative professional to wear mountain climbing gear to work (including crampons and back country pack) and no ne'er-do-well banker can usurp that. Only a creative professional can be allowed to wear fan-boy t-shirts advertising any one of the (preferably early) Star Trek movies across his expansive belly - no financier shall dilute this bold proclamation with his funky madras wanna-be attire!
May 23, 2009
May 17, 2009
Non-profits, quit asking artists and graphic designers for handouts!
This month I've been approached by four non-profits asking me to do work for them. The island is chock-a-block with people coming up with ways to help others and the intent is admirable.
What isn't so admirable is an assumption on the part of SOME of these non-profits that they are entitled to have the considerable work needed to market and brand the organization done for free.
Regardless of the tax status of the organization, I expect every enterprise I deal with to run themselves in a business-like manner. Whether or not some or most of their income is derived from donations has nothing to do with me. I offer reasonable rates and try to give the best value I can across the board, should the business be large or small, tax-exempt or not.
It's one thing for a cause to capture my attention and create the desire in me to help out by way of my graphic design services. If I am already involved in the organization and can help out in that manner, I may well offer to do so. It's quite another to feel guilted into providing these services for a discount simply due to the non-profit status of an organization. In my opinion all non-profits are not created equal; some are far more necessary to our health, education and well-being as a society than others.
The most miniscule of for-profit companies understands that I am a small business as well, and that mutual respect for each other's labors will create a useful product which can be used to generate business long into the future. I have never had a single small business owner ask me to work for free, nor would I ask the same of them.
There's no sin in figuring out a way to generate profit for a group via goods and services. In fact it will make potential donors even happier to contribute if they can see that the means of support does not rely on begging.
This year in particular non-profits that have been badly managed and leaking money for years are in panic mode as the ship quickly sinks. How much better it would have been for them to have operated with a proper business strategy which included funds for marketing and advertising, for recruiting and retaining talented help, for not over-working the dedicated volunteers, and most importantly, made sure that the organization was actually offering something of value.
Donor's pockets are more shallow this year. They want to know what's in it for them, and rightly so. If a non-profit can't answer that question perhaps they need to rethink their overall strategy. Is there another way to meet their goals and provide greater satisfaction and return overall? The answer for most businesses of all types is usually 'yes'.
Along these lines I would love to see those soliciting donations for fundraising auctions leave artists out of the picture. Solicit local businesses to enter into strategic parnerships with mutually beneficial outcomes, rather than burdening the people least likely to benefit from having their work sell for lower-than-market value. Why it is assumed that artists are happy to work for free is beyond me. Leave it to the individual artist to offer their services and treasure their contribution if they do.
Two of the four non-profits by whom I was approached are now doing business with me. I asked for their budgets and we are working within them, and in all likelihood I will spend extra time on their projects as I do on so many for my clients to get them going in the right direction.
To the other two non-profits who were miffed at being asked to pay for my time and expertise, even though the end result would have helped them increase their own coffers via decent marketing strategy and consistent branding, I ask that you not waste my fellow designers time by taking your requests to them.
Get someone in-house to put your materials together, and when you can afford to get professional help, have the decency to let the suggestion of a discounted rate come from your supplier and leave the outstretched palm for your hapless donor base.
What isn't so admirable is an assumption on the part of SOME of these non-profits that they are entitled to have the considerable work needed to market and brand the organization done for free.
Regardless of the tax status of the organization, I expect every enterprise I deal with to run themselves in a business-like manner. Whether or not some or most of their income is derived from donations has nothing to do with me. I offer reasonable rates and try to give the best value I can across the board, should the business be large or small, tax-exempt or not.
It's one thing for a cause to capture my attention and create the desire in me to help out by way of my graphic design services. If I am already involved in the organization and can help out in that manner, I may well offer to do so. It's quite another to feel guilted into providing these services for a discount simply due to the non-profit status of an organization. In my opinion all non-profits are not created equal; some are far more necessary to our health, education and well-being as a society than others.
The most miniscule of for-profit companies understands that I am a small business as well, and that mutual respect for each other's labors will create a useful product which can be used to generate business long into the future. I have never had a single small business owner ask me to work for free, nor would I ask the same of them.
