Happy/sad:

Today is my birthday. As birthdays go, it was a good day: I worked, hung with the kids, had dinner at Shake Shack, and thought my night would end with a cupcake, and a little more work.

Instead, I had a cupcake, and read the news of Steve Job's passing.

I am heartbroken. I didn't know Steve Jobs personally, but my God. He has had such a huge impact on my life, it's hard not to feel the emptiness, now that he is no longer with us. Because of Steve Jobs' vision, I have a career. When Apple forced Jobs out, the company began a slow and steady decline, almost to the point of bankruptcy. Hired back in 1996, Jobs began changing the way the world operates; first by introducing the revolutionary iMac (from which I am writing this on, and from which I work every day), then the iPod, iphone, iPad...

Without his ingenuity, his genius, I wouldn't have a machine to work on. Sure, I could clunk around on a PC, but I guarantee that the field of design would not be the same if not for Steve Jobs and the way he brought Apple back to life. And he took it and ran, introducing the world to a new way of listening to music, a new way of communicating with one another, a new way of computing.

His great mind will be missed. I think my friend BJ put it best when he said that we are lucky to have lived in the Steve Jobs era.

Very lucky indeed.

This makes me sad (not snooty, just sad)

Forbes has an a very interesting article, The Creativity of Crowds, online. The subtitle:

CrowdSpring aims to slash the cost of graphic design work--and democratize a snooty business.

Hmmmm. The article makes designers seem "snooty" because they--gasp!--actually want to get paid for their work. It's like hiring a team of lawyers, and only paying the one who wins you the case. Actually, one of the commenters said it best:

A designer who is worth his salt provides a service to a paying client in exactly the same manner as an attorney or an accountant. There is no difference. If the client simply needs window dressing, then my all means, he may prefer the work of my 12-year-old son to mine, but let's not confuse the issue here. A CAD program does not make me an architect and a copy of QuickBooks does not make me an accountant. Everyone deserves an opportunity to express their creativity, but there are serious liability issues to consider. I'm all for open competition, and in fact, I embrace it. But we should also recall that some of our greatest recent tragedies have come from poorly designed products, illegible signage, and confusing ballots...

...And the Forbes writer? You know, the one who penned this article's ludicrously silly subhead, was likely this year's lucky winner of Mrs. Winters' sixth grade journalism competition. Because why would we pay an experienced writer when anyone with Microsoft Word and e-mail can submit a story?

The article makes me sad; I went to college to do what I do. I LOVE what I do. Few things excite me more than a client coming to me with a dream, and I get to help them make that dream a reality. I hold my client's hands and find printers that are within budget, I show them why that color just isn't going to work, I stay up late at night making sure, in fact, my files are printer ready... because this isn't my hobby, it's my career. Good luck finding that at CrowdSpring.

If you're going to read the article, then I highly recommend reading all of the comments as well. Then head straight to No!Spec to see their (not surprising at all) take on it.

(Thanks, David Airey, SwissMiss)