This is only tangetially related to the previous post.
Some schmoe thought it would be a good idea to take a professional speaker, author, and media personality's name, register it on Facebook as soon as technically possible, and use that as collateral for free advice and ideas. The author, Larry Winget, ripped him a couple of new ones (and rightfully so), and...wait for it...people are giving Winget grief about it.
Somedays, I worry about people.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Unbelievable.
I had some trouble with my Graphic Design Program back in May of 2004. I wasn't sure where I was going to go, had no self-confidence, and I felt like everything around me was out of my control. I was in the worst physical shape I had ever been, I was consistently broke, and I had no cigarettes left to tide my nicotine addiction. Due to a two-day "allnighter," then slept for most of another day, I hadn't had a smoke in, roughly, a three day period.
In short, I was a wreck. When the mental stress of where I felt I was heading with school, my full-time job, and my general station in life, I almost cracked.
Then, out of the blue, I came to a conclusion.
I was tired of living like this. I wanted to actually be proud of what I had done in my studies, and I wanted to be proud of the work I achieved. I wanted to run my own show - be in business for myself - because I saw a lot of solutions to basic workplace problems in the hospital at which I worked, and realized, as a low man on the totem pole, that my suggestions or points didn't count. I was of the opinion that this would be a regularly occurring phenomena in my professional life, and I didn't want spend my professional working life that frustrated.
But most importantly, I did not want to be out of control of my own destiny. I understood that there are "X" factors that we cannot control, but I did want to control the things I could.
So, I made some changes.
I quit smoking cold turkey. As most of the nicotine had left my system, all I had to really do was resist the psychological urge to pick up a smoke. Nowadays, cigarette smoke makes me feel ill - I feel no need to pick up a pack of Camels, not even if I've been out drinking with friends.
I joined a gym - Gold's Gym in Columbia (though the one in Columbia got bought out and is called something else now). I would go on and off, as I could ( I did have a full load of classes and a fulltime job, so sometimes sacrifices had to be made). Nowadays, I am in a very regular weekly gym routine and have been for a while.
Most importantly, I changed my tune on how I viewed the world and how I acted in it. Things which I knew to be true, like my own responsibility and culpability in my life, I acknowledged. I stopped blaming my genes for my weight, and started blaming myself and my choices for it. If I did poorly in school, I took it as being my fault, instead of the professor's or the school's fault. I started planning out how I wanted my life to be, post-graduation.
One day, while running through a Staples for drafting supplies, I accidentally discovered a book. It was on the bottom shelf of a cardboard drop-bin display in the middle of the aisle, filled with 7 Habits of Highly Successful People-like books. This one, however, took me by surprise.
It was Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life by Larry Winget. A title like that jumps out at you, whether you agree with its sentiment or not.
For the record, I certainly agreed with it. I picked it up without thumbing through it, and bought it on the spot. I read it in about two days. What was most interesting in reading it was that there were a lot of spots where the author writes, after making a point, something along the lines of "I've gone too far, you say?" which puzzled me - because pretty much everything he wrote I agreed with already (except for rap - I'll listen to Wu Tang or the Roots as easily as I'll listen to Buck Owens, Freddie Mercury, Frank Zappa, or John Coltrane. Oh, well. Each to their own).
In any case, the book was read and re-read. I got a couple of books on CD from his website and listened to them to and from work and school, not so much to learn, but to pump myself up psychologically for my day. It got me through school, it made my day job bearable, and gave me the audacity of faith in myself to have the life I wanted after school.
Fast forward to the current day. I am being put out to pasture from my current position (outsourced), to which I can really only say that our separation is mutually agreeable. So, I am going fulltime in my freelance endeavors, and have surprisingly good prospects. I am, two years after getting my sheepskin, independent, through and through.
I'm on my way.
In short, I was a wreck. When the mental stress of where I felt I was heading with school, my full-time job, and my general station in life, I almost cracked.
Then, out of the blue, I came to a conclusion.
I was tired of living like this. I wanted to actually be proud of what I had done in my studies, and I wanted to be proud of the work I achieved. I wanted to run my own show - be in business for myself - because I saw a lot of solutions to basic workplace problems in the hospital at which I worked, and realized, as a low man on the totem pole, that my suggestions or points didn't count. I was of the opinion that this would be a regularly occurring phenomena in my professional life, and I didn't want spend my professional working life that frustrated.
But most importantly, I did not want to be out of control of my own destiny. I understood that there are "X" factors that we cannot control, but I did want to control the things I could.