There's no sin in figuring out a way to generate profit for a group via goods and services. In fact it will make potential donors even happier to contribute if they can see that the means of support does not rely on begging.
This year in particular non-profits that have been badly managed and leaking money for years are in panic mode as the ship quickly sinks. How much better it would have been for them to have operated with a proper business strategy which included funds for marketing and advertising, for recruiting and retaining talented help, for not over-working the dedicated volunteers, and most importantly, made sure that the organization was actually offering something of value.
Donor's pockets are more shallow this year. They want to know what's in it for them, and rightly so. If a non-profit can't answer that question perhaps they need to rethink their overall strategy. Is there another way to meet their goals and provide greater satisfaction and return overall? The answer for most businesses of all types is usually 'yes'.
Along these lines I would love to see those soliciting donations for fundraising auctions leave artists out of the picture. Solicit local businesses to enter into strategic parnerships with mutually beneficial outcomes, rather than burdening the people least likely to benefit from having their work sell for lower-than-market value. Why it is assumed that artists are happy to work for free is beyond me. Leave it to the individual artist to offer their services and treasure their contribution if they do.
Two of the four non-profits by whom I was approached are now doing business with me. I asked for their budgets and we are working within them, and in all likelihood I will spend extra time on their projects as I do on so many for my clients to get them going in the right direction.
To the other two non-profits who were miffed at being asked to pay for my time and expertise, even though the end result would have helped them increase their own coffers via decent marketing strategy and consistent branding, I ask that you not waste my fellow designers time by taking your requests to them.
Get someone in-house to put your materials together, and when you can afford to get professional help, have the decency to let the suggestion of a discounted rate come from your supplier and leave the outstretched palm for your hapless donor base.
May 16, 2009
Elizabeth Whelan's wave t-shirts now available
First stickers, now t-shirts! We've got some new t-shirts in, featuring my wave design on khaki regular-cut tees and white women's cut tees, 100% cotton. Time to catch a wave! Click here to check out the shirts -- low-key, attractive and affordable!
This 5-color screenprint was printed by the talented folks at Liberated Images in Peabody, MA. They'd done a print I'd designed for a local organization and having worked in screenprint myself, I knew the results could run the gamut. When I saw the shirts, however, I was really pleased! And when I visited their website I found out why: these guys are artists in their own right. Their work is intense.
So when it came to getting shirts of my own and wanting all those greens to come out right, Liberated Images made that happen. Designs change subtly depending on the shirt color they're printed on (because the ink sinks into the shirt unless there's an underlayer) and the colors they mixed look great on both the white shirt and the sawdust colored khaki. Really tight registration too, and good control over gain. End result -- consistency from shirt to shirt throughout the order.
Needless to say, I'd recommend their work!
April 4, 2009
My computer dreams of electric sheep
I have to share with you the coolest screensaver I have ever seen! I watched it running on a friend's screen and immediately went and downloaded the software for my own computer.
The screensaver comes from www.electricsheep.org, named after Philip Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which was the basis for Ridley Scott's 1982 movie Bladerunner, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young.
But to call it merely a screensaver vastly under informs -- it is a program with animated and evolving fractal flames, beautiful, colorful and mesmerizing. Electric Sheep is a distributed computer software project, as this quote from the site explains:
Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver created by Scott Draves. It's run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream"...
Below are 4 screen shots of the fractals; try to imagine each one filling your screen in constant motion, and morphing from one to the next!
The download page on the Electric Sheep site states:
This program is recommended only if you have a high-bandwidth, always-on connection to the internet such as DSL or cable modem. For best results, let it run overnight to collect a whole flock. Laptop users might have to adjust their power settings to accomplish this.
However I found that with regular DSL during the workday, over a few days I was able to collect quite an assortment of sheep so that the patterns that display when my screensaver is on can be so entrancing as to not want to hit the keyboard to get back to the project! And after you have some sheep downloaded you don't need to be connected to the internet for them to play.
As you might be also, I was concerned about the possibility of viruses and went to the FAQ page to see if that was addressed. The author states that there have been no issues to date and that the Linux version was audited by a security company, however he does offer the caveat that there is always a risk when downloading software from the net.
