And here is how to import and use the action:

1. Save the action to your desktop and unzip it.
2. In Photoshop, activate the menu on your actions tab and select “Load Actions”
3. Navigate to your desktop and select the file you just downloaded.
4. Open the photo you want to vignette
5. Do everything you want to do, then flatten the image.
6. Run the action “Vignette any size document.” The result will be a new layer set to multiply with a layer mask. NOTE: This action requires Photoshop commands that only work in 8-bit mode, so the first thing the action does is convert the document to 8-bit mode. This is why I instructed you to do everything else you wanted to do to the photo before running the action.
7. If you need to, transform the layer mask of the resulting layer to your taste. Adjust the layer’s transparency, saturation, etc. to your taste.

Let me know what you think!

Direction has been given. The seeds have been sown. The project is in motion. You’re looking at the first round of proofs, and a lot of thoughts and feelings are rising within you. You know that you and your team are at a pivotal point in the process, so you want to make sure the project’s growth is proceeding correctly. Here are a few tips that I have learned through the years that will help you to eliminate weeds while cultivating great designs.

Be open minded

This might seem obvious, but it can mean more than you might think. Design preferences are often very subjective, but an experienced designer has reasons for each design decision they make. Find out what they are. It is important to not let personal preferences — either yours or the designer’s — negatively impact the effectiveness of a design. The fact that something looks weird to you might or might not mean that it should be changed. If you make decisions based on your own subjective opinions, you become a focus group of one, and such a small focus group does not represent your market. Design is not as subjective as it seems. Designers are trained with visual and psychological rules that can and should help to mitigate personal subjectivity.

Be specific

Talk in terms of how the design makes you feel. Talk about what you are getting from it or not getting from it. Mention what you see first and last. What stands out and what doesn’t. Designers respond better to too much feedback than they do to not enough. Be specific about what you do and don’t like about it. Blanket statements like, “This doesn’t meet our goals,” or “This is really good,” are fine, but they need to be qualified. Otherwise, designers are shooting in the dark when taking the design to the next stage of the process.

Have a discussion to avoid micromanagement

Chances are, you’re a busy professional and you may only have 10 minutes between the previous meeting and the next. It seems efficient to mark up a printout with a red pen and return it to the designer, but this can lose you time in the long run. Especially during the first few rounds of proofs, cultivating a design requires fluid communication. You have to eliminate the aspects you don’t want without harming the good stuff. Simply dictating changes — move this up a bit, put this over here, make that darker, use Helvetica, etc. — misses the discussion that will accomplish your goals more effectively. To use another metaphor, micromanaging a design is a lot like playing Jenga; you pull out the wrong piece and the whole thing collapses into a mess. Talking with the designer about how you feel about the design and what you both think should or should not be changed can help to make the final piece stronger.

Now and then, approve designs you don’t like

Crazy, right? It is a bit crazy, and it takes a lot of guts, but you don’t have to like a design for it to be effective. Knowing the difference between your tastes and what speaks to your audience can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of any effort, whether it is a website, an ad, a direct mailpiece, a package, or what have you. Once you cross this hurdle, you may find your tastes aligning more with effectiveness, so each time you do it, you will get better at it. This is something that I experienced as I learned to be a designer, but I still have to relegate my tastes to the back seat when I design.

Avoid design by committee at all costs

Your peers provide another challenge that you have to navigate in order to cultivate effective design. It’s natural to want to test designs by getting their feedback. But trying to cultivate designs by getting everyone’s approval and input can lead to disastrous results. Here is why.

First, everyone has an opinion, and they can be as various as the colors of the rainbow. Imagine one person’s opinion as yellow. Another’s is green. A third’s is blue, and so on. When you mix all these colors together, you’re not going to get a bright, strong color. You’re going to get something very muddy and indistinct. Similarly, if you try to incorporate the feedback from a group of peers, the resulting design has increased chances of being very blah. If a design is strong, it is going to evoke strong responses. Some will like it; some will hate it. That’s a good thing. If you want to get responses from your peers, make sure you read them in the broadest terms, like how they feel about the design; not in specifics, such as exact positioning of elements.

