Blog Posts
for January 2012
Fan or Fanatic: Paterno admirers toe the line
I’m a sports fan, not a sports fanatic. There’s a difference.
Fