stop and breathe

for a moment

let it all be

for a moment

watch over the dreams of scenes and memories and

look out below

and your falling

not far to go

and you’re calling
out over the air

live

not on tape and…

if you say your prayers

and believe it

or say who cares

and don’t need it

then life turns out just exactly how you saw it and…

who’s you and me?

in this moment…

eternity

in this moment

I’m having trouble estimating and invoicing for my time these days. Part of the issue is my own self deprecating tendency to feel like I am not valuable, part of it is a sensitivity to tough economic times, part of it is my inability to say no to any project for fear i may not get another. Instead of finding an increase in my value, I am faced even more deeply, amongst the community i have worked with for over a decade, with paycuts and even straight up cut off of previous employment. its becoming easier for any person to slap words on a picture and put it up on a wall. Conversely, I see the need for the type of service I offer increasing exponentially: not just as an advertiser, but as a designer of information, an educator, advisor and explorer of the visual language of modern media. In a world increasing dominating by advertising, something has to set one’s projects apart from the others.

I muse about this here because, perhaps, i am in need of some frank discussion about the value of good design and what kind of wages  should designers should take from the hard working people who employ them. Have you ever truly considered what goes into making posters, fliers websites logos etc? Have you ever hired a designer? Why? What did you expect from their services? What do you think a good hourly wage should look like for someone doing the kind of work that i do? Follow me through a few of the strange situations i enter into as i attempt to bring people decent graphic design for their grassroots projects and ideas. Please keep in mind that i LOVE my clients deeply. This has been the joy of working at what i do for so long. My connection to these projects brings me happiness and I like to think of my clients as friends. Perhaps this itself is an issue in doing business, but i have to say that i like building business in my community. A good design platform is part of the way business is done today. This is not a sales pitch. design is everywhere. i take my clients seriously, but sometimes i wonder how seriously they take me.

So i am doing posters for clubnights and music acts. i’ll get a call from a promoter (an unnamed hypothetical one) who wants a poster for their next show. I know this poster, no matter how simple I try to make it, is going to take about 3hours total time (if really inspired) . I’ve been doing this for 13 years. It’s going to take this long because I really want to bring an inspired vision to whatever advertising i do. If i am to claim people’s visual space with imagery, i feel compelled to make sure there is inspiration order beauty education intelligence and value in the design. I have a code of ethics about what i will promote and how it will look. Still, I take the job for 100$ this means i will make something in the realm of 33$ an hour to create the promotional vehicle for a promoter who will pay their headline act upwards of 3-5 grand for a 1.5 hour performance in the local club. The rationale for this is that I am not the draw that will make money, and yet I am the one who creates the awareness that the event is even happening. I am not saying pay me 3 grand, but i am certainly saying don’t whine about the 100$.

the paradoxes get ridiculous here. The only logical conclusion should be not to do the gig because there’s no way that there is a comparison of skillsets and times of labour. i would never compare myself to a music headliner as a draw (even though some of these performers are 20 years old and been djing for less than 5 years) but maybe i’m just growing beyond my need to make other acts look good and seize the true paintbrush of destiny and create my own art. When i am controlled by a clients desires i find it both hard to ask for a decent salary or feel truly respected for the skillset i can actually bring to a job. Sometimes you have to wonder why i would actually take a high level skillset and work so cheaply. IS it because i love the underground music scene? is it because i loathe all other sorts of advertising except for snowboards? is it because in truth i would rather teach the rest of my life for 50$ an hour than nickel and dime my way through a meagre existence of asking a decent wage for work that is undervalued or arguably unnecessary. What on earth would possess a graphic designer to work in a world where the clients continually seek to find even cheaper ways of using my services? After years of service you expect a pay raise, not a dialogue about how easy they think my job is. Next time i hear that i am going to dare the person to sit in a room and create a decent poster in under 3 hours. I’m gonna watch, and then when they are done i am going to give them the “feedback” experience of their lives on what they have created.

