I had an excellent day yesterday!  It started with a productive morning with a good deal of client work accomplished… just like that!  There were many emails sent and replied to and phone conversations were exciting and on target.  It seemed like everyone was available at the exact same time I was.  I spoke with some incredibly smart people (always a pleasure). And I asked some questions of others that might have caused ripples.  I love ripples.  I question things… it’s what I do.

In considering the pros and cons of ripples, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe I’d be better off if I didn’t disturb the status quo; I have a tendency to do so.  Pondering this made me think however of one of the strongest attributes and most wonderful things about designers… And this is one of the reasons you want to hire a professional designer.

One of the designer’s great talents is to question things. They bring fresh eyes into a situation and often ask questions of their clients such as “Why are you doing things this way?”  From that question, comes much information about the client’s organization and that information is what designers use to create effective and successful visual communications. Designers can create a bit of ruckus sometimes with their curiosity but the questions we ask are not meant to be mean or judgmental. It’s fact finding. And it’s done with the intention of best being able to assist those whom we are working with.

It’s not like designers have had their jobs forced on them.  Not like the old days when an employee stayed at a job they hated for 20 or 30 years.  Designers choose to be designers and often design is our lifestyle… our air. We love to talk with clients about their dreams and their missions, to share goals together and to receive new opportunities to be our best creative selves.

So the next time your designer starts picking away at you asking questions, remember it’s because we want to create something for you based on your needs, your mission, and what you might be looking at for the future.

Do you need a creative sidekick?  Contact me… I’ll probably ask you some questions

Caravaggio - Super at Emmaus

I wanted to be a lawyer. Constitutional law, in fact.  So, in 1993 I went back to college as an adult with two small children at home and all the many responsibilities of a grown-up.  Attending college as an adult was certainly challenging. I remember saying “How much harder can this be than a full time job?”  Let me tell you…it was a lot harder.  I attended Middlesex Community College, in Middletown, Connecticut. I worked hard at my studies because like a bad credit report, I had to reinvent myself.  I had attempted college once before right out of high school and, rather than study, I found partying more to my liking.  My failure at college was, of course, documented on my transcript and my past worked against me.

AIGA Connecticut is doing it again and is presenting what promises to be another extraordinary workshop.  On March 10, 2010, award winning photographer and writer, Sean Kernan, will talk about real creativity.  This is not the creativity we learned in school or at work, but the stuff we knew from the start. The workshop will explore how our basic creative impulses affect our lives and our work and how new thinking can open our eyes to the wonderment of what might be an enhanced creative lifestyle.

According to AIGA CT, this workshop will not help you get work, fall in love or make you healthy, but it might just get you back in touch with those creative ideas that you perhaps might have had as a free thinking child.

Sean Kernan

Sean Kernan  lives and works on the Connecticut coast. His photographs have been shown in museums around the world, including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Museum of Photography in Greece, and the Whitney Museum in the United States.  Mr. Kernan has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Communication Arts, Graphis, and the Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of Among Trees (Published by Artisan Books, May 2003) and The Secret Books, with Jorge Luis Borges.

This event is $40 for AIGA members and $50 for non-members. If you sign up to become an AIGA member at this event, the event is FREE!
To purchase tickets, visit AIGA CT Online

And writers, photographers, musicians, designers and you, too.  Maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, but this morning I attended a social media and power networking breakfast and was surprised at the number of people who weren’t taking advantage of social media to promote their businesses.  Social media (blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) is one of the greatest tools available today in which to market your work and your talent. Hell, it’s a great tool just to meet some excellent people.  Never before have we been able to promote our work to people around the corner, the nation and around the world with the click of a mouse.  Social media makes it possible. Millions of people have a Facebook page and/or a Twitter account… There’s a lot of networking you could be doing right now.

You are not just an artist.  You are an entrepreneur and you’re in the business of selling and promoting your work. The world is changing.  Business models are changing.  Social media is a tool for positive change.  It’s important, now more then ever, to reach out to like-minded people and be a part of the change. I know you are probably thinking, “Holy cow, I don’t have time for that nonsense. And who cares what I had for breakfast?”  Using social media is not about what you had for breakfast.  I guarantee you that marketing using these online avenues only takes about 10 minutes a day and it will make a huge difference in your business plan.  Simply log on and tell your fans, in 140 characters, daily news from your studio or gallery.  Talk about your process or your challenges.  Create a page or group just for your business.  You can create lists to organize your followers according to your interests.  To save you time, there are applications such as Tweetdeck which will allow you to type one entry and display it over several social media networks automatically.  Update Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin all at once.  You’re done.

I’m a believer in social media.  In just the last year, social media has revolutionized my social life and my business life in the most remarkable ways.  I’m now attending art events that I wouldn’t have even know about in 2008.  I’ve met artists, photographers, gallerists, and world class journalists.  I was invited to sit on the board of AIGA CT because of my connections on Facebook.  I’ve gotten writing assignments, retained clients and even went camping because of social media.  I’ve learned a lot.  All these connections created new connections and best of all…new opportunities.

I’d love to share some tips and resources for social media here with you.  Are you using Facebook?  Twitter or Linkedin?  Or does the whole notion of social media just freak you out?

You can find me here:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lisa.mikulski or creativeartsguide
Twitter: @lisamikulski or @creativeartsg
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/lisamikulski

I’ll make this brief because this could turn into a real rant.  On Feb. 1, 2010, NEA (National Endowment of the Arts) released a ‘logo design contest’ call for proposals.  On Spec! You can read their Request for Proposal here.