Second, if you make revisions based on a committee, you can end up with an incohesive design. One person likes this font; another likes a different one. One likes purple; another likes gray. One likes bullets; another likes bursts. Unless you’re trying to make Frankenstein’s monster, this is not the way develop a project. Keep the design strong by limiting the number of people who have influence. This puts more burden on you, but that will force you to grow too.

Stand behind your decisions

Just about everyone has a boss — unless you’re the CEO, someone above you has the responsibility of steering the company and its brands in the correct direction. So you may not have final say with respect to design. But you can give a strong presentation of the work that you and your team creates. If you present it passively, your superior is going to assume that they need to take a more active role. And if you immediately back down every time your superior tells you they don’t like something, you are not going to earn the respect of that person, and they will value your opinion less. So be more than just a messenger who carries a design to the big boss and then carries their response back. Provide project context. If presenting multiple ideas, say something strategic about what you think about each idea. When you can, and when appropriate, stand up for what you believe in, and know why you believe in it.

Keep on learning

In order to become a more effective leader of a creative team, you need to be able to change. The more you learn, the more you can challenge your team, the more you can understand where they are coming from, and the more you can achieve positive results with your superiors and with your customers. Designers might get annoyed if you just start using design lingo, but if you truly know what you are talking about, they will respect you more, and you’ll be able to get more from them.

If you are in charge of designers for any reason, you are probably responsible for giving design direction. Whether you are an art director, a businessperson who has hired an independent designer, or a manager who has designers under them, you can give useful design direction. I’ve been on both sides of the equation, so I have learned a bit about both giving and receiving direction. A book could easily be written on the topic, but here are a few ideas.

Be Prepared
There’s nothing worse than meeting with a designer or design team without knowing what you want from them. What you want largely depends on your role — how much creative input you need, what types of decisions you want designers to make, what aspects of the design are flexible and what should be taken as given — you will get the most valuable output when you define parameters most clearly. Without clear parameters the results you get will be determined by the designer’s assumed parameters. The results could be too narrowly constrained to hit the mark, or too widely spread to have effective impact. So start out by knowing what you want.

Appoint a leader
If you are leading a team, but you are not a designer and/or you do not want to be involved in each small decision the team makes on a project, then you need a project leader. Without a leader, each member of the team will tend to do their own thing — for example, they may decide to create designs individually and present them all to you rather than work together. Sometimes this is desirable; sometimes it is not. Having a leader will help the team to focus, and each person on the team will know their role for the given project. It will also give the team leader important leadership experience. By having a different leader on different projects, you will strengthen your team collectively and the members individually.

Be specific, but encourage coloring outside the lines
When you’re prepared, you know the parameters of the project. Now you need to convey those parameters. Designers are not inspired by jargon. Exhortations such as “Think outside the box,” “Show me cutting-edge,” “Knock our socks off,” and “Be creative,” are not helpful to designers. These instructions are akin to telling an accountant to make sure the numbers are accurate. Lay out the project goals — are you looking for newsletter subscribers, visitors to your store or site, attendees at an event? Provide the designer with budget and time constraints. Talk about how the brand should be handled. Ask the designer to think of the best ways to meet those goals. Tell them what you don’t want. If you have a specific approach in mind, share it, but I suggest leaving the door open for different ideas.

Use examples
It is not always easy to describe what you want in a design. Sometimes it is hard to simply know what you want. One of the best ways to communicate what you want is through examples. I’m not suggesting that you have a designer copy another design, though often one design approach can be adapted for a different purpose. I’m suggesting that you know what you want ahead of time. It is your job to coach the designers who will be creating the design, and a coach never says to their team, “I don’t know what I want you to do, but I’ll know it when I see it. So go out there and win!” That’s not coaching, and it’s no help to the team. So have examples that communicate your tastes. You can have designers bring examples of what they see as effective and you can respond, but what if they don’t bring anything that you like? Ultimately, in order to save time, money, and frustration, it is up to you to communicate what you want in a meaningful way.

