“ The products that take design seriously and incorporate it from the start are going to be the ones that connect with people in a way that really makes an impact in the world. As more and more products are built in this manner, people are going to notice the pattern. Designers will be seen as an essential ingredient in any startup team. The perception of design as decoration will start to show cracks.”
Cameron Koczon (An Important Time for Design)
The whole article is a must read.
One of my favorite up-and-coming indie artists is Ivana XL and we had the honor of interviewing her over at TGD. There is a lot to like about this interview but the highlight for me is this quote (when we asked her if she had an “aha” moment with music):
When I was about 20, I had my first break-up and went to our place in Italy to get myself together. I was completely devastated, love-sick, the whole thing. So I was playing guitar in my room and I guess I sort of stopped thinking about what I was doing and this song just came out in like two minutes: “The News”. Ever since then, it’s felt completely natural to write. Writing music is the best therapy. That was the moment when I thought, “Okay, this is what I’m going to do.”
“ There are always excuses. There will always be obstacles. It takes conviction and resolve, oftentimes mixed with a bit of madness, to move forward.”
It’s not every day that you get an opportunity to chat with a well-known music artist, especially one that’s extremely honest, down-to-earth, and generous with his time. Tina sums it up best why this was a special interview for us:
“Bazan’s Strange Negotiations came out in May 2011 and was on heavy rotation for us the rest of the summer—the summer of The Great Discontent. We spent those months working late into the evenings with music playing and the windows open; the warm, humid air rolled in around us as we talked, dreamt, hoped, questioned, and made something. We launched TGD in August and Negotiations is a reminder of the months leading up to publishing our first interview. When David agreed to talk with us, we were stoked. It seemed fitting that he would round out our 2011 lineup…”
Yes, we had the honor of talking with David Bazan for our final interview of 2011. It’s a long one, so grab a coffee and settle in or save it for later…
(Photo by Laura Musselman)
One of my favorite things about doing The Great Discontent is getting to interview people that I look up to creatively. This week is no exception. Dan Cassaro (aka Young Jerks) is one of my favorite typography-focused designers. I love how his sense of humor and love for music comes across in his work. On top of that, Dan’s a great guy to boot so do yourself a favor and go read his interview…
(Photo by Niamh O’Hara with design/type by Dan Cassaro)
If you’re a photographer you’ll really want to check out this week’s TGD interview. We had the pleasure of interviewing the very talented Eric Ryan Anderson and it turned out great.
The above photo was taken by Eric’s wife, Amy, in lovely Brooklyn. Lately I’ve been veering away from web fonts for the header, and it’s made things a little more interesting. I’ve been able to be more creative without eating up a boatload of time. If someone could make the text in this photo work in CSS3 I would be quite impressed.
Last bit of news for the day… Duet.me launched this morning. I had the pleasure of realigning the original teaser site by Dan Rubin. Go check out the site and download the app. It’s totally rad.
Again, the site is responsive.
The new crushlovely.com launched today, which I had the pleasure of designing and developing along with the team at Crush.
And yes, it’s responsive.
Had some fun with this week’s TGD header piece. Photo by Mike Bullock and design by me.
Go and read Phil’s interview. It’s really interesting…
This photo by Carrie Levy of Mandy Brown for The Great Discontent is awesome on so many levels and the interview matches the photo’s greatness in every way…
