Dive into the archives.
- What’s So Great About Your Comfort Zone?
This week is an exciting one for me and my family. On Sunday, July 4th, Independence Day, we are driving out of Tallahassee, FL, with our belongings in a U-Haul trailer to begin the three-and-a-half-day journey across the country to our new residence in San Francisco. That amazing, unique city is where I grew up, where my wife and I lived for the first 3 years of our marriage, where my eldest daughter was born, and where our hearts are. Although we spent many years in SF Bay Area, we have not lived within the city limits for years, and we are anxiously anticipating our return.
In some ways the City by the Bay could be misinterpreted as our “comfort zone”, the place we feel the most at ease and safe. Yet anyone who knows us and knows our relationship with the city would make the distinction that we seldom ever make the choice for what is safe.
In the McDaniel philosophy of living, safe is equivalent to boring. Safe is for those who are satisfied with the status quo and have little or no desire to experience the adventure that is an intricate element of the potential within every breath we take. Safe may be fine for others, but it reeks of stagnancy, boredom and insufficiency to me and my family.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure we have our own comfort zones, and this writing is not an attempt to put our approach to life on a pedestal high above your own. It is, however, rich with the hope that by sharing our story you too might be inspired to examine your comfort zone and maybe, just maybe, step outside of it to experience all that you have been missing.
- Design Outside The Lines
I have been a part of a few different discussions regarding design trends recently. One of the best articles I’ve read on the subject was written by Matt Ward at Echo Enduring Blog. In it, Matt helps a rebel like me realize the importance of design trends and best ways to respond. I recently wrote a guest post on Pelfusion.com discussing design standards and trends and challenging us all to break out of the expected to create new, interesting and unique designs, possibly birthing more new trends along the way, or maybe generating some one-of-a-kind, stand-alone masterpieces.
If you have read much of my writings and ramblings, you are probably aware that I am bent towards breaking myself and others out of the status quo, so when it comes to this topic of following trends and adhering to standards I am pretty opinionated. I don’t necessarily think I’m right, or an authority on the subject, but I do have some strong feelings that are rooted in my own personal experience and philosophy. In this post I want to continue to challenge our thinking so that we will extend our approaches to design in any context beyond the perceived boundaries that can bind the creative spirit.
- My Birthday Thanks and Wish For You [Video]
Today – May 7th – is my birthday. Here’s a video with a small thank you to all my friends for this past year, and my birthday wish for each and every one of you.
- Should We Reevaluate, Redefine or Continue Regurgitating The ‘Design Blog’?
This is a question I’ve begun asking myself recently as it seems I am stumbling across a newly-created website donning this title every few days. With the growing success of online endeavors in the design realm, it is beginning to appear as though every designer must have some type of blog or design-related website if they stand a chance at establishing a name for themselves, and even more so if they are looking to simultaneously create some manner of passive income.
I’m not sure where it started, nor do I particularly care. I am a fan of many design blogs, and I am indebted to many more because of their contribution to my continuing growth and education as a web and graphic designer. There is definitely a need for quality design blogs, and in many ways the abundance should promote a healthy competition to provide a high standard of content.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
- iPad Impressions From An Apple Not-Fan Boy
I cannot tell you how many times it is assumed that I am a Mac user, since the word “mac” graces the name of my design business with its presence. To tell the truth, I think Apple products are amazing in almost every way – design, style, functionality, user experience, branding – pretty much everything but the price. I am a bargain shopper to the core, so when it came time way back when to purchase my first home computer, it was a no brainer to go with the much more affordable PC. Throughout the years the beautiful machines that Apple has produced have often tempted me to drop 2-4 times the dollar amount for a comparably equipped PC, only to watch me submit to my frugality and practicality over and over.
I did eventually purchase an older iMac to mess around with, and I even won an iPod Touch in a radio contest, but I have never made the full switch to becoming a Mac instead of a PC. Still, I am not an Apple hater by any stretch. The truth is, as I’ve explained, if I could have afforded these things throughout the years, I would have happily donned the Mac title years ago. Alas, this was not the case.
Then along came the iPad.
- What Do You Do When You Don’t Get Your Way?
Athough this post was inspired by recent events in the US political arena, it is not about them in particular. This is not about which side you or I are on or how either of us feels about recent historic events.
This is about grown men and women making a conscious decision to carry themselves like adults or like third graders when something they feel very strongly about does not go their way. I have been on both sides of that equation for various reasons at different points in my life and, although I probably have not always succeeded in behaving like a mature adult when I have experienced a disappointing loss in something I was fighting for, bearing witness to the poor behavior of others in similar situations has bred in me a distinct distaste for the immature and destructive antics of the poor loser. I want to share one of those experiences in hopes that a view from another angle may help us all to consider with compassion those around us as we determine our next course of action whenever we don’t get our way.
- Should Social Media Relationship Rules Be Different Than Real Life?
My answer is no. But then, that’s just me. I truly believe you are free to answer differently, and even better, we can co-exist with our differences of opinion and practices. The world is full of people with distinctly differing opinions, belief systems, methodologies and more, and while this can sometimes cause tension, anger and even war, the human race is still here. I see that as proof that we don’t have to all believe and live our lives in exactly the same way in order for society to continue moving forward, online or off. In fact, I believe that society benefits from our differences, as long as we allow and even embrace each other’s freedom to be an individual.
There. I said it. You know where I stand and hopefully have an idea how you personally would answer the question in the title of this post. Now why am I asking it?
- True Art
Those works created from solitude & from pure & authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim & social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully & so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade. (Jean Dubuffet)
- Surprise!!! Social Media (and Life) Is NOT A Competition
Spend a few minutes browsing through recent headlines about social media and you will most likely be left with the impression that all of the networks are in a fierce competition with each other. Facebook is the king, with more paticipants than any other. Twitter recently boasted that its users are posting an average of 50 million updates a day. Google Buzz burst onto the scene and the pundits immediately pitted it against the others in comparisons and contrasts. The list goes on and on, with countless also-rans and quickly-developed newcomers waiting in the wings, all hoping to compete for your membership and usage.
Zoom in and take a closer look within the individual social networks and you will witness users clamoring for significant increases in followers and friends, regularly checking numbers and trying a myriad of techniques to grow their counts to what those who are paying attention might call ‘respectable’. Tools that rate, rank and grade feed the frenzy and give us all the ability to measure our success in order to insure that we are doing things ‘correctly’.
A few weeks back I got involved in a conversation on Twitter in which another user (identity to remain anonymous) was tweeting complaints to TwitterGrader (a tool that ranks users based on an algorithm that goes beyond simple numbers). This person was upset because they have almost twice as many followers and updates as I do, yet TwitterGrader listed me in the top 5 in my city while leaving him somewhere further down the list. I told him it really didn’t matter and that this whole thing is not a competition, to which he responded vehemently, “EVERYTHING is a competition! LIFE is a competition!”
Really? Is that the world we live in?
- Google Buzz (Kill) Has Driven Me To Social Media Self-Examination
What I need is to continue to get better at giving and sharing and interacting with others who have similar interests, interesting viewpoints and intelligent discussion. Not another social media tool.
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