Those of you who are so minded can even design and submit your own sheep using programs such as Apophysis which is a freeware fractal flame developer for Windows, but I am happy enough for the moment to view the lovely creations that have been developed so far. In true 'net spirit you can vote on your favorites, and thus contribute to the genetic sheep gene pool as the most popular sheep live longer and reproduce.
We've come a long way from the early Mac screensaver with the moving underwater scene that seemed so cool at the time, with flat fish blowing bubbles as they moved slowly across the screen. (I tried to find a pic of that to share with you, but evidently it is so old-school (around 1990!) that it has become a distant memory.)
The screensaver comes from www.electricsheep.org, named after Philip Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which was the basis for Ridley Scott's 1982 movie Bladerunner, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young.
But to call it merely a screensaver vastly under informs -- it is a program with animated and evolving fractal flames, beautiful, colorful and mesmerizing. Electric Sheep is a distributed computer software project, as this quote from the site explains:
Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver created by Scott Draves. It's run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream"...
Below are 4 screen shots of the fractals; try to imagine each one filling your screen in constant motion, and morphing from one to the next!
The download page on the Electric Sheep site states:
This program is recommended only if you have a high-bandwidth, always-on connection to the internet such as DSL or cable modem. For best results, let it run overnight to collect a whole flock. Laptop users might have to adjust their power settings to accomplish this.
However I found that with regular DSL during the workday, over a few days I was able to collect quite an assortment of sheep so that the patterns that display when my screensaver is on can be so entrancing as to not want to hit the keyboard to get back to the project! And after you have some sheep downloaded you don't need to be connected to the internet for them to play.
As you might be also, I was concerned about the possibility of viruses and went to the FAQ page to see if that was addressed. The author states that there have been no issues to date and that the Linux version was audited by a security company, however he does offer the caveat that there is always a risk when downloading software from the net.
Those of you who are so minded can even design and submit your own sheep using programs such as Apophysis which is a freeware fractal flame developer for Windows, but I am happy enough for the moment to view the lovely creations that have been developed so far. In true 'net spirit you can vote on your favorites, and thus contribute to the genetic sheep gene pool as the most popular sheep live longer and reproduce.
We've come a long way from the early Mac screensaver with the moving underwater scene that seemed so cool at the time, with flat fish blowing bubbles as they moved slowly across the screen. (I tried to find a pic of that to share with you, but evidently it is so old-school (around 1990!) that it has become a distant memory.)
March 29, 2009
LinkedIn - what NOT to do
It's been a festive couple of weeks around the studio what with videos being taped and prints being printed, challenging projects for clients and new technologies to work with. I've been burning the candle at both ends and this all came to a cringe-worthy head when on Tuesday I managed to pull off a real 'net faux pas!
In order to get something positive out of the awkwardness I have decided to share this story with you, as a cautionary tale! Here's an excerpt from an email I just sent to a friend, describing the situation:
LinkedIn is a business networking site, sort of a social networking for the corporate set. I maintain a profile there... When updating my profile this week I noticed that one could import one's email list and if a contact was already on LinkedIn, they could be invited to be a connection. What I didn't realize was that the imported list comes in with the email addresses pre-checked to send out an invitation, and so when I blithely selected the few people I wanted to contact and hit Send, I actually sent out a few hundred invitations, some to people who are in my address book but barely know me!
Of course in a panic I tried to withdraw the invitations, not knowing they had already been sent, thereby anyone who did want to connect with me would see their invitation had been withdrawn and wonder why... a diplomatic embarrassment to say the least! So all week I have been sorting out hurt feelings and quizzical emails from friends and strangers.
I suppose I was due for something like this; I was an early user of the Internet 'back in the day' and have always been careful of netiquette, as they call it, but with the confidence of a (sort of) expert I made a beginner's mistake.
So! The good that came out of this was that I did get in touch with some people I hadn't heard from in a while, made some new LinkedIn connections, introduced some people to LinkedIn who weren't familiar with it, and cleaned out my address book to make sure it only included people I really knew!
