What designers really charge for

Designer Paula Scher complains about blogs and design sites claiming that some new logos could've been better designed by students. While that may be true in theory (that is, when judging formal elements), actual practice disproves it. In short, logos become great when taken in context.

Logos become iconic over time, through their use and in combination with an overall perception of a brand. They shouldn’t be judged purely as form and out of context, as they are on design blogs, because it takes a period of time for a logo to establish itself in the marketplace, just as it takes a magazine a year or so to establish its personality.

She talks about the Nike logo, which would've failed a formal critique but is one of the best known marks because of an aggressive campaign. Scher, who designed the new Citibank logo, also has this to say about professional graphic designers' huge fees.

I never knew a designer that got hundreds of thousands of dollars to design a logo. Mostly, designers get paid to negotiate the difficult terrain of individual egos, expectations, tastes, and aspirations of various individuals in an organization or corporation, against business needs, and constraints of the marketplace. This is a process that can take a year or more. Getting a large, diverse group of people to agree on a single new methodology for all of their corporate communications means the designer has to be a strategist, psychiatrist, diplomat, showman, and even a Svengali. The complicated process is worth money. That’s what clients pay for. The process, usually a series of endless presentations and refinements, persuasions and proofs, results, hopefully, in an accepted identity design.

Hear, hear. The actual design is easy. It's the convincing and cajoling and negotiating and presenting that costs time and money.

(Article found via Design Observer)

They've done it again

OK Go's Damian Kulash says their record label EMI had YouTube disable the embedding feature for their treadmill video, which resulted in a 90% drop in viewership. Back when videos were just expensive commercials for albums, Kulash says the record labels couldn't care less. But now that there's (potentially) money to be made online, they've started to clamp down. Which misses the point. In an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times he writes:

In these tight times, it’s no surprise that EMI is trying to wring revenue out of everything we make, including our videos. But it needs to recognize the basic mechanics of the Internet. Curbing the viral spread of videos isn’t benefiting the company’s bottom line, or the music it’s there to support. The sooner record companies realize this, the better — though I fear it may already be too late.

Published mid-Feb, the article may have helped. Their latest video -- involving a two-storey Rube Goldberg contraption -- is below.

A good reason to believe

Anyone actually believe that the "Morong 43" are *only* community health workers? I hate to sound like Mon Tulfo but based on how the CPP operates (and other sources) there really is a good reason to believe that the training being done in that compound is not just for some innocuous NGO. Like the military spokesman said they're the equivalent of the "DOH of the NPA."

But "a good reason to believe" isn't the same as a reason to raid, capture, detain, and torture those people.

"A good reason to believe" is a signal to intensify intelligence gathering. And by "intelligence gathering" I mean actually spying and getting useful information; maybe even infiltrating the organization. Capturing the NPA's "DOH" may present a short-term tactical advantage but it doesn't help the greater cause. You could win a battle by cutting off medical help, but no one wins wars that way -- especially in the age of media.

Right now the military has lost the public mainly because they botched this job grandly. Notice that no one calls the detainees "suspected NPAs" or "rebels?" They're all "health workers" even if there are only 4 doctors in the bunch. They've won the first round and gathered more sympathy than is probably warranted.

People online are missing the point: the problem is not that the military mistakenly, in an act of paranoia, raided a seminar of "health workers," the problem is with the way these people were captured, detained, and treated. Whether NPA combatants or not, they should've been treated humanely and with full respect for the rights guaranteed every citizen.

The problem is with the way the NPA problem is being handled by the military. Treating it as a "war" just leads to atrocities and to thinking in terms of tactical advantages (if not just plain "hurting them devils"). Treating it as a crime forces one to follow the law, gather evidence, and build a case against the criminals while respecting their rights.

What the military (and by extension the government) needs to do is show that they're better, that they're humane, that they can help people out of poverty so that instead of being driven to overthrow the government, potential rebels can start working to actually help their families and neighbors. I've a good reason to believe that just might work. Sure beats the hell out of beating the hell out of "health workers."

Defensive Driving (re-post)

Wrote this back in 2005, re-posted it in 2008, and am publishing it again because the Reproductive Health bill is again dead.

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Defensive Driving
19 March 2005


The problem with the debate over population control, especially concerning Edcel Lagman's reproductive health bill, is that either side will be arguing based on different premises. According to the bishops, who were challenged to a public debate, they would argue based on Scripture and Church doctrine while the bill's proponents would talk economics and practicality. Nothing would be settled.

I agree. I automatically skip over any supposed argument against family planning that starts to quote the Bible or includes the words "natural law." It's bunk for people like me who don't believe any of it. What I now find interesting are the arguments of Bernie Villegas (of Opus Dei) and some liberation theologists (imagine that) saying that there is no overpopulation and that the real problem is inequitable distribution of wealth. Poverty, they say, is not due to the lack of resources to be shared by all, it is because most of the resources are hoarded by the rich.

I believe them.

I see all these rich people (congressmen included) who drive around in gas-guzzling American SUVs and think that for every five kilometers they travel they're spending the equivalent of a simple meal for a poor household. I see people buying foreign-made signature clothes and imagine the number of people that money can clothe. I see ads for "The Children's Hour" and stop to consider the fact that what I earn in an hour is more than what some people earn in a day.

I also agree with them when they say that having many children is not a crime; that families should not come with restrictions or quotas; and that an aging population or the Chinese phenomenon of "little princes" is a cause for worry.

However, I still support family planning efforts (and the reproductive health bill) despite their arguments because I am a firm believer in defensive driving.

