The Death of Print

I'm starting to see a trend with this blog and myself. Looks like once a month is all that I can really stomach at this point. It's just one more thing hanging over my head, and I feel like I should be doing something more productive most of the time. This blog isn't really a productive site that anyone is probably reading much anyhow. It could potentially be detrimental to my career if at some point it becomes apparent where I work and who is writing this. Hence, many of my more un-P.C. topics stay in a verbal forum with my friends on a Friday night at happy hour over a few beers and the occasional scotch. I like to think of this blog as underground - ha.

So what I want to talk about this go round is what something that has been eating at me for the last few months. Something that was amplified by this discussion I came across on the SMS, Linked-In. BTW, this SMS stuff is really making me schizophrenic, but that's another topic all together. I've just never seen such a frenzy of activity over something in my life, be it good or bad. Is this an actual job title now? Social Media Manager? Anyway...

...the notion of  "The Death of Print" is finally here. Sometimes it feels like I'm just riding the wave (and it's about to close out on me), especially when the new guys coming into the shop are working in Word Press and talking this and that about how even HTML is old school. I'm hearing more and more about the trend towards big agencies bringing in peps with Computer Science majors or programmers who collaborate with the creative team to come up with any type of interactive media blitz that you could possibly fathom. But this is what's getting results. I've heard it said that geeks are joining the round table at creative brainstorming meetings (I guess artsy, fartsy, AD's and designers are the self-proclaimed coolest kids in town – but what do you expect with the oft-time egos?).

In Denver I can think of a bunch of print shops that have closed including: Hirschfeld, Spectrographics, L & M Pressworks, to name a few, not to mention the death of the DNA's Rocky Mountain News in the last year. Print Production Managers are out of work and becoming Print Production Brokers on a contract basis. The Account Managers are now expected to speak the language and make calls to print shops for pricing, etc. Designers are doing thier own print production work, and the trend continues.

With that being said, I am definately going into the world of website production. Instead of Facebooking or blogging in the evenings I have to reinvent myself again by learning another new trade, or offshoot of print production. So the obvious place to start is with Dreamweaver at night by helping my wife build her client websites and e-newsletters. It's a good transition for someone that considers themselves a power-user (there's a buzzword you don't hear anymore) of Photoshop. So yeah, that's basically what I have been doing in my spare time these days. Sounds like fun dosen't it? Maybe I can get my company to send me to night school, that would be sweet. It actually is helping take some of the angst out of my bitchy, non-professional writing style, tho. I'm sure, by the looks of it, that it will come back twofold once I get into the WYSIWYG, imperfect world of the web. Stay tuned.

Robot

I think I might just start talking like a robot all the time. You know, kinda like monotone and sorta slow. 24/7. One syllable at a time. Say stuff like "DOES-NOT-COM-PUTE" and shit when anyone uses slang. Think anyone would hang around me? You would always have to have, like, a straight face and no emotion when doing anything. I don't think robots laugh, either. Robot laugh: "HA-HA-HA-HA", four times every time. You would probably get beat up.

How long would it take to get fired from a job? Not even a day. They'd probably tell you to go home and think about it, and if you came back the next day talking like a robot, you would be gone... "OVER-AND-OUT". "SIGN-ING-OFF".

Put another check in the idiocracy column

If telecommunications had been invented after texting technology, no one would ever text. Imagine, you only type 7-10 digits, and get a real human being on the other end. And, you actually understand them by hearing emotion in their voice. It may only take a few minutes to complete a "conversation" for what used to take a half hour or so, or all evening even. Gee, what a novel idea, Alexander Graham Bell is rolling over in his grave.

People are turning into weenies. Everything and everyone is passive aggressive. Break up with your girlfriend with a text. Kids can't even spell these days. Does a full grown man really want to try and type on a tiny, little keyboard to tell his wife he will be working late? I guess if he's having an affair that would be optimal. The human race is digressing. Idiocracy at it's best.

The “Good Enough” Revolution

Here is a New York Times blog posting that a friend of mine sent me. We were having a conversation about "quality of work" nowadays and how in the past couple decades the technology has gotten better, but the actual finished product in many cases leaves something to be desired. Seems that even our clients are OK with this. Hard for a couple of guys who built their careers on producing high quality work to swallow. My friend is a video producer and of course with me I see it in the printed pieces I work on.

Years ago, I could never image "resing-up" as many images as I do these days. Speed on turnaround times has forced many of our printers to go the digital route and I have admittedly OKed PDF proofs sent via email with mixed results in this scenario. This could encompass any type of industry you can imagine. Well, it's at least refreshing to know that others on the same page are taking notice of this phenomenon too. Just knowing that helps me restore a little faith in the human race, but not much.