So, I made some changes.
I quit smoking cold turkey. As most of the nicotine had left my system, all I had to really do was resist the psychological urge to pick up a smoke. Nowadays, cigarette smoke makes me feel ill - I feel no need to pick up a pack of Camels, not even if I've been out drinking with friends.
I joined a gym - Gold's Gym in Columbia (though the one in Columbia got bought out and is called something else now). I would go on and off, as I could ( I did have a full load of classes and a fulltime job, so sometimes sacrifices had to be made). Nowadays, I am in a very regular weekly gym routine and have been for a while.
Most importantly, I changed my tune on how I viewed the world and how I acted in it. Things which I knew to be true, like my own responsibility and culpability in my life, I acknowledged. I stopped blaming my genes for my weight, and started blaming myself and my choices for it. If I did poorly in school, I took it as being my fault, instead of the professor's or the school's fault. I started planning out how I wanted my life to be, post-graduation.
One day, while running through a Staples for drafting supplies, I accidentally discovered a book. It was on the bottom shelf of a cardboard drop-bin display in the middle of the aisle, filled with 7 Habits of Highly Successful People-like books. This one, however, took me by surprise.
It was Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life by Larry Winget. A title like that jumps out at you, whether you agree with its sentiment or not.
For the record, I certainly agreed with it. I picked it up without thumbing through it, and bought it on the spot. I read it in about two days. What was most interesting in reading it was that there were a lot of spots where the author writes, after making a point, something along the lines of "I've gone too far, you say?" which puzzled me - because pretty much everything he wrote I agreed with already (except for rap - I'll listen to Wu Tang or the Roots as easily as I'll listen to Buck Owens, Freddie Mercury, Frank Zappa, or John Coltrane. Oh, well. Each to their own).
In any case, the book was read and re-read. I got a couple of books on CD from his website and listened to them to and from work and school, not so much to learn, but to pump myself up psychologically for my day. It got me through school, it made my day job bearable, and gave me the audacity of faith in myself to have the life I wanted after school.
Fast forward to the current day. I am being put out to pasture from my current position (outsourced), to which I can really only say that our separation is mutually agreeable. So, I am going fulltime in my freelance endeavors, and have surprisingly good prospects. I am, two years after getting my sheepskin, independent, through and through.
I'm on my way.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Freelance is the way to go. Period.
One thing that's been bugging me recently is the lack of paying design jobs. I understand that people are hurting in this economy, and many people are taking pay cuts to stay on at places, and that some sacrifices have to be made, but...
Couldn't we at least have a few positions open up that are at least half-assed, when it comes to salary (as opposed to quarter-assed)?
I know many designers who make around half of what the national average is right now. That is an extremely uncomfortable place to be in, financially speaking. Even so, many positions opening now here in KC (at least where salary is posted in job search sites) have compensation listed that is beyond the pale.
Enough of this.
Between a job opening for a Creative Director paying $22,500 in Lee's Summit, and a design job that pays $10-15 per hour in the Crossroads Art District (yet requires five years of experience), I'd rather a.) take my chances in freelance , or b.) work at a Wal-Mart for an hourly rate. Depending on how reliable an employee you have been in the past, you might even make more there.
Personally, I prefer the freelance option. Print has been dying for a while, which means many designers are going to have to branch out to the web (if they haven't already), and they will need to learn a whole new ballgame, much like they did when desktop publishing became the norm. They will have to know coding in as many languages as they can. Computer Science and Graphic Design will become double majors in much greater frequency than even now.
But, if you want to survive in the design field (and are neither juiced in at an agency nor a Design God or Goddess Who Walks Among Us), this will become necessary.
Then again, maybe freelancing is the way to go for all markets, outside of design, as the "traditional" (at least for the past twenty years) means of doing business doesn't seem to offer that much anymore. The one thing regular employment offers is security. But how has that been going so far? Security of job, retirement fund, benefits, etc., have all been challenged and shaken to the core over the past year.
There is no job security. There is no foolproof retirement plan. Benefits aren't all they're cracked up to be, depending on where you work and what kind of health care plan you have.
So, please, tell me again, why should I be clamoring for the chance to earn college-part-time-level income from a company that would cut me before it thought of cutting perks in the executive washroom?
Couldn't we at least have a few positions open up that are at least half-assed, when it comes to salary (as opposed to quarter-assed)?
I know many designers who make around half of what the national average is right now. That is an extremely uncomfortable place to be in, financially speaking. Even so, many positions opening now here in KC (at least where salary is posted in job search sites) have compensation listed that is beyond the pale.