Listen
Questions and comments in response to your direction can be very informative. They can tell you what directions the designer is thinking of going, and whether or not they understand the goals of the project. They can also inform your direction and decision-making process. However prepared you are, creative people often have ideas that can add something valuable to the project, so be ready for that. You are creative too, and fostering the synergistic development of ideas is part of leadership.

Respond
After direction has been given and the designers have been set free to create, you will need to respond to that creation. Much like a farmer who has planted seeds, you will have to weed out the bad and cultivate the good. And that cultivation is just as important as the initial planting of ideas. My next post will be devoted to this process

“I like it.” Angels sing. Success!

“I don’t like it.” The design is a failure. Back to the drawing board.

What’s wrong with liking or disliking a design? Pretend we’re not talking about a design. Pretend we’re talking about Bach. Some folks like his music. Some don’t. This has no bearing on whether or not Bach’s music is good. That Bach’s music is good is definsible objectively. Objective evaluations have nothing to do with likes or dislikes. They depend on a set of standards against which the object of evaluation is measured.

Why is design not evaluated by such standards? Why do clients* rely on subjective evaluations to make decisions about design? They wouldn’t use likes and dislikes to make decisions about a business plan or product development. Let’s home in on the reasons for this difference in behavior.

1. Ignorance

Nobody wants to admit that they are ignorant. It sounds so shameful, but it should not be. I drive on bridges every day. I see them every day. I have a lot of interaction with bridges. But I am ignorant of bridge building. I would not offer an opinion on whether or not a bridge design is structurally sound. The consequences would be obvious and most likely catastrophic.

The consequences of bad graphic design decisions are usually not as obvious or catastrophic (with some exceptions), so it is not so natural to learn what design decisions are bad and which are good through casual observation. Clients are put in the position of having to make these decisions, however. Without education in objective standards, it is understandable for decision-makers to follow their gut — what they like or dislike. Graphic designers should, whenever possible, educate decision-makers on the principles of design. This can lead to better decisions.

Yet even in the face of education, clients and executives often go by their likes and dislikes. Why?

2. Stubbornness

This is another negative-sounding word that is ultimately not so negative. Stubbornness often comes in the form of “Nothing that I don’t like is going out;” or, “I don’t like it, and it doesn’t matter what the designer says.” People in decision-making roles are often in that position because their guts have served them well. Their confidence and persistence have gotten them where they are today. They know their business and they are not going to be swayed against their preferences. There is no panacea for this situation. Trust has to be learned by one party and earned by the other, and that is an enormous, separate topic.

3. Fear

Inevitably, clients are more hands-on when their business is not going as well as they’d like. The reason for this is simple — fear. Fear that the tiniest misstep could be costly. Fear that designers are not invested enough and are not creating the best designs. The client fears that they haven’t been involved or concerned enough about small details. Sometimes they’re right. I think every designer understands this. And it’s not just designers who feel the scrutiny during such times.

When fear behavior persists through good times, however, it speaks to a more fundamental problem. If a client does not trust the designer they have hired, then something is very wrong. Maybe it’s communication issues on one or both sides. Maybe the designer isn’t educating the client properly. Maybe the designer is actually not trustworthy. But the knot of persistent fear will resultant in micromanagement and should be unwound and examined so that the client-designer relationship can become healthy again. Fear is contagious, and if a client is fearful that a designer is not going to do a good job, then the designer is going to be fearful as well.

In summary, design decision-making that involves likes and dislikes is indicative of problems and is ultimately harmful. But it is so common to talk about design using such terms of preference that many will not even know how to talk about design without them. That is what I would like to address in my next blog entry.

*”Clients” refers to both clients and business executives, who are the clients of in-house designers.