Come to think of it, the clients these days may not even know what good quality is. Read the article below:

Thought of the Day…

...Nobody ever grew up wanting to be a Production Artist.

Long time no write

I thought that title might be blog slang for "long time no see", but then again, if it was a true blog acronym it would be LTNW. See, the holidays came up and I got lazy about posting new blogs. And by holidays, I mean starting with Halloween. My intention was to blog twice a week and I did great coming outta the gate, but now I'm starting to think that I'm not really a big blogger.

When my wife started this blog for me I think the intent was for me to put my ridiculous rants out there as a way to vent. But as I looked at a couple of the NAPP guys blog's recently, I kinda thought I might be doing myself a dis-service. I mean, it might be funny and all, but is it PRODUCTIVE? Probably not. Then again, it is my life and my reality. Maybe one or two people can relate, or get a laugh from it. If you saw how long it takes me to write one of these things you would get a laugh, besides being a poor typer to boot. I guess this would be a good time to iterate that there may be the need to keep this anonymous for some of the reasons stated above.

Since my last post way back when, I wanted to put this real cool technical Photoshop trick I saw at the NAPP conference on here. I thought that would give my blog some good balance. Well, truth be told, I get so busy at work, the last thing I really want to do is get back on the computer and write about work when I'm not at work. Wow, what an epiphany, right? Besides that, I have to keep up occasionally with Myspace and Facebook accounts that have lost their zeal. Did I mention Linked-in? Thank God I don't have a Twitter account (not that anyone would follow a washed-up, middle aged, punk singer - did I write that?). I don't know how people do it.

Still, fret not, I will continue to try to blog, but will probably – no, not probably – WILL not blog as often as would keep you interested in coming back on a daily, or dare I say, weekly basis. I did feel bad about this at first, but then I visited this one talented retoucher's blog and he was only bloggin like once a month. He did have a lot of info in that one blog tho, and very good info at that. Don't expect that here, but I will try to be on it more often, and hopefully can, from time to time, supply some good tips or maybe just at least give you a chuckle.

Tap, tap, "Hey, is this thing on?"

Adventures in Art Direction

"Social Media is just buzz technology that companies are trying to shoe-horn into their websites to remain on the 'cutting edge'. It's the digital equivalent of a 40 year-old mother who dresses in her teenage daughter's clothes."

Oh, the games we play in advertising. This was sent to me by a former Art Director I worked with. Seems one of his new cohorts wrote and created this on a site called xtranormal.com. You type and it makes a movie for you. Don't know how it works, but looks like some fun technology that could catch on.

This series pretty much hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned when it comes to the client/account management/creative relationship anymore. These account peps are just "yes" men and women that will do whatever the client wants. And the final creative product takes the hit. Sometimes I think the account managers are the clients the way they treat creatives. I hear these same lines all the time - "Well, it's what the client wants" or "If we don't do it they will find someone else who will." What a cop out. Manager - it's in your job title. You are supposed to manage the client expectations besides your emails. One of my pet peeves is when they say "we" knowing full well you are doing all the heavy lifting and working late again, etc. Still, they'll take the credit for a job well done, but I digress.

Whatever happened to integrity? Do we even play a part in strategic marketing these days, or are we just doing what the client thinks they want? Chances are, they don't even know what they want or need for that matter. That's what we're here to do, but not anymore it seems. We are the ones who are supposed to be experts in our fields. We spent years training and going to school to learn our skills. But anymore, it's all about the bottom line. No one wants to lose a client, so we end up just putting on a smile and doing what they want. Bend over and take it. Does anyone even know what good work is anymore? You might start out with a great concept but by the time the client chips away at it, puts their own stamp on it, or whatever, it doesn't even come close to what the original idea was. Hopefully the campaign even makes sense. Is this really the way to keep clients in the long run?

With the advent of the home computer and technology, these client companies think that all you need is a computer with the latest software to create whatever they want. No strategy or thought goes into the advertising. Or talent. The market is over-saturated so you get the cliches about "someone else will do it" and shit. Someone else probably will. And they'll do it worse, but that doesn't matter cause its what the client wants.

Basically, it's all just dust in the wind. Which is a nice way of saying that what we do is a bunch of bullshit in the end. No one is saving any lives if you know what I'm saying.

Makin Moves

Just for fun.

Funny shit.

PDFs and Transparencies

The old saying goes, you learn something new every day. That couldn't be more true in our business of advertising.  Sometimes this can be a humbling experience.