As a board member of AIGA CT and a staunch supporter of the arts for the last 10 years…I AM APPALLED. Here’s the kicker. Despite requesting that “designers and contractors” work for free, the NEA goes on to state, “‘Art Works’ is a reminder that arts workers are real workers who are part of this country’s real economy. They earn salaries, support families, pay taxes. Artists are also entrepreneurs and place-makers, who revitalize towns, cities, and neighborhoods – both the economies and the ethos of them.”  If that’s the case, then why not actually HIRE a designer?  Designers have families, pay bills, and “are part of this country’s real economy” as well. Why not send out a real RFP (request for proposal) based on experience, style and chemistry, and then hire the best team for the job?

As a designer and writer working exclusively with the arts, I have seen how the arts community can work together and support one another.  I’ve seen artists support designers and designers support artists…I applaud and champion this type of networking and camaraderie. Isn’t the NEA a part of our community?  One thinks not after this announcement, given by NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman at a Miami high school (you know about high school…that place where kids go to learn?) which blatantly endorses design spec work.

NEA…I am very disappointed.

Every year for the last 4 years I have looked forward to obtaining the annual calendar from the design team of Cummings & Good in Chester, Connecticut.  Artful and unique, these beautiful creations serve first as an embellishment to any office or kitchen, but then packaged in a canister the happy calendar owner can roll it up at the end of the year and keep a year of events as a time capsule.  These calendars are not just a palette for date keeping, they celebrate a yearly theme… Love, Work, Play, and this year Books. Each month of 2010, a literary theme is illustrated and illuminated… A Book of Photographs, Alphabet Book, Sketch Book, Book Case, Cook Book, and Scrap Book are some of the subjects explored.

The variety of  letterforms, imagery, and illustration on these calendars are examples that have made Cummings & Good the amazing design team that they are. It is a labor of love. For more than three decades the award-winning Cummings & Good have created compelling design solutions for Fortune 500 companies, arts organizations, educational institutions, and special events.  For the past 16 years, the team has created these gorgeous keepsake calendars.

Design of Time: Ten Years of Cummings & Good Calendars, an exhibition, is presently on display at Thomas J. Dodd Research Center Gallery and Corridor, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut through March 5, 2010.  The exhibit highlights the calendars and covers from 2001 – 2010. The creative process is demonstrated from concept sketches to the final printed pages as well as original art, photographs, constructions, news articles, correspondence, and promotional items. Slow Latin Groove Project will play at the opening reception on Sunday January 24 from 2-4pm.

January 19th – March 5th, 2010
General exhibition Mon – Fri, 8:30 – 4:30 PM

Sunday, January 24th
Opening Reception 2 – 4 PM

Peter and Jan would love to see you at the opening.

Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
University of Connecticut Libraries
Storrs, Connecticut
(860) 486-4500

The Dodd Research Center is adjacent to
the Homer Babbidge Library.

View Directions

Get your own calendar from the Cummings & Good Website
Also available at Mohawk Paper’s Felt & Wire.

Visit the AIGA CT Website

Join me this Thursday January 21, 2010 at 7pm for:

OBJECTIFIED (2009), 75 min.
Gary Hustwit, director

From the director of “helvetica” comes the 2nd documentary in a film trilogy on design. Objectified offers a fascinating look at industrial products and design, the designers and their responsibility in creating them, and our relationship with those objects.

“The term objectified has two meanings. One is ‘to be treated with the status of a mere object.’ But the other is ‘something abstract expressed in a concrete form,’ as in the way a sculpture objectifies an artist’s thoughts. It’s the act of transforming creative thought into a tangible object, which is what designers in this film do every day. But maybe there’s a third meaning to this title, regarding the ways these objects are affecting us and our environment. Have we all become objectified?”
-Gary Hustwit (from his “objectified’ blog)

Steven Holden, NY Times : “Objectified, Gary Hustwit’s documentary about industrial design, is as sleek and handsome as any of the new and improved household items it exhibits”.

Ronnie Scheib, Variety: “Witty, engaging and exquisitely crafted.”

“Entertainment weekly gives objectified an A! You’ll never look at your toothbrush (or your next any product) in quite the same way after watching this astute, elegant inquiry into the purpose and process of industrial design.”

Join me this Thursday, January 21, 7pm at:
EO Art Lab
69 Main Street
Chester, CT
06412

phone:
860.526.4833

$7.50 donation
free popcorn
byob

Eero Saarinen – Shaping the Future, is now showing at the Museum of the City of New York through January 31, 2010.  Shaping the Future is the first retrospective of the architect’s career and has been organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, The Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki, and the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., with the support of the Yale University School of Architecture.

Finnish architect, Saarinen ( 1910-1961) was one of the most prolific designers of the 20th century with such American landmarks as the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport and the St. Louis Gateway Arch.  These iconic structures captured the aspirations and values of mid 20th century America. According to the museum, “Saarinen’s clients constituted a who’s who of the era’s most prominent industries and institutions. For them, he designed buildings that advanced the expansion of higher education and the promotion of automobile culture and air travel, popular forms of entertainment like television, and the newest information technologies.”

Public programs include:

Thu, November 12, 6:30 PM
Meet the Saarinens
Thu, November 19, 6:30 PM
The Legacy of Saarinen’s Office
Wed, December 02, 6:30 PM
Preserving 20th-Century Modernism
Wed, December 02, 6:30 PM
Preserving 20th-Century Modernism
Sun, December 06, 1:00 PM
Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future: Gallery Tour
Tue, December 08, 1:00 PM
Saarinen and the spirit of Innovation

Visit the Museum’s website for details and information.

Purchase the companion exhibition catalog by Donald Albrecht, Eero Saarinen- Shaping the Future.

REVIEW By Nicolai Ouroussoff: Making the Face of Moderism Familiar, New York Times

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