Defensive driving – taught in all driving schools, except the ones
where jeepney drivers learn – is not so much a technique as it is a philosophy. It's a way of driving that emphasizes safety and caution over speed and right of way. It's a philosophy that says "I don't really care if those other drivers are wrong, what's important is I get to where I'm going in one piece."

And most of the time it makes sense. It's stupid to assert one's right of way when an 18-wheeler truck with a driver on shabu comes barreling down the highway. Sure you'll win the lawsuit and claim insurance but your car, if not you and your passengers, will have already been totaled. While a green light does mean "go," it helps to slow down at an empty intersection just to see if some drunk driver or pedestrian is crossing.

The idea is to protect oneself first before asserting one's rights.

The bishops can complain all they want about inequity and general unfairness of a capitalist system but that doesn't help these poor folks with eight kids who live on less than 50 pesos a day. They can shout bloody revolution all they want (although somehow I don't think Villegas and his ilk would approve) but unless it really happens (which I seriously doubt, the CPP has been trying in vain for over 30 years), we'll be stuck with couples who can barely feed their large
brood.

The logic is simple. A janitor who lives on minimum wage can probably afford to have only two children (and even that is pushing it). One needs a higher monthly income in order to provide adequate (and this is key) support. Of course the guy can believe Bernie Villegas and the bishops and say that he has the right to have more kids and that he deserves a bigger salary because his employers are not sharing the wealth enough but in the end he still gets run over by the raging truck.

Right of way is irrelevant if it puts you in harm's way.

Access to family planning methods, both natural and artificial, coupled with proper education, will help people like my janitor make sure he only has the right number of children he can adequately support. The problem of inequitable distribution of wealth will still be present, just like drunk and reckless drivers, but at least people will stand a better chance of living more decent lives within their current incomes.

Abusing Surveys

The very least they can do is be consistent. Every political mouthpiece in this country who mentions a survey in the media is either for or against the results. Those who approve will praise the professionalism and neutrality of the survey institution. Those who find the results unfavorable will imply bias and question the integrity of the survey organization.

Among the slurs hurled at survey takers is that someone "paid" for said survey. Which is entirely true: someone does pay for the survey. But that doesn't mean that they dictate what results will come out. It doesn't matter if Villar or Zamora or the Liberal Party commissioned the survey (or, more accurately, subscribed to the results), what SWS or PulseAsia presents are what the respondents answered, tabulated and processed.

What the opinionated barbershop tambay (who, in terms of quality of analysis, is at par with a lot of the partisan attack dogs) needs to keep in mind is that paying P400K for the survey results isn't the same as buying first place. What the subscriber gets is a detailed report and usually a couple of rider questions he can ask. That's all.

The tambays need to remember that these organizations don't just appear every three years. They conduct surveys all the time; it's how they make a living. And they can't make a living if their reputation is tarnished by allegations of selling results. For surveys to work, the surveyors need to follow protocol and be honest with what they find out.

Now, assuming the tambay knows this, there's still that other line of attack that calls into question the methods employed, most especially sampling. "Bakit 500 lang ang respondents?" someone would ask. Well if they paid attention to statistics in college they'd understand. Sadly, few people do.

Of course surveys work. They're never 100% accurate, but they work well enough for a lot of businesses, for example, to base decisions on. There are large organizations that make a decent living off doing surveys and studying various markets / audiences. The savvy political organization knows what the results mean and how to use that knowledge to their advantage. Sadly, a lot of them think that bandying their lead is the only use of surveys.

Surveys are tools that the public and politicians misunderstand and misuse all the time. To paraphrase David Ogilvy they use it the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support instead of illumination.

"The floods are not an act of god...

... they were caused by man's inaction."

And with those lines Arch. Jun Palafox stole the show at the executive briefing on the environment headlined by former congressman and current senatoriable Dr. Neric Acosta, author of the Clean Air Act. Before Ondoy hit, the briefing was supposed to highlight ecolabeling and the "Green Choice" seal but given the situation, the people's interests were piqued by what the urban planner had to say. And while the speakers and reactors generally kept to the topic, the issue du jour was Ondoy and global warming.

Acosta showed simulations of areas that will be flooded should the ice caps melt and the sea level rise by 12 meters, quipping "what the opposition cannot do, global warming will." In his computer simulations Malacanang will be buried underwater. "Unfortunately, congress is on high ground" [rimshot].

But on to Palafox's presentation, which wasn't part of the program (he spoke during the open forum) but shut a roomful of CEOs and government officials up because it was really very interesting.

In the 70s, he said, when they were planning Metro Manila, the geological surveys suggested the creation of several floodways that are supposed to divert water runoff to larger bodies of water. Manggahan floodway leads all the water to Laguna Lake, while the proposed Paranaque spillway was supposed to run to Manila Bay. Palafox did not elaborate why but the spillway was never built, hence the water has little recourse but to spill over to the streets, which, being parallel to the waterways, served as alternate channels.

But then the conversation turned to carbon credits and greenwashing and other topics. Which was only fair. But given what most of us learned that morning, I'm sure everyone would spare another morning listening to what Palafox has to say further.

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EDIT: To add this link to the Inquirer interview.

If he were to redesign Metro Manila, Palafox said he would take a “big eraser” and wipe out parts of Metro Manila in the east, north and south, where development did not conform to standards, particularly the construction of housing below the flood lines. “Government knows what the flood lines are. Why did developers of subdivisions allow construction of housing projects below the flood lines?” he asked.

If Neil Gaiman takes me prisoner...

Gaiman's home library. (Image ripped from Shelfari)

...then I'd want to be incarcerated in his basement. Because he'd need no restraints to keep me in here for a year or so. Check out the high-res photos Shelfari took (yes, you can read the titles and compare).