Blue Beanie Day is a day in support of web standards. In other words – good websites done right; I’m all about that. I photoshopped my beanie on, since I don’t have one.
3rd Annual Blue Beanie Day
Posted in Digital Gunslinging, Entrepreneurship, Web Design Tagged Blue Beanie Day 2009, Nick Armstrong 9 Comments
Thank You!
I wanted to issue out a huge thank you – I’ve been sending out personal thank yous today, and if I’ve forgotten you then I am truly sorry.
I’m very thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life – it’s a testament to the power of community and forward thinkers that I have anything more than a cardboard box over my head.
I’m appreciative of each and every one of you and hope to show it to you every chance I get.
Thank You.
-Nick Armstrong
Operation Fat-Ass to Fit-Ass – Day 3
I’d mentioned in a previous post I want to get down to 200 lbs. To make it happen, I have three strategies:
- A sustainable exercise routine
- Conscious control over what I eat
- A written log of the journey
#1 is in the bag… I’ve committed myself to 30 minutes a day on the Wii Fit, and while it’s not the most rigorous workout ever, it’s better than nothing. It’s challenging enough that I feel like I’m accomplishing something and not too challenging that I want to give up. It’s sustainable and I don’t feel like a slug. I’m sore and tired, but it’s a good tired.
As a side-note, commonly exercise it clears your head… not me. I’m less focused than I was before. Aside from the soreness, this has been the only downside. On the plus-side, I do feel like I have more energy.
#2 involves a few things:
- Walking to Sunflower each day to get stuff to cook dinner that night (after Thanksgiving)
- Eating slower
- Choosing smaller portions, and
- Drinking more water
#3 is this blog and possibly a food journal.
I’m not sure what a food journal will look like yet. It takes a lot of time to write down every meal and it adds a lot of guilt to something that should be pleasurable. Keeping a food journal is like counting condoms before you have sex; probably not what you should be focusing on in that moment.
The reason I stopped going to Weight Watchers a few years back was simple: there was a poster on the wall that said, “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.”
For me, thin seems like the wrong word. Healthy is the right message. Nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels. So I’m keeping that in mind.
Spec Work or Celebrating Your Audience?
But, when I read about Space150’s logo design competition, it sounded to me a lot more like “we want to celebrate our audience’s work” rather than spec work. Taking another example, is Mountain Dew’s can design campaign spec work or are they celebrating their community?
Where and how do you draw the line?
A big problem designers face is that clients -must- understand that they’re paying for art and art seldom comes with a refund policy.
Art is subjective. The logo may not look 100% like what you expected, but that art didn’t just appear. It took years of training, experience, and finally, a few more recent hours to put together.
It’s the adage of Picasso walking through the park and being approached by a fan who begs for a self-portrait. Picasso begrudgingly obliges and then asks for $20,000. The fan protests, “But that just took you 5 minutes…” and Picasso replies, “No ma’am, this took me my entire life.”
From another perspective, you can pay $7 for a steak at iHop… or you can pay $20 for one at Brooks. Cooking a steak can be artful – but if you (as the chef) completely mess up a steak, the client gets a new steak at most places. Others, you get a refund. I think the problem is that the client doesn’t trust (or doesn’t know about) your redo/refund policy.
Art is subjective; but taste is also subjective. Designers have a responsibility for acknowledging both sides of the coin, just as clients have a responsibility to pay fairly for completed work.