Then I saw this post at ilovegraphics.net. I have nothing critical to say about the website or post. What struck me as off-kilter is the amount of money being exchanged for this artist’s work. Millions of dollars for one piece. No graphic designer makes that type of money for one piece of work, so what does it really mean to sell out?

A graphic designer creates a logo for a couple thousand dollars. An artist creates an installation for a few million dollars. I would argue that the former is being more true to their nature than the latter. Designers acknowledge that what they are making is commercial. They know they are going to get paid; the company who uses their work is using it in the process of making money. But what of the fine artist?

Fine art is supposed to be “a visual art considered to have been created primarily for aesthetic purposes and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness, specifically, painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, graphics, and architecture.” (Dictionary.com definition) When an artist creates a work that they consent to have sold for an arguably exorbitant sum, they are selling out in grand scale. I am not criticizing Yayoi Kusama in particular here; she lives in a mental institution, not a mansion. I am speaking in general terms about fine art that becomes valued by its enormous price tag.

Yes, I know you could argue that the artist might not be motivated by money. I would say that if that were true, then the artist would donate the lion’s share of moneys made to charity. And some do. You cannot keep money without believing that you deserve it. The least sellout thing to do would be to legally cap the sale price of your works of art. Otherwise, you are allowing the same type of forces that drive the sale of pop music endorsements to drive the sales of your artwork.

I’m not saying that it is immoral for a fine artist to make a lot of money. But it is selling out. It is commercial. It is capitalistic. There is no moral high ground in fine art vs. graphic design if money is made in both arenas. Graphic design is generally a modest sellout; fine art is a potential sellout of enormous magnitude.

At the heart of it, I think that fanatics are responsible for sellout in any field. It’s like rubbernecking on the highway: once a few people look, everyone wants to see. Next thing you know, it’s a spectacle drawing a crowd. Much art, visual or otherwise, is valued by mob mentality. Is a painting worth tens of millions of dollars – more than many graphic designers will make in their whole career? It is if a big enough mob thinks it is. In my book it’s just another reason to look inside for affirmation of the value of your work rather than looking (solely) to the opinions of others.

These are my thoughts at 9:00 on a Monday morning. Please discuss. I welcome differing viewpoints.

Perhaps logo design is going the way of cobblers. Only the wealthiest buy custom-made shoes — they have become a luxury. What’s mass-manufactured is good enough for the, um, masses. Maybe only the wealthiest will contract custom logos. As for everybody else, consider this list of prefab-logo mongers that I put together in 1 minute with a google search:

• Iconshock.com
• Shutterstock.com
• Pixellogo.com
• Logosinabox.com
• And now, the potential coup de grâce: Istockphoto.com

Maybe logo design is going that direction, but I don’t think so. I think that there will always be savvy businesspeople who know that their brand identity needs a logo that is part of the uniqueness and differentiation of their product or service. How can an off-the-shelf logo do that? Does a savvy businessperson buy a stock business plan and a stock marketing plan, or do they craft them to suit their vision? Do they use stock product designs or do they engage in the process of creating a unique product? Similarly, a savvy businessperson will participate with a design professional in the crafting of a custom logo suited to their vision and the brand that will arise.

And yet stock logos abound, soon more so than ever with the popular istockphoto.com weighing into the fray. It’s no surprise that I hear a lot of negativity about this new development. I think most of the concerns can be boiled down to these three points:

• A generic logo speaks to a generic identity. Pretty obvious.
• Stock logos undercut the value of professional design. This the biggest concern for smart designers. If potential clients can just go to an online warehouse and buy a logo off the shelf for a fixed rate, why would they consult a professional and pay (generally) more for a custom logo?
• The proliferation of stock logos perpetuates the perception that logos are a commodity, and you can get one anywhere.

These are all valid concerns. Some businesspeople will always look for ways to cut corners. The growth of stock logos makes this easier than ever. But there will also always be savvy businesspeople who will make the better choice and work with identity design professionals to create unique logos for their unique visions. So it’s not the end of the world. I actually think there are some benefits to istockphoto.com jumping on the already existing stock logo bandwagon.

