You'd Better Think

As I mentioned on Twitter the other day, I spent some of my Labor Day weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the famed tourist attraction, Rock City. I also ate at Urban Stack, but that palace of delicious burgers has nothing to do with my story here.

In the 47 years that I've lived, this was my first visit. Is it touristy? Yeah, a bit. It's also charming, affordable and a surprising place of artistic inspiration. Not only are the natural wonders fascinating, but they have some of the best wrought iron gatework I've ever seen. Good craftsmanship.

I also had an amusing reminder about why I'm a designer and an artist.

I was up at the side of Lookout Mountain where they tell me I can See Seven States. I looked. Unfortunately, all I could see was the Haze of Seven States. I was still amused. It is easy to amuse me, after all.

As I turned from the Haze to walk up the hill and get a soda, I overheard a man complain with great indignation about the changing of the Georgia flag.

A wee bit of back story for those who may not know. The Georgia flag (like may other state flags) has gone through one design after another through the ages. Georgia's flag has had eight different designs. In 1956, a very controversial design of the flag was adopted that used the Confederate battle flag. It raised a great deal of emotion for Georgians, both for and against the design.

Fast forward to 2001. Governor Roy Barnes took it upon himself to re-design the flag, due to some pressure from folks who felt the flag gave Atlanta a bad image during the 1996 Olympics. This flag was a poor piece of design, attempting to show all previous Georgia flags in order to please everyone. In a 2001 survey on state and provincial flags in North America conducted by the North American Vexillological Association, the redesigned Georgia flag was ranked the worst by a wide margin; the group stated that the flag "violates all the principles of good flag design" (from the North American Vexillological Association press release).

Finally, in 2003, Governor Sonny Purdue had the legislature draft up the present flag design. It was based on early flags of Georgia, featuring the "stars & bars" design, also known as the Confederate First National flag. It's a very solid, functional piece of flag design. It works.

Back to the disgruntled flag man. They shouldn't have changed the Georgia flag. It was fine the way is was. Such a disgrace!

I was amused. His emotional response was a very good thing. Design is supposed to do this to you. It's supposed to provoke thought and emotion. All the designers involved in making all these flags have done their job. If your design can get this strong a response (negative or positive) from an everyday person, then you can pat yourself on the back and call it a great day. You did it!

Controversial design has followed us all through history, right back to when the first cave painter was told, "Thog! You composition on painting of First Spring Hunt is good, but everyone going to scream and grunt that you not show all of Tribe Leader Grak's kills!" Maybe Thag needed the tribe to think. Think about Grak, and his hunting abilities. And, perhaps they did think. And felt. And maybe they acted upon these thoughts and feelings, and set present day history in motion.

This trip reminded me of one of my goals. I want to be that designer who inspires others to think and act. And, when they do, I'll know it'll be a great day for me.

A San-Serif Font of Creativity

I've always been a graphic designer.


No, really. It's always been a thing with me. However, when I was a kid, I and everyone else in art class didn't know the term "graphic designer." We called them "commercial artists."


And, I thought this was the coolest idea. I could create wonderful things, and make money doing it. This was an honorable career choice for me: do what you love to do, and earn a living doing it.


Oh, sure, I was sneered at by the other kids who thought it was far cooler to be a "fine artist." Why would you want to be a sell-out, Al? I'd reply back, why would you want to end up in an attic somewhere, making soup out of hot tap water and ketchup and lopping off part of your ear for some girl who thinks you're a nutcase? No, thanks.


Some agreed with me. Some didn't. I wasn't too concerned either way. I knew what I wanted.


I got my first gig when I was about 11 years old. My sister-in-law worked for a food brokerage, and she needed a big banner for their company picnic. She remembered that I was the artistic one in the family, and asked how much I'd charge to paint the banner. In my head, I started to figure about how long it would take, mentally comparing the work to my babysitting job, asked if she was providing supplies and then negotiated a price. She agreed, I did the work, had Dad help me write my first invoice, and got a check about a week later from her company. She said her boss was happy with my work and accounting was amused that my invoice was hand-written on notebook paper.


I loved it, and knew this was my calling. By the time I was 16, I was painting and drawing banners and posters for five different clients: Swift & Co., Devore-Knight Food Brokerage, Bobby Jones Golf Course, The Sandpiper Restaurant and the Business & Professional Woman's Club. And it sure beat the heck out of babysitting!


My resume states that I've been in my current profession for the past 18 years. But, a resume is just a piece of paper (or a bunch of zeros and ones) for a Human Resources Department to put in some folder somewhere. It never gives the whole story.


I'm an artist, a creator, a problem solver. I arrange things. Nicely. I look at certain things around me: candy wrappers, junk mail, t-shirts, Aunt Millie's needlepoint website, and I think, "I can design that to be better!" I marvel over the texture of a certain paper, or revel in the smell of ink on a printing press. I wonder how the gobbledegook of HTML, CSS and Javascript becomes an elegant graphic interface.


I can't help it. I've always been this way.


Ever since my folks carried me out of the hospital, and I thought to myself, "Did they really think the name of the hospital looked good in that font?"