And thankfully in the scheme of things it could have been worse. However I did email the LinkedIn folks suggesting that they NOT let this happen to their users, and let us determine who gets invited and when. Some business contacts are not yet at a stage where it would be appropriate to extend an invitation, and an early request might actually harm rather than improve the business relationship.
So I will take my lumps on this one, and hopefully this will help YOU navigate a similar situation with better results! Being able to import your email list is a useful tool; being able to spam your address book is not.
In order to get something positive out of the awkwardness I have decided to share this story with you, as a cautionary tale! Here's an excerpt from an email I just sent to a friend, describing the situation:
LinkedIn is a business networking site, sort of a social networking for the corporate set. I maintain a profile there... When updating my profile this week I noticed that one could import one's email list and if a contact was already on LinkedIn, they could be invited to be a connection. What I didn't realize was that the imported list comes in with the email addresses pre-checked to send out an invitation, and so when I blithely selected the few people I wanted to contact and hit Send, I actually sent out a few hundred invitations, some to people who are in my address book but barely know me!
Of course in a panic I tried to withdraw the invitations, not knowing they had already been sent, thereby anyone who did want to connect with me would see their invitation had been withdrawn and wonder why... a diplomatic embarrassment to say the least! So all week I have been sorting out hurt feelings and quizzical emails from friends and strangers.
I suppose I was due for something like this; I was an early user of the Internet 'back in the day' and have always been careful of netiquette, as they call it, but with the confidence of a (sort of) expert I made a beginner's mistake.
So! The good that came out of this was that I did get in touch with some people I hadn't heard from in a while, made some new LinkedIn connections, introduced some people to LinkedIn who weren't familiar with it, and cleaned out my address book to make sure it only included people I really knew!
And thankfully in the scheme of things it could have been worse. However I did email the LinkedIn folks suggesting that they NOT let this happen to their users, and let us determine who gets invited and when. Some business contacts are not yet at a stage where it would be appropriate to extend an invitation, and an early request might actually harm rather than improve the business relationship.
So I will take my lumps on this one, and hopefully this will help YOU navigate a similar situation with better results! Being able to import your email list is a useful tool; being able to spam your address book is not.
Elizabeth Whelan on PlumTV
Here's a bit of shameless self-promotion:
Part of my studio is a storefront which I have turned into a mini-gallery for the summer, opening Thursday - Saturday, 10-5, from the end of March into October. I am displaying and selling original prints hot off the etching press: linocut, woodcut, etchings and engravings, and a wide variety of subject matter. It's a nice balance to the freelance illustration and graphic design work, and I can already see the positive effects of the printmaking on my commercial artwork.
In order to advertise the new venture I worked with the excellent video production team at PlumTV in Vineyard Haven to make a 60 second ad showing that I am 'Open For Business' and you can see it by clicking here: Elizabeth's PlumTV ad
And PlumTV also kindly asked me to be an interviewee on their 'This Week on the Vineyard' show which aired last week. This sort of attention is all new to me, as I usually try to let the art speak for itself without my interference, however the delightful host Guinevere Cramer was exactly the sort of person who can put one at ease and I had so much fun!
You can see the interview here (8 minutes) Elizabeth as guest on PlumTV
So now that you have the picture (haha) of what I am up to these days, be sure to stop by and check out the prints! I'd love your feedback and I am interested in knowing what subject matter people would like to see rendered.
Part of my studio is a storefront which I have turned into a mini-gallery for the summer, opening Thursday - Saturday, 10-5, from the end of March into October. I am displaying and selling original prints hot off the etching press: linocut, woodcut, etchings and engravings, and a wide variety of subject matter. It's a nice balance to the freelance illustration and graphic design work, and I can already see the positive effects of the printmaking on my commercial artwork.
In order to advertise the new venture I worked with the excellent video production team at PlumTV in Vineyard Haven to make a 60 second ad showing that I am 'Open For Business' and you can see it by clicking here: Elizabeth's PlumTV ad
And PlumTV also kindly asked me to be an interviewee on their 'This Week on the Vineyard' show which aired last week. This sort of attention is all new to me, as I usually try to let the art speak for itself without my interference, however the delightful host Guinevere Cramer was exactly the sort of person who can put one at ease and I had so much fun!