• The istockphoto.com logos will, arguably, be better than MS Word clipart, or Art Bombardment 8 Billion Clip Art Files collecions. They will be created by graphic designers and will be editable and scalable at the very least.
• They will also be better than “logos” created in MS Paint. You’ve never seen such a thing? Really? If you haven’t seen a homemade MS Paint (MS Word) logo, then you haven’t really lived. It’s quite an enriching and affirming experience for a graphic designer.
• Since the istockphoto logos will be made by designers, designers will be paid for them. And since it will be designers all over the place contributing (not just from one company), there will be some diversity.
• Istockphoto.com’s pricing structure seems better than some of the others. $35 for a logo? Really? Would you contract a lawyer to draw up your corporate charter for $35? If you would pay $35 for either of these things, you’ll surely get what you pay for. Istockphoto’s logos will range from over $100 to almost $1000. That’s a little bit better. Stop yelling at your monitor. I said it’s better, not good.
• Istockphoto.com will offer exclusivity on the logo designs. That means that, unlike istockphoto’s stock photos, if you buy a logo, you won’t have to worry about your competitor down the street, or someone completely unrelated, using the same graphic. That’s absolutely brilliant — it’s sound common sense.
• As always, the existence of off-the-shelf logos will highlight the value of custom logo design. A lot of inexperienced businesspeople are looking for a little widget to put next to their company name on their business cards. That’s what they’ll get with a stock logo design. But good logo design isn’t a space-filler. It’s magic. The logo mark goes with the company name and vision like it was born there.

So don’t worry. Because there is intrinsic value in custom, professional logo design, there will always be a need for custom, professional logo design. But as designers, we must be more certain than ever that we provide that value. Don’t give clients logos they could have bought off a virtual shelf somewhere. Give them the power of custom identity.

Here’s my idea: What if designers could collaborate on a layout in real time? I don’t mean that one designer takes care of one aspect of a job, and another takes care of another aspect, then they put them together. I think it would be fantastic if I were working on a layout that was giving me trouble, and I could say to one of the other designers, “Would you jump in here with me and give me a hand?”

Here’s what I’m thinking. In a given application, for the document on which some designers want to collaborate:

• Each designer could stay at their own computer.
• Each would get a cursor, and everyone would see it. Maybe the cursors could be color coded to keep them distinct.
• Each designer would have full editing capabilities.
• When one designer selects an object or layer, that object would be locked to the other designers and specially tagged to indicate someone else is working on it.
• Each designer could be working on different objects, layers, etc. at the same time.
• A voice/video chat option would be included in case the designers are not right next to each other.

I have a feeling that this sounds like hell to some of you: There will be arguments and differences of opinion. It will get confusing with multiple people editing the same document. It would be annoying to wait while someone applis a big filter. Sure, it could be awful. But I’m not suggesting this as a regular workflow. It’s only for special projects or situations that would benefit from multiple inputs at the same time. And it would not have to be a free-for-all; designers could be civilized and take turns.

I don’t think there are any technical barriers to this type of application workflow. What are your thoughts — is it a horrible idea or a fantastic idea? What other uses for such technology can you think of?

Oh, and Adobe, are you listening?

1. Create a new Illustrator document at whatever size you’d like. I used 11″ x 8.5″.
2. Set fill to none and stroke to 1pt, black. Create a triangle about an inch and a half high using the polygon tool. Click and drag; while you are dragging, press the down arrow key until the polygon displayed is a triangle. Hold down the shift button to keep the triangle locked at a rotation of 0°. With the triangle selected, hit Command-2 to lock it.
3. Now, create some shapes that fall within the triangle. I just chose some arbitrary shapes and colors here, but you should choose colors that you want for whatever project you’re working on. The shapes can and should extend beyond the edges of the triangle. It’s okay if there is some white space.
   