Do you even need a graphic designer?
Some club owners and promoters totally get the need for graphic design.  They hire me and give very little question to what i provide because they recognize that my skill and knowledge is what they are paying for. they don’t need to micromanage. Other clients don’t see this, and expect that for the minimum wage work i do for them, that they get to tell me exactly what they want done and expect me to edit it until it meets their satisfaction. Some are learning as they work with me over longer periods of time. They know me as more than an advertiser. I like to believe they are inspired by a dedication to quality in the visual field. It always amazes me when a client who begged for the discount rate of design, then expects the premium service. the comparison with a mechanic is to discover you need a new muffler, opt for the cheapest price but demand they put in the best one available (o and they need it in a hour too!).

Most media artists and projects who want great design understand the value of a solid media package. The irony is that those who understand it the most can least afford to invest in the highest end of it.

The example here is permaculture education. What’s that you ask? well, i figure it’s pretty much the solution to humanity’s major sustainability issues. so few people have heard of it that it is nearly impossible to obtain funding to create amazing educational platforms for it. These are project which, with minimal funding, could actually demonstrate incredible success in managing ecosystems and energy issues. They have so little to invest that it is almost charity to work on a deep level with permaculture institutes. I try as much as i can to volunteer for these projects, and am willing to work for very cheap to build ever more sophisticated media platforms for this incredible world shaping system. Permaculture, by nature, notices how, where, and why things grow the way they do, and how to be more integrated with the land we inhabit. The same concept can be applied to graphic design. How are ideas communicated and received? where do they find fertile ground? What is the effect of design on mass population? Design is a way of being, an active approach to influencing the evolution of your environment. As a designer i like to encourage clients, as much as they can, to get involved in the process of shaping the way their products/ideas/services/systems are represented to the public. I help them to see crystalize visions they have about their projects. These are the companies i most like to work with. One’s who have a vision to create next level media platforms and are willing to invest in that process.

So most of my clients are my friends with great ideas. All of them know that they want logos and business cards and websites and now mobile platforms and all kinds of flashity do da or no matter what they all have a vision about how the project should look and what it’s image will be. As soon as i talk monetary figures (flat fees) for the design, they get nervous. There isnt a real consideration of what goes into any design project. I honestly think a lot of them come in thinking they can get a logo a website and a business card for 100$. When i suggest this is more like starting at a 1000$ and going up, they gawk at me like “how can that be? it’s just a little tiny symbol. how hard can that be to create? why is it so valuable?”

first lets examine the 1000$ number as a fraction of what you would eventually hope to make with the business. This is a intention i like to unearth in initial discussions with clients. I the client comes in and tells me they have a billion dollar idea, and they complain about spending 1000$ on the graphic design to take it there, then they are obviously not getting the sympathy they might feel they deserve. For others concerned about how they might save up enough for a logo: it’s less that the cost of a deluxe coffee every day for a year. I bet most of you could fish a decent chunk for that number out of loose change in jars. Compared to what a decent business idea should eventually make, it seems really cheap. I often wonder what it would be like to have one of those retro fit clauses that people who designed the starbucks logo have, where they get some fraction of a cent every time the thing gets printed for perpetuity.

conversely, if the person who is enquiring about logos is truly taken aback in disbelief at the cost of design because there’s no way they have that kind of cash, there also is usually a lack of planning as to how they will implement and use the branding they are given. This comes up when i build CMS websites for people using wordpress. If the client has no plan as to how they are going to take their branding and place it into the streams and markets they wish to reach, then likely their business will not take flight. A company with no financial plan, or ability to assess its future success, is a liability for being able to pay off the initial design. Poorly thought out ideas may not succeed with branding too hastily acquired. If you get a website built but never use it, then you did not leverage your investment. The key to good branding is both repetition and innovation. Keeping things from getting stale or remaining static. Onbeyond likes to offer more than just the branding when a project is undertaken. We help the client to see potentials for their projects that they may not have considered. The consultation is a huge part of the process.

often when a client has little money to begin branding their business, they will attempt to transfer their financial burden on to me but will not indicate how it will ever balance out. they will say “i’m a start up business i dont have that kind of cash, can you do it cheaper?”. what this says is “i’m broke. i have plan to make money. it requires you to work for nothing for me.”. Also it usually means that they will spend a long time paying off what they owe, and over time the debt gets forgotten, unless i gently remind them. It is amazing how angry people get when they are reminded they owe money. I have heard every excuse imaginable about why a client cannot pay the requested fee, but i have NOT EVEN ONCE been tipped for doing a great job. When I work for what amounts to minimum wage and when i am done get no tip, i often want to tell the waitress or waiter that at the restaurant when i am expected to tip upwards of 20%. Not even once has a client tipped me an extra 20 for doing the best poster they have gotten yet.