You can see the interview here (8 minutes) Elizabeth as guest on PlumTV
So now that you have the picture (haha) of what I am up to these days, be sure to stop by and check out the prints! I'd love your feedback and I am interested in knowing what subject matter people would like to see rendered.
March 11, 2009
Using linocut for custom artwork
I've been working on a site for Green on the Inside, a Boston based green living consulting business which offers consultations, product finding, and gives workshops and lectures. If you're looking for information about all things green, Jess Lerner is the go-to person!
We have worked together on a number of projects for her business, including her logo, and one reason she contacted me in the first place was her interest in the woodcuts she had seen on my site. So naturally she requested some custom woodcut icons for the various site categories.
I decided to use linocut as the method for this project. It's a good alternative to wood in many cases and the print would be more flat in tone. As the final art will be displayed at a small size on the web, the wood grain of a wood block would get a little lost. I prefer to use wood for larger prints where the grain can be used to good effect.
Here I have the partially cut linoleum on a work bench at home, cup of coffee at the ready! I use a number of methods to keep the blocks in place as I carve, everything from duct tape to clamps, to a very nice bench hook.
Linoleum isn't the stuff on your kitchen floor -- it's a mixture of linseed oil, cork dust, gums and other such ingredients, with a jute backing. It has been manufactured since the early 1800's and became popular as a serious artist medium more recently when Picasso and Matisse started producing linocut prints.
This was my first official commission to be printed on the etching press. I experimented with a few papers and inks, did some trial runs, and finally got the look I was going for with a nice 100% cotton paper. I have left some room on the block in case we do more icons in the future; it will be easy for me to keep the same feel that way, as I will be able to see the other icons as I work.
Sharp eyes will see that the word TOOLS is in reverse, and that I carved it as it would be read. That is not how a block is typically carved -- usually you would work in reverse. However as I am scanning in this art and can flop that digitally, I decided to take the easy way and carve the whole block so that the art would be reversed in the computer.
Many artists run a test print to check their carving however a quick way to see how things are going is to rub a pencil over a piece of paper on the block, just like a brass rubbing. It's hard to see detail but you can check your overall contrast that way.
You can see the results by visiting the Green in the Inside website! It was very satisfying to be able to use custom artwork to give her site a distinctive feel.
We have worked together on a number of projects for her business, including her logo, and one reason she contacted me in the first place was her interest in the woodcuts she had seen on my site. So naturally she requested some custom woodcut icons for the various site categories.
I decided to use linocut as the method for this project. It's a good alternative to wood in many cases and the print would be more flat in tone. As the final art will be displayed at a small size on the web, the wood grain of a wood block would get a little lost. I prefer to use wood for larger prints where the grain can be used to good effect.
Here I have the partially cut linoleum on a work bench at home, cup of coffee at the ready! I use a number of methods to keep the blocks in place as I carve, everything from duct tape to clamps, to a very nice bench hook.
Linoleum isn't the stuff on your kitchen floor -- it's a mixture of linseed oil, cork dust, gums and other such ingredients, with a jute backing. It has been manufactured since the early 1800's and became popular as a serious artist medium more recently when Picasso and Matisse started producing linocut prints.
This was my first official commission to be printed on the etching press. I experimented with a few papers and inks, did some trial runs, and finally got the look I was going for with a nice 100% cotton paper. I have left some room on the block in case we do more icons in the future; it will be easy for me to keep the same feel that way, as I will be able to see the other icons as I work.
Sharp eyes will see that the word TOOLS is in reverse, and that I carved it as it would be read. That is not how a block is typically carved -- usually you would work in reverse. However as I am scanning in this art and can flop that digitally, I decided to take the easy way and carve the whole block so that the art would be reversed in the computer.
Many artists run a test print to check their carving however a quick way to see how things are going is to rub a pencil over a piece of paper on the block, just like a brass rubbing. It's hard to see detail but you can check your overall contrast that way.
You can see the results by visiting the Green in the Inside website! It was very satisfying to be able to use custom artwork to give her site a distinctive feel.
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