4. To make the kaleidoscope effect more realistic, you can select all of your shapes and change their blend mode to “multiply” in the transparency palate. Be aware that doing this will increase the ultimate size of your file and can slow things down later. The effect will work without using transparency, but it will have less depth and color variety.
   
5. Unlock (Command-3) the triangle and duplicate it (hit the return key, enter offsets of zero, push the Copy button). Now hit Command-2 again to lock one of the two triangles. Open the Pathfinder palate. In your drawing area, select all, then option-click the pathfinder option for Divide.
   
6. Use the lasso tool (hit l to select the tool, or click on the tool bar) to select all points outside of the triangle and delete them.
7. Hit command-3 to unlock the remaining triangle. Select all, then hit command-g to group it. Next is the fun part.
8. Hit command-u to turn on smart guides. Use the reflect tool (hit o on the keyboard) to copy and reflect the triangle along one of its edges. Do this by hovering over a point on the triangle until you see the word “anchor” displayed by smart guides. Without pressing any keys, click once. Next, hover over another point on the triangle until you see the word “anchor” displayed. Now, option-click once. This will duplicate the triangle while reflecting it along the line defined by your two clicks. It is essential that you use smart guides for this process. Otherwise, the reflect-duplicate process will not be geometrically accurate, and your kaleidoscope will turn out sloppy.
   
9. Repeat this process until you have created a hexagon. Select all, then reflect-duplicate the whole hexagon along one of its sides using the same method as with the triangle above.
   
10. Continue reflecting & duplicating until your entire page is filled.
    
11. Optional: with nothing selected, make sure your stroke is set to black. Go to the “Select” menu and choose Same -> color. This will select all of the black triangles. Cut (command-x) the triangles. Make a new layer, and paste the triangles in front (Command-F). This way, you can turn the black triangles on or off, according to your preference. This image shows the black triangles off:
    
12. Now, use your new artwork however you’d like. This process will create a pretty large EPS or AI file. You might want to export it as a TIFF to make it easier to work if you intend to use it in InDesign or PhotoShop.

You can follow the same steps with photos or object artwork instead of vector shapes if you have the need to create a kaleidoscope-style image montage.

Everyone who has worked with a designer has probably encountered surprising situations: A designer didn’t respond well to changes. A designer couldn’t seem to get the design right. A designer didn’t follow your directions. Each situation is different, but here is a short list of tips for working with designers that will help to make the process more smooth, enjoyable, and effective.

