Why messy is good

2014-07-04

There is no shortage these days of illustrations and designs that are clean, smooth, and flat. Vector drawings are popular because people like this look. It works well on websites and in apps. I can't deny that it looks very nice, and it's what I've come to expect in app and web design.

That said, I don't do that. At least, I don't do it often. I like to make things a little more messy. One reason for this is that I'm not very skilled in vector drawing. The main reason, however, is that I want to make it look like an actual person made it. I don't want it to look like it could have been made by a machine. I like any art with a discernible human touch.

In college, in drawing class, it seemed that everyone, including the professor, was obsessed with clean edges. The edge of the drawing had to be taped so that it was straight, and there couldn't be anything in the margins. Besides the fact that I didn't want to deal with the annoyance of measuring and taping and wanted to just draw something, I like fuzzy edges. It's fine to have a clearly defined margin and a clear edge of the artwork, but it doesn't have to be entirely straight. It can be fuzzy. Yes, fingerprints in the margins are normally frowned upon, but it wouldn't kill you to have a little bit of graphite or charcoal or ink in your margin. If you think your piece is that important, you're probably going to frame it anyway, so no one will even see it. Let it be a little messy. People will know that someone, a human, made it.

This is one reason why I have an aversion to photorealistic paintings. We have cameras. They can capture an image almost exactly the way it would look in real life. Therefore, while I respect the skill that photorealistic painters have and the time they put into their pieces, I don't see the point of them. While I do like a painting to have a discernible subject, I want it to be a little messy. I want things to be a little distorted, a little abstracted. Let me know that it's something you made, and that a machine couldn't have done. Infuse it with your humanity.

The point is, we have machines that do all kinds of things for us, and eventually they'll be doing art for us, too. If you, a human, are going to create an artwork, let me know you did it. Don't think that just signing your name will tell me that. Give the work your human signature. Embrace messiness.

The single most infuriating thing about Facebook

2014-03-25

...is the fact that the reach of the Facebook Page for one's business or interest is shrinking so that Facebook can make more money.

Over the past several months, Facebook has been reducing the organic reach of Pages. A recent study found that companies' posts dropped from reaching 12% of their followers in October to just 6% by February.

At some point, Facebook will just stop the charade and make having a Facebook page a paid perk. I'm not sure what the algorithm is that determines who gets to see your page's updates, though I wouldn't be surprised if it's entirely random. I'm not sure what the point of having a Facebook page is anymore. I've never had a whole lot of success with mine, but it wasn't bad. Now, not knowing who will see it, I might as well just forget it. I don't have money for advertising, and this shady move by Facebook isn't convincing me that I should pay for it.

Besides that, what if I'm a consumer who wants to get updates from a particular business or interest? I don't get to see them. There are pages that I forgot that I liked and actually thought, \"Hey, why haven't I liked this on Facebook?\" only to find out that I did already. I only forgot because I hadn't seen an update from them in months, and it's not because they haven't posted any updates.

If my friends would just move to another social network, I wouldn't use Facebook. Each day, though, I consider just leaving it regardless of what my friends do.

Intellectual Snobbery

2014-03-20

I work at a company that sells books for children and young adults. One of the perks of working there is the ability to buy any book the company sells, or at least has previously sold and had returned, at an extreme discount (in most cases, about a 90% discount). Therefore, I've had occasion to buy and read many of these books, most of which I've enjoyed. Now, to be clear, I'm an adult and I've read books written specifically for adults, and I like them, too. I've even read and enjoyed the kind of books that some adults fear to read because they're, well... esoteric, to say the least (I'm this close to finishing Finnegans Wake, really). Of course, I've also read the kind of books meant for adults that are basically literary candy. While some books may be a full meal, or even a feast, these are good for a nice treat but not satisfying in the long term (Michael Moorcock, I'm looking at you). No matter how you classify them, however, they're all books. They all require the ability to read for one to understand and enjoy them.

A recent discussion that I read on reddit made me think a bit about this, though, and about how picky some people are about the kind of books they read.

I don't mean what genre, because I'm picky about that, too. What you want in your book or what kind of characters you want or what setting they're in... it's all fine to be picky about. What I mean is when people feel they must only read books that are incredibly intellectually stimulating to the highest degree, things that will work their brains, and make them really think. Or, at least, the kind of books that the \"educated masses\" think that are the most intellectually stimulating. Also, that have the author's name and the title of the book in really really big letters on the cover, so people can read them from far away. In other words, books that make them look smart. These people would, of course, never be caught reading a children's book, or a book that is \"pure escapism,\" or, heaven forbid, a book with pictures in it. What would people think?

Well... what would people think? That you're not smart just because you're reading a book that people who think they're smart think that smart people shouldn't be reading?

Look, we all read books for different reasons. Sometimes we read them to just have a plain old enjoyable experience. Sometimes we read them for intellectual stimulation. Sometimes we read to turn our brains on, and other times to just turn our brains off for a while.

However, I think some people read books just so they can show other people that they read books. Sad, but true.

Formal vs Informal

2014-01-26

Ever wonder about the real difference between formal and informal language? I mean, the real difference? The real difference isn't that certain words are inherently more formal than others, it's that certain words are just generally accepted as more formal, even if the formal word and the informal word mean the same thing. Take the phrases "adhere to" and "stick to." One is far more formal and business-like than the other. However, when you really look into them, I mean really look into them, they mean exactly the same thing. Seriously, to "adhere" means to "stick." But in a business context, you'd never use "stick to" if you wanted to sound professional. You''d always use "adhere to." How and why did this happen?

Selling Out

2014-01-26

So I was reading a post by Austin Kleon about a post by Robin Sloan about a bio of George Saunders by Joel Lovell (whew). The quote I took away from it was this:

...all my disagreements about art these days tend to come down to whether the people I’m talking to believe that “real” art is only something that you make for yourself without any considerations of how it will go over with an audience.