Lately I've been getting a few PDF files returned to me from pubs letting me know there were transparencies in the file and would I submit a new file. "They can't be responsible for any printing errors that might occur." This is frustrating to me because 90% of the time I don't have specific pubs specs (go figure) until AFTER I've sent the file. The funny thing is, they've been telling me to make a PDF/X-1a file which I HAVE been doing, knowing that this is the format that flattens the file. So of course I get my panties in a wad when I'm busy and tell them to just use the one I sent, "It'll be OK".

Not so fast amigo. I did some research and found the errors of my ways. (Ready to get technical?) Turns out the PDF/X-1a's I had been creating recently where based on the PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5.0) format which does NOT support transparencies. You can still use transparency in the design, but you must flatten the transparency before creating a PDF/X-1a. Huh?

See, what got me in trouble is, I was thinking (insert joke here), that since we are on Acrobat 9.0 and that since the Transparency Flattener menu was grayed out with the PDF 1.4 driver, I was all good. I was saving some time by skipping a step. It tells you in the General Description box that this format can still accommodate PDF 1.3  files and can be opened in Acrobat 4.o. These were generally the requirements of the pubs. Newer is better right? Not in this scenario.

Turns out that many of these pubs don't have devices that can handle the newer PDF/X-4a:2007, PDF 1.6 files that actually support transparency layers, let alone the PDF 1.4 format that I was saving. I also learned that if you make your files in Distiller (not InDesign) it will automatically flatten your files, but who wants to go thru that nonsense when everything you need is right there in InDesign. Also, since the only transparencies in my document were from a layered Photoshop file, all the layered PDF files with transparencies that went out the door printed fine.

Still confused? I don't blame you. Read all about it here, and be happy with the knowledge that you know all there is to know about the different versions of PDFs – that is until tomorrow when they change the whole game on you.

Software

Well, we finally got around to upgrading our Creative Suite where I work to CS4. We've had it sitting around for at least a month now but have been too busy to get down to doing the install. I guess you could say we're a little behind the 8 ball, but that's fine by me. That's how I like it, saves me the headache of helping the greedy software companies work out the bugs. Besides, when your forté is speed, sometimes there is a learning curve that you don't want to deal with in the heat of battle.

But this is a curious thing, all these updates and upgrades all the time. Financially it is a money pit. You can buy this or that software on any given day, walk out of the store, go home, install it, and you STILL have to update it. WTF? I thought it was brand new. Then it takes a couple of hours to get these auto updates downloaded from the web. Today we had to do an "update" to the updater. Sheeet.

When I worked at a leading software manufacturer here in Denver (rhymes with dark), I remember hearing horror stories of the programmers just trying to hit a release date when the software wasn't ready. Needless to say, they hit the date, the software was super buggy, and two of the three guys reputedly left to go to Adobe – that was the beginning of the end for this page layout giant. Seems it's always about the bottom line in this country.

I swear these software and hardware companies are in cahoots. After a few versions of the Adobe Creative Suite, I had to get a new computer because CS3 ran poorly on my Power Mac G5 (maybe 2 years old). CS2 worked great. But, I can't afford to see that spinning wheel of death even once a day, and I was seeing it all the time. I was under some pressure at the time  to get the new upgrade by a couple of designers who deemed it necessary. It gets really ridiculous to set aside a perfectly good computer so you have some new bells and whistles in your Photoshop program. I guess you can use it to store your zillion MP3s, but that's another blog. The landfills are getting full while the middle class is disappearing.

I remember the days too, when you could bootleg your roommates software without having to call the software company and lie about needing a re-activation code cause you just bought a new laptop.

This leads me to another gripe. We in America are loosing all sense of reality. Who says you have to have the latest and greatest thing all the time? The real talent is the artist behind the monitor. You could still be working in Illustrator 11 and blow everyone else in town away. It still works fine. If I were an independent contractor I would think twice about getting into the rat race as far as software goes. I heard a guy once say "Are you ready to sign up for the program" when trying to convince a PC user to go to Apple. But what I don't understand is that in this economy, the media never mentions America's obsession with technology as being one of the biggest money drains on the average family. When I was growing up, we were lucky to have a color TV. Now you have to have HD TV with digital cable, an iPhone with texting capabilities, a home computer with Internet service, a game console, yada, yada, etc, etc. This shit is expensive and if you have kids they need this stuff to stay ahead of the curve too. Damn, no wonder everyone is living on credit.

Which leads me back to the software companies. They're the ones getting rich. You can't even use some of their devices after a couple years because there is no support. Sometimes I think I should move to the country and spend my time planting a garden and fly fishing like they used to do in the old days. Makes a lot more sense. Sometime I think all this technology is making me loose my mind.  Probably is.