1. Provide as much relevant information as possible. Design is a visual expression of an idea. The more information you provide the designer about your idea, product, service, process, and your customers and goals, the better the design results will be.
2. Answer questions. Designers ask a lot of questions. Don’t get annoyed by this — it’s a good thing. Again, provide as much information as possible. Discuss. Make sure the designer understands where you are coming from.
3. Ask questions. When providing feedback, don’t just mark up changes. If something seems odd, inquire about why the designer made that decision. The designer should have good reasons, and understanding those reasons can help you to formulate your response for more effective results.
4. Allow time for research. Research is an indispensable step in the design process. The faster the turnaround time you demand, the more time gets taken away from research. This can lead to uninformed design — generic logos, incomplete concepts, oversights, etc. Allow plenty of time for research — it is s as important as the actual time spent in executing design.
5. Be careful when asking for design changes. Making big changes or many small changes can completely denature a design. Unity, balance, dynamic tension, etc. can be lost. Changes will need to be made, but talk to the designer about them to ensure that you get what you expect.
6. Don’t make design decisions based on what you like. Everyone wrestles with this. The most common objection to a design is, “I don’t like it.” No response is more frustrating to a designer. Ultimately, all that matters to a design is branding and generating the desired response. If you truly don’t like something, try to figure out why. There might be a good reason. But if there isn’t, don’t let preferences get in the way of a potentially successful design.
7. Focus on communication over creativity. Your message should take precedence over a cool idea. The design is just a means to communicate your message. Never bend your brand to try to fit it into a clever idea or visual, however much you might like it. If it’s not a good fit, it will feel forced and amateur.
8. Use the minimum effective amount of copy in advertising. If customers responded to text alone, we wouldn’t need design at all. We’d just cover everything with text. The reason design exists is to initiate communication and generate an emotional response without reading lines and lines of copy. Once engagement occurs you can begin informing. And all the information does not need to be on the ad — ads drive people elsewhere. Don’t be afraid of not saying enough. Advertising is visceral, not cerebral. If you try to persuade with bullet points and body copy, you’re going to lose your audience and frustrate the designer.
9. Don’t think too much. Over-thinking is the nemesis of good design. If you stare at a design for long enough, you’re going to start seeing problems and things you can change. This can lead to a whole series of little changes and “tweaks” that don’t actually improve the design at all.
10. Don’t use your friends/colleagues as a focus group. This is also known as design by committee, and it’s the best way to homogenize, blandify, and otherwise rob a design of its effective power. Some people are going to love a design. Others are going to hate it. If you try to please everyone, the result won’t speak strongly to anyone. Furthermore, when you ask a non-designer for their opinion, that person will feel like they have to find something wrong with it in order to be helpful. It’s okay to get feedback, but be very conservative about what feedback you implement.
11. Allow designers outside of the box. Everyone performs better with breaks during the day, but designers in particular need to have time during the day to explore beyond the scope of their projects. This can include browsing the web, reading magazines, playing games, and even just chatting. Not only will this result in improved creativity, but designers tend to be more accurate and productive when given this time.
12. Show appreciation. Designers respond to praise. When you like something or are impressed by something, say so. This is easy, but it’s often overlooked in our cold, corporate business world. A little appreciation can make a big difference in a designer’s attitude.

Feel free to add to the list, comment, or disagree. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Is it the availability of tools? Anyone with a computer and Adobe CSx can perform the activity of graphic design. I imagine that plays a big part. What about subjectivity — who’s to say the design by the trained professional is better than that of the self-taught hack? Then there’s the cool factor. It’s hip to be geek. Designers are cutting-edge thinkers working with the baddest toys on the sickest projects. Who wouldn’t want to be one? Well, there’s nothing that can be done about the availability of tools or the popularity of the profession, but I think there’s something that can be done about the subjectivity.

If you want be a doctor, there is a defined process. It involves lots of school, tons of tests, what amounts to an apprenticeship, and a licensing procedure. It’s rigorous and rigid. Nobody can just buy a scalpel & stethoscope and start practicing. Aside from being dangerous, it’s illegal. Compare this to graphic design. There are schools and degrees, but there is no license to practice and there are no standards. Sure, there are membership associations, but they don’t really mean anything to anyone who isn’t a designer, and most aren’t very picky about who they’ll allow in.

We could change this. If graphic designers united, formed a governing body, devised tests and standards for licensing, and lobbied for enforcement, then over time the profession of graphic design could change. It wouldn’t be a playground for curious children; rather, it would be a respected, exclusive, and highly-organized profession. There would be general practitioners of graphic design, web design specialists, animation specialists, etc. Everyone would have their niche role and would stick to it.

You don’t like this? Medicine is science, you say, but graphic design is subjective. Is medicine really science? Many discoveries in medicine are accidents. The way that many drugs work is just plain unknown; their usage was discovered serendipitously. And is graphic design really subjective? There are principles and rules that good designers use every day as they create. So it could be regulated, right?

But can you imagine a world in which design is regulated? Everyone would follow the same procedures and rules. Where would the creativity be? Would there be a committee to decide if it is okay to break the rules in specific situations? Maybe the creativity would still be there, but I can only imagine that it would be much more quiet and demure, much in the way that creativity in medicine is careful and subtle.

I see this as the crux — the point at which creativity enters into graphic design is the same point at which its unregulatable nature blossoms. You can’t effectively regulate creativity. And if you can’t regulate it, you can crowdsource it.

How to deal with crowdsourcing as a design professional is another question…