I can't entirely disagree with this, but I started to think about how I normally go about it. Yes, I do actually make art mainly thinking about whether I like it or not, because if I don't, I'd feel silly making it. I could not make a piece that I hate just because someone else liked it. I'd feel ashamed and the very act of making it would be painful. It doesn't have a lot to do with whether I feel I'm selling out. I don't care about "keeping it real" or being myself despite what others feel about me. I just... can't make stuff I don't like. This doesn't mean that I don't take what other people like into consideration. I prefer that people like what I make. I'd never make something solely for me. I make things to show to and share with people. That's what art is for.

So Id have to argue strongly for "Make it for yourself first," but also "Don't forget everyone else."

Addition and Subtraction

2014-01-26

You always have a tendency to add. But one must be able to subtract too. It's not enough to integrate, you must also disintegrate. That's the way life is. That's philosophy. That's science. That's progress, civilization."

  • Eugène Ionesco, The Lesson

Stephan Pastis on Legacy Comic Strips

2013-02-02

Duluth News Tribune: What do you think about handing off strips to family members when the creator gets old or dies?

Stephan Pastis: The strips written by the grandsons, at least they’re alive. There is someone there who can respond to current events. There should be no repeats on the comics page, ever. I’m the biggest Sparky (Charles Schultz) fan ever. But “Peanuts” and “For Better or For Worse,” they’re repeats. That goes against my own syndicate, so I might get in trouble for saying that.

DNT: A few years ago, Aaron McGruder, who did “Boondocks” and was one of the very few black syndicated cartoonists, stopped doing it to concentrate on his TV show and didn’t hand it off. If he had mentored someone, he would have preserved at least some diversity.

SP: I don’t like the handing off. That’s like saying, “Picasso has stopped doing his work but he has a son, so what does it matter?” We’re not Picasso, but it does take something away from the individuality of the art.

DNT: There have been successes. If there hadn’t been a Ernie Bushmiller (“Nancy”), there’d be no Jerry Scott, who took over “Nancy.” Once he got in the door, he went on to do his own strips (“Zits,” “Baby Blues.”)

SP: For every Jerry Scott, there are 50 grandsons who suck at it.

Colo(u)rs

2012-07-05

Recently, I’ve seen quite a few things online having to do with colors (or colours for my non-American friends). First, there was the incredible WNYC’s Radiolab show on colors, which you can listen to for free:

Colors

It goes over several things related to colors and science, including the history of how we figured out what the rainbow is, how we get pigments (and one interesting one in particular), and how we have seen and described colors throughout history (and why there’s no blue in the Iliad or Odyssey).

There was a follow-up to that show on the blog, also, about seeing the colors in our world better:

Color Walking

Then, of course, there was the two part blog post series on the blog Empirical Zeal called “The crayola-fication of the world: How we gave colors names, and it messed with our brains,” which mentions the Radiolab show, and builds on certain parts of it, especially the last part. How we see and describe colors is an incredibly complex thing, and different cultures have done it in different ways throughout history. Some cultures don’t even have the colors we have. Some simply have “warm” and “cool” color descriptors. It’s fascinating:

Part One

Part Two

And, of course, a couple infographics about color, one from KISSMetrics and one from UltraLinx:

The Art of Color Coordination

What Colors Say About Your Business

James Joyce and Batman

2012-04-24

In James Joyce’s final work, Finnegans Wake, there are two times that the word “batman” appears. I first assumed, when I came across the word, that there was no way he was referring to Bruce Wayne’s alter ego. More likely, he was referencing a British military officer’s servant. Out of curiosity, however, I checked the exact publishing date of the first printing of Finnegans Wake as well as the date of the first appearance of Batman in Detective Comics #27.

Finnegans Wake was published on May 4th, 1939.

Detective Comics #27 has a cover date of May 1939.

Of course, even as far back as the 1930s, comic book cover dates have always been two months later than the actual publish date. Therefore, it was probably actually released in March of 1939. Would Joyce have been able to see the first appearance of Batman and put some reference to him in Finnegans Wake during that two month period? Probably not. But it’s not impossible.

Asking the right questions about art

2011-05-22

While having yet another online conversation about art and what it is, I was recently struck by an amazing revelation. My view of art, what it is, and how to look at it has changed, I think, and although this view may be unorthodox or even heretical to some, it makes the most sense of anything I’ve heard or read about art to this point in my life. Here it is: It doesn’t matter what art is. “What is art?” is an irrelevant question.

After four years in college being constantly tackled with this question, I think I’m finally through with it. It doesn’t matter. There are three reasons for this: One, because it seems like these days anything anyone wants to call art can be; Two, because it just seems like a label that the elites put on something in order to tell us that we should care about it; and three, it seems like a way for some people to dismiss things they don’t like by saying something isn’t art. Two and three art quite related.

To boil the whole problem down, though, it’s that we’re asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking if something is art, we ought to actually discuss the piece and see what it means to us and what it does for us. Then we can begin to actually interact with the piece. Basically, the question should be, “Do you like it?” and then the reasons why or why not. Let’s stop trying to come up with a concrete and objective definition of an abstract and subjective idea.

It’s subjective, because as I said anything can be art if someone wants it to be. Poo in a can is art. Video games are art. Nature is art. Mass produced items are art. Anything is art according to someone.

As I also said, it’s basically just a label that really means “This is good” or “This is bad.” Elites use it to elevate something to an important status. Other people dismiss certain pieces they don’t like by saying they aren’t art. Why not just get to the heart of it? Forget the label and just tell me what you think of it.

I just wish I’d come up with this earlier. I’d love to have been in an art class and blurt this out.