I'm back, briefly. Haven't been motivated this week, but I know what the first three projects I'll be working on will be. Sometimes the brain seems off but it's actually on simmer. The projects have nothing to do with one another except that they all indicate directions I might head in. This decision gives a little cred to all the branding thoughts. Let me stand in this high place for a moment...

Back on the ranch, researching the world of design on the Internet (I can't believe I've never done this before) is inspiring and depressing. Good design does not require originality, but when I find someone like Tobi Wong out there, blazing away, I feel a bit slow out of the gate. Again, it's fear, uncertainty, a desire to please. I would say a desire to pay my bills, but Tobi seems to have lived a de facto squatter lifestyle when he was getting started, funneling his money into his work. Or maybe it's all hype. Going through my head as I leaf through his website: funny, "why didn't I think of that?", cold, obscene, everything I hate about contemporary art, damned clever, timely, when is it daring and not stupid? I even--often--get a rush from conceptual art, but sometimes a turd is just a turd, and when you polish it so publicly it suddenly becomes...target practice?

What's worse, I didn't even find Tobi Wong for myself. Daily Candy delivered him to my mailbox.

I also find myself more and more offended by stuff that no one can afford. Say what you will about the Disneyfication of the worls, but Target and even K-Mart have made a priority of making well-designed things for the masses. And the masses are buying. Democratic design, only I want it all to be homemade and personal as well. Me crazy.

Or not so briefly. Have a brilliant weekend!