good is good and sagmeister

Sagmeister: I enjoyed watching the talk, not only was his accent interesting, I think it added to his humor. It's kind of a cheesy humor, but he has valid, good points about design and being happy. I agree completely. To me, if i'm not excited about what I'm working on, it usually won't turn out as good as if I am. So I try to find something in every project that I like, so I have the best chances of making the best design I can. The reason he is so popular is for obvious reasons for his album covers for likes of the rolling stones, but I think for a large part because of his humor. Everyone likes to laugh, so when he brings humor into his design, it makes it more attractive to people because they enjoy laughing, and therefore they are more likely to remember it, and enjoy it.



JJ Abrams: "Mystery is the catalyst for imagination" "Mystery more important than knowledge" Those are two pretty cool quotes. I think that what I took away from his talk was that just knowing a bunch of stuff is useless if there is no desire to discover. Especially for a creative person, no matter what field they may be in, they all need a desire and a drive to discover possibilites. Knowing a bunch of stuff isn't going to help the creative process if the person is completely uninterested and not inspired to find out this mystery.



Paula Scher: Her talk was a bit more structured then the other two, but I still think that it was pretty good. It was kind of funny that right at the begining of her speech she mentioned playing when designing because recently we've kind of taken that motto at work, we're supposed to 'play' and have fun at work. Easier said than done a lot of the time, but playing while designing, there are more oportunities to do so, especially if you like what you do. I found it interesting that she starts off with playing, then the next she talks about is serious design. To me they are kind of opposite ideas. However, they both are valid. If you don't take it serious, then no one else will. I do think there is a line that allows you to play, while being serious. A lot of time you've got to experiment, play, and sometimes go crazy in order to find that one piece that will allow you to create a great piece of work. Once you've got that piece, seriousness takes over and the "work" begins to truly happen.

How Good is Good: Again, even though he's hitting a different point, I think he's trying to slide in that design should be fun, but also helpful. His points aren't profound or amazing, they're kind of common sense. If someone is promoting a bad cause no matter how good the design, its bad. But the better the design, the more impact its going to have. Therefore, if it's great design for a bad cause, more people will take notice, and possibly join the "bad" cause. On the other hand, if its design for a good cause, then the better the design, the better for everyone. It's not rocket science, but sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out for people to notice. Sad, but true.