This is such a fascinating phenomenon if you look at it objectively, or as a sociological process. The notion that branding is such a deep part of today’s business world is the stuff of some people’s most marxist nightmares. Corporations with personhood. A lot of money moves behind these logos. There is so much graphic design opportunity in the big money world. I have been tempted by that darkside path for many years and yet have shied away from it only because i know there’s a price to be exacted from my soul. These are the mining companies and softdrink empires that offer the hugest sums to invest in the most incredible design. These people snatch up the best design school prodigies and seat them in the art directors chairs of design behemoths. These people bring you jaw dropping motion art, sophisticated websites, clothing, cars in 3D animations, all thousands and million dollar contracts. This is the money potential of graphic design in a world just hitting accelerate into the digital universe. Graphic design is megabucks and at corporate levels you can pay heaps for branding. To what end is this creating a consumer corporate circuitry embedded into the very fabric of our daily weave. We see it in newspapers and on youtube, every sign, every pixel somehow designed (or not well designed) into our minds. Big companies pay big bucks to take up your awareness with telling you to buy their stuff. Graphic designers are, in some ways, to blame, for using such powerful media tools to such ends. In reality, designers like me are offering super cheap alternatives to paying huge sums for media awareness. And yet, I still see that Graphic Designers are prone to the same fate as me if they work freelance.

The is a very exciting frontier. I feel like my ship has ultimately come in. !0 years ago i had my share of doubters telling me they’d never get email addresses. I said i was gonna become a major player in how information is designed. too much bravado and ego. the thing i did not realize is how quickly the media evolves and how skilled the next generations are at using it. believe me if you think that design is not important now, just know that it is a major influence in the lives of children growing up in the biggest media pulse of  recorded history. there is an infinite world to be created and designers are on the cusp of where art meets the practical needs of daily life. We bridge the gaps between education and information and advertisement and entertainment. It’s not just the message but the means by which the message is conveyed. In a few years it will be nearly impossible to not have a mobile website for your business. People will not know how to reach you. Ironically, this is when clients will beg for services, but they will make it seem even more like a desperate situation.

 a major concern now is the monetary system that has us enslaved to assessment of value based on numerical figures. graphic design has an abstract value. it’s hard to compare the value of a good logo to a car, or a house, until it becomes as familiar as the nike swoosh. what does logo culture say about people who support it? why does a business need a logo? in order for it to be recognized in a some kind of public way, a logo is key to a business identity.does graphic design have real value to our culture, or is it part of the illusion, keeping us from seeing the unmediated design? Such a philosophical question is almost moot to discuss. We cannot exist in the modern world without being exposed to, or interacting with design. It’s almost as ubiquitous as air, and yet it is like pulling teeth to get people to pay for what it is actually worth. A business needs it almost from day one, yet when they interact with me, it’s often as if they feel it is the lowest cash priority in their whole operation. the sad truth is you can have the best product for humanity, and no one would ever know about it if you had no promotional strategy. Conversely, you can sell the most useless shit imaginable to people if you have a brilliant marketing scheme. Think about it.

the conundrum presented in this philosophical dilemma can not be easily solved. attempting to live outside of a designed world is an extreme experience. to live naked in the trees eating only what is found on the path is the legend of taoist monks and the history before history books and interfaces for the collective human memory. the design of information is a remarkable invention of human beings with the potential to lead us back to a less mediated world. it’s a path difficult to grasp, but it comes down to good design, supporting ideas and initiatives which present sustainable cultural models. it means using these influential media platforms to help usher in an new awareness of ourselves as bio technological beings of immaculate design. we are entering an era of unprecedented invention, exploration and development. design is at the core of becoming major players in the shape of our own destines.

so to real it in. i think i offer a bit more than design when we work on a project. up till now i have not been a great businessman. i’m a designer for hire with a skillset waiting to be fully utilized. i seek business partners and projects with foresight invention and integrity. lets do this. lets get some funds together and get beyond the weird invoicing stuff. Next time you are thinking about hiring a graphic designer, why not ask them to break down their time frames and see what kind of a realistic number might reflect their time in helping you create a successful business media platform. Love your graphic designer, treat them well, bring them food and drinks and maybe occasionally consider throwing in a little extra when you know that he/she worked extra hard to earn that flat rate you chiselled them down to. Be nice.

bird of prey

the myth of privacy

a lot of change in the internet world these days, although this is neither unusual or particularly unique. every once in awhile one of the big internet companies makes a change to its policy that rattles the cages of people who are concerned about the notions of internet privacy. they are up in arms about the latest change which makes your browsing habits more transparent. now i am not advocating to simply ignore the continued barrage of policies that make our habits publicly searchable by both corporations and the government. these days we’re not sure what’s worse, but what we are forced to admit, is that everything we do on the internet is searchable, both legally and illegally, by anyone who has a reasonably decent set of computer skills (which is most people nowadays, including your 4yr old kids) and the cash to pay for it. the result of this, is that pretty much no-one is safe from being scrutinized. (credit card numbers, being the vehicle of the finances that run the internet, are actually pretty safely encrypted, but everything else is fair game). someone out there can figure out who you are and what you browse.

i bet the average reader out there has clicked “agree” to a policy they did not even read, at least 20 times. this shows you exactly what kind of mindframe we are in when we come to the net.  we want to bask in the freedom of the fact there’s literally just about everything you could ever want to see (or not see) at the click of a button. this is the joy of what the digital age has opened up to humanity. access to a group mind full of everything we cumulatively want to enter into the virtually unlimited databases. we don’t want to think of the implications of what we search. we want to walk unimpeded through the uncensored realms of human novelty, but we get pissed off if anyone else sees where we go other than us.

this is a classic case of the ever present digital information paradox. the solutions end up being polarized on these sides 1) abstain from ever using the net or searching anything other than what is accepted by the majority of whatever government you happen to be governed by 2) to accept that everything you ever do is monitored here and run forth freely, hoping that the eyes never come looking your way. both are extreme and naive, but the latter is the only one that will assure us that we are allowed to use the internet to it’s greatest potential for humanity.

in the advent of major internet censorship and surveillance (with the consequences of arrests based on information gleaned from the net) the majority of smart people will simply shy away from using this arena to discuss anything outside of publicly accepted consensus. the result of which will be that it will become, like television, a glut of advertising and empty information. it teeters on this reality already, but the purveyors of quality ideas and dialogue are concerned…and rightly so. if censorship, and surveillance are the reality of this medium, then it can never be used in cases where the information would imply the lack of alignment with the government or ruling elites. this hovers close to our right to free speech. i wonder if the masses will tolerate the internet being used to crush opposition. so many people now have gotten a taste of free information flow. it seems like it’s too widespread now to be fucked with. the government can access this information..but will they? and how will this information show up in court cases? will a government actually dare to impose high level restrictions on the net? will anyone notice this unless it is posted on facebook?

a government which censors, or controls content is a dictatorship of sorts. one that monitors its citizens’ private communications is also of concern. these things are, and have been happening rampantly since the internet rose to prominence in the mid 90’s. the notion of privacy in this very public space was practically nonexistent to those early coders. hackers can take down the highest level sites. it’s clear this place has never been very secure or protected. it’s very lawlessness protects it. the government itself is not free from this sort of scrutiny (see wikileaks). this is perhaps why we don’t hear of more cases where information gleaned from these usually private sources is used as hard evidence.

the notion that the companies have access to our browsing seems only a big deal in terms of advertising. so much of it is happening we tune it out anyways. the businesses are always gonna try to get any edge they can. it’s the censorsip and the surveillance that seems so insidious.

google’s privacy change is perhaps one of the most bold public statements a net company can make in terms of making public what has been a quiet reality for nearly a decade. this shocks us because google has always seemed like a nice company, one that cared about keeping information free and accessible by all, a bastion of the uncensored group mind. their unifying privacy policy does a lot to link up your varies google activities and make them all neatly searchable by the companies and governments that pay for such information. we have hated to imagine this is the truth, but it is. the worst so far it’s been capable of is making the ads that appear on your google searches tailored to what you have searched before. you might get more spam. but is there a bigger storm brewing? when does google cross the line with it’s information sharing?