Enough of this.
Between a job opening for a Creative Director paying $22,500 in Lee's Summit, and a design job that pays $10-15 per hour in the Crossroads Art District (yet requires five years of experience), I'd rather a.) take my chances in freelance , or b.) work at a Wal-Mart for an hourly rate. Depending on how reliable an employee you have been in the past, you might even make more there.
Personally, I prefer the freelance option. Print has been dying for a while, which means many designers are going to have to branch out to the web (if they haven't already), and they will need to learn a whole new ballgame, much like they did when desktop publishing became the norm. They will have to know coding in as many languages as they can. Computer Science and Graphic Design will become double majors in much greater frequency than even now.
But, if you want to survive in the design field (and are neither juiced in at an agency nor a Design God or Goddess Who Walks Among Us), this will become necessary.
Then again, maybe freelancing is the way to go for all markets, outside of design, as the "traditional" (at least for the past twenty years) means of doing business doesn't seem to offer that much anymore. The one thing regular employment offers is security. But how has that been going so far? Security of job, retirement fund, benefits, etc., have all been challenged and shaken to the core over the past year.
There is no job security. There is no foolproof retirement plan. Benefits aren't all they're cracked up to be, depending on where you work and what kind of health care plan you have.
So, please, tell me again, why should I be clamoring for the chance to earn college-part-time-level income from a company that would cut me before it thought of cutting perks in the executive washroom?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
New ads
Check out my new ads on BackPage, running on the Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh editions - not to mention in print!
Basically, I'm making my sites available for $50 a month, instead of everything in two installments.
Basically, I'm making my sites available for $50 a month, instead of everything in two installments.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Thoughts on Watchmen (Among Other Things..)
Just finished watching Watchmen at the AMC 30 Multiplex in Olathe, KS.
Not a bad movie, in and of itself.
But it didn't really excite me, either. Granted, I've read the book a few times (it's been a while since I've re-read it, however), and so there were no big surprises. The first thing that came to my mind after watching it was this:
Whoopty-shit. Christ, it's already 7 o'clock.
No, really. I just paid $20 for a movie ticket and a meal. The meal was actually pretty good, but, dammit, that was three hours, and I could have gotten a lot done during that time. There's nothing I really took home from the movie, and I didn't discuss the finer points of it on the way home - becuase everyone else in the car felt it was a pointless adaptation - well-made, generally well-acted, but altogether pointless, at least to me. I'm sure there are people who love the hell out of it, and good for them.
Instead, I feel generally empty afterward. Then again, I feel like that after a lot of movies at the theater nowadays - it all just seems like disposable product. Even stuff I enjoy at the theater doesn't make me want to buy or otherwise procure a copy of it on DVD for future viewing.
Who knows? Maybe I'm just getting old.
Not a bad movie, in and of itself.
But it didn't really excite me, either. Granted, I've read the book a few times (it's been a while since I've re-read it, however), and so there were no big surprises. The first thing that came to my mind after watching it was this:
Whoopty-shit. Christ, it's already 7 o'clock.
No, really. I just paid $20 for a movie ticket and a meal. The meal was actually pretty good, but, dammit, that was three hours, and I could have gotten a lot done during that time. There's nothing I really took home from the movie, and I didn't discuss the finer points of it on the way home - becuase everyone else in the car felt it was a pointless adaptation - well-made, generally well-acted, but altogether pointless, at least to me. I'm sure there are people who love the hell out of it, and good for them.
Instead, I feel generally empty afterward. Then again, I feel like that after a lot of movies at the theater nowadays - it all just seems like disposable product. Even stuff I enjoy at the theater doesn't make me want to buy or otherwise procure a copy of it on DVD for future viewing.
Who knows? Maybe I'm just getting old.
Monday, November 17, 2008
A word on failure.
I know a lot of people who have a tendency to say withing their comfort zone. Designers (no finger-pointing here) who stay in a specific "style" of doing everything, cartoonists who avoid drawing difficult things (like hands and feet, or cars, or really anything) by cleverly hiding them out of the panel or behind something else. Even people who are generally overachievers seem to fall prey to this. What's funny is that this all comes down to fear - fear of failure.
"What if I become a laughing stock of my peers for failing to design something in a properly Constructivist fashion?"
"What if people realize I can only draw cool action poses, faces, and hot chicks well?"
"What if they talk about me afterwards, and I become a joke?"
