View from the office, Snow Day 2

I should have bought my camera the day before when it was like Narnia, but this was the mountain this morning. To be honest, yesterday I never thought I'd make it in, but today this was worth getting out in the cold for.

Anyone with an "average brain" can do it...

Times Article on Graphic Design : NHS 60

Reading this made me so angry today! Emily Gosden's point seems to be that this work should not be outsourced, but completed in-house by the designers already employed by the public sector. However, the complete lack of balance in her article just makes this into a rant about a subject I doubt she has done much research on or understands anything about what goes into working on branding and logo design. How much was the branding as a percentage of the budget, rather than as a total sum? And how do those amounts compare with other spending? I bet if we were given those figures then it would paint a very different picture. But I suppose that wouldn't be as headline grabbing.This combined with the total lack of a detailed break down on what exactly the branding work consisted of just makes the sums of money paid meaningless because they are without context. Sure, £12,000 is a lot, but how many revisions, meetings and hours of work go into producing something like this? The NHS is a massive organisation and I bet that the design had to be approved by a lot of people. But you know what, it's so much easier to just write an article knocking a profession without trying to understand it. And on this evidence, owning a copy of MS Word is enough to qualify you to be journalist at The Times.

And as for MP Greg Hands?

“Surely adding two digits doesn’t need to be outsourced at all. Civil servants can do this themselves. Modern graphic design packages surely allow anyone with an average brain to design something as good as, or better than, what we see in front of us here.”

Well, I have an "average brain" and a toolbox, do you want me to fix your car for you Mr Hands? It'll probably be cheaper than a trained mechanic and those brakes will be good as new when I'm done... But seriously now, I think this comment is a very cheap shot. Just because I have access to tools does not automatically mean I know how to use them in a skilled manner. That's why we all have different jobs, and go to different people to get things done. Sometimes I get so fed up with non-designers thinking that the computer does it all.
I read another article recently (now in the bin where it belongs) where the writer was moaning about artsists/designers not being able to draw any more based on his observation that there were so many computer-generated graphics in films now. Er, who do you think draws them out in the first place? When I go into work every day, there is not a button at the bottom of my keyboard marked "Design" that I press and ta-daa! everything is done for me. I need to think about what I've been asked for, what is actually needed, and then draw it all out by hand, on paper or on the computer. Being able to draw and think creatively is pretty essential for the process of designing anything. It's pretty annoying when someone who is an MP dismisses whole industries like this. The creative sector in Britain is one of its real strengths, and comments like this just undermine the whole profession.

SNOW

I watched this over the Christmas holidays. This song sums up Cardiff today!

Snow Day!

Made it into work to get sent back home. Here are some snowy pics of us outside. Check out the leopardprint wellies!

Swansea Print Workshop

In a break from my day-to-day work now as a Multimedia Designer, I spent a weekend in December down at the Swansea Print Workshop re-learning how to screenprint. The screen print workshop is like the tardis, it looks like a tiny house on a terraced street from the outside but once you are through that door it is huuuuuuuge! Thankyou to Kara for being patient and in showing me some great things. The place has a lovely atmosphere, with people dropping in and working quietly away on some amazing stuff. It was very inspiring to see so many prints done in so many ways of so many things, and there are some very talented children out there, as I couldn't believe how good some of the work on the walls was.

I haven't got my prints back yet as they were still drying on the Sunday when I left, but I'm hoping to get them back soon and am looking forward to seeing them again.

Swansea Print Workshop website: http://www.swanseaprintworkshop.org.uk/