certainly more menacing is he notion that you can be spied on in your most private digital places. the governments run the risk of mcarthy era witch hunts if they try to use everyone’s browsing habits and private emails as evidence in terrorism cases. who knows what direction things are headed? your email accounts, have always seemed like a reasonably safe place to have dialogue. but really, so many copies of this dialogue are tracked and stored by the various people you deal with on the net, that it would be nearly impossible for the average person to securely encrypt their entire digital footprint. most sites are tracking you. google just happens to be a site that sees the bigger footprint you make. add to this the google talk function and it can add up to a massive amount of opinions and bullshit you have talked, all being available. imagine that your ex girlfriend can privately investigate your online googletalk affair. all that porn you watched was suddenly public information. the times you badmouthed your boss, all the hours you spent on facebook, the secrets we carry all available for download by whichever interested party pays.

it’s a mighty big chunk of money that google must be talking. and more interestingly, in order to maintain their integrity regarding the information they track and store, it must remain available to anyone who wants it. my guess is that ANYONE who wants it is gonna have to pay for it. this allows theme to continue to freely support the immense expenses or cataloguing and archiving pretty much everything that happens on the internet. google is now, and has been for a long time, the mega net company that nearly everyone uses. they’ve had this power since their revolutionary search algorithm made it the easiest to find sites on the nearly infinite web.

google has also championed the freedom of this service in places where they were offered great sums of money to impede it. china asked for google to provide them with a way of censoring the search results and google said no. it’s in their best interest to make sure they are not on the wrong side of any government they are dealing with. their policy is generally to offer no way of backing down on the policy of what they provide. they do however make it available to anyone who wants it. this is the tradeoff for the freedom that a service like google provides you.

modern life means being in someone’s database. it’s an exciting and confusing time as we come to terms with the transparency of of one of our greatest technological achievements. this note can do nothing more than illuminate the paradox and make us evermore aware of the pitfalls and triumphs of the modern internet age. to understand that freedom of information means a participatory responsibility in its usage, is also to accept that it is not a secure place for subversive behaviours and criminal activity. i’m sure it will have to be done the old fashioned way. meeting in the moonlight past the gates of the city, in the mountain strongholds of unimpeded free speach and the intention for a truly actualized human potential. clearly the web is not safe anymore. like this if you agree!

wump

ironies of indulgence

in the heat of moments
blindly releasing emotion misunderstood
interpretations of the way things are
thinking to the self so loudly that even others hear the roar
and somehow a response slips out

the ironies of time and power over
libra inside incensed at the lack of justice in it all
the wonder at how shafted one can get
reaping nothing in the end but challenges that add up to silence
investment in a friendship that cant be on account of stubborn choices
a million and one inspirations and memes
lost time
lost space
that poisoned feeling of knowing that loose ends are still loose
that thoughts are not healed even tho ignoring them does a good job of not incurring process or wrath
but every libra knows that its not ok till its worked out
and that anxious feeling of having fucked up somehow
or feeling abused and left dangling
ya whatever
its only a friend
and how many of those come and go in our lives?
how many are willing to reflect the truth?
how many follow up on the fall out?

if we stand by our words
then there’s responsibility
to have integrity
to nurture the self as well as the other
knowing the other is the self
and that distinctions come from some kind of vain and egoic attempt
to remain
separate.

how twisted can a tale get?
how much anger and venom remain in the wounds?
whose responsibility is it to get out and deal with the residual?
there is no one on our backs saying do it
there is no judge except the one who lives in our own heads
evaluating the validity of our arguments
there is noone to stand behind you and point out the pain we inflict on others by engaging them in our shit
  we have every right to walk away again and again
leave nothing but emptiness and medium range regrets that things coyld have been done differently
that somehow something could have remained
in the rubble

sometimes the most viciously stubborn of us all
regret the most
as they know how many times they have hung on less out of righteousness
and more out of fear of being exposed as weak
or wrong
or both

out of sight does not mean out of mind
processes are not ended by will alone
and the way conspires to help remembrance
as every unresolved issue
replicates itself endlessly until
we step in to change it

imagine that the reality sometimes means acceptance
of the way
and sometimes means choosing another way

regardless
it requires some level
of action

bowie

vectors

new board design for my bro.

vector silver warrior: blade 164 twin tip rockered big mountain freeride.

classic art by frank frazetta.