As odd as this sounds, the way I get around this is by assuming I already am a laughing stock. As a chunky kid, I knew my name was both a punchline and an alternative name for cooties (the kids would tag each other and say "I just gave you Keener disease,"...no shit...), so assuming I'm ridiculed is by no means a stretch. In an odd way, this makes me work harder at the things I care about most. I am in the middle of finishing a five-issue comic series, in four completely different styles. In my opinion, the last three worked out the best. The craft is probably best in the last two, but the style of the third one is an awesome throwback to an expressionistic era of art, and it shows.
If I worried about how people would react that much, the book would ever get done, and I probably would not have pursued the opportunity to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very anal about my finished product, but I know I have to release it into the wild at some time...
It should be pointed out that no matter what you do from a creative point of view, your failures will (and really should) outweigh your successes. Frank Zappa released over 80 albums in his lifetime, and while most fans enjoy the majority, not everything is a masterpiece - this is coming from a die-hard Zappa fan, mind you. Even he wrote a whole chapter in his autobiography on the concept of failure, going over a few high-concept business ventures that didn't come around. And he still did well enough to build his own state of the art home recording studio, own all his own master tapes, and hang out with (and jam with) the Chieftains up until the day he died.
The basic reasoning is this: even if you become a laughing stock, taking risks and (consequently) getting better at what you do will lead you to at least a few rousing successes, and nothing irks your naysayers more than having to give you credit for a great job - and with that comes a respect that is much stronger than any penny-ante trash talking. Besides, if you want to see some folks who really are embarrassing, go to this site (warning: NSFW) - I guarantee you'll never look this bad, no matter how spectacularly you fail at any one thing.
MK
PS: Oddly enough, the answer to most of life's problems is in a line from the 80s comedy Skin Deep. To quote the Blake Edwards screenplay (courtesy of the IMDB):
"You're scared like the rest of us. You drink too much, you chase girls much too much, and you don't use your God-given talent anymore."
Although I'd argue that the "chase girls line" should probably be "surf for porn" in this day and age for a lot of folks....
"What if I become a laughing stock of my peers for failing to design something in a properly Constructivist fashion?"
"What if people realize I can only draw cool action poses, faces, and hot chicks well?"
"What if they talk about me afterwards, and I become a joke?"
As odd as this sounds, the way I get around this is by assuming I already am a laughing stock. As a chunky kid, I knew my name was both a punchline and an alternative name for cooties (the kids would tag each other and say "I just gave you Keener disease,"...no shit...), so assuming I'm ridiculed is by no means a stretch. In an odd way, this makes me work harder at the things I care about most. I am in the middle of finishing a five-issue comic series, in four completely different styles. In my opinion, the last three worked out the best. The craft is probably best in the last two, but the style of the third one is an awesome throwback to an expressionistic era of art, and it shows.
If I worried about how people would react that much, the book would ever get done, and I probably would not have pursued the opportunity to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very anal about my finished product, but I know I have to release it into the wild at some time...
It should be pointed out that no matter what you do from a creative point of view, your failures will (and really should) outweigh your successes. Frank Zappa released over 80 albums in his lifetime, and while most fans enjoy the majority, not everything is a masterpiece - this is coming from a die-hard Zappa fan, mind you. Even he wrote a whole chapter in his autobiography on the concept of failure, going over a few high-concept business ventures that didn't come around. And he still did well enough to build his own state of the art home recording studio, own all his own master tapes, and hang out with (and jam with) the Chieftains up until the day he died.
The basic reasoning is this: even if you become a laughing stock, taking risks and (consequently) getting better at what you do will lead you to at least a few rousing successes, and nothing irks your naysayers more than having to give you credit for a great job - and with that comes a respect that is much stronger than any penny-ante trash talking. Besides, if you want to see some folks who really are embarrassing, go to this site (warning: NSFW) - I guarantee you'll never look this bad, no matter how spectacularly you fail at any one thing.
MK
PS: Oddly enough, the answer to most of life's problems is in a line from the 80s comedy Skin Deep. To quote the Blake Edwards screenplay (courtesy of the IMDB):
"You're scared like the rest of us. You drink too much, you chase girls much too much, and you don't use your God-given talent anymore."
Although I'd argue that the "chase girls line" should probably be "surf for porn" in this day and age for a lot of folks....
Monday, November 3, 2008
Vote Early. Vote Often.
Don't assume your favorite candidate is destined to win tomorrow (or lose tomorrow). If anything, think of tomorrow's duty as a way to stick it back to all the people who's political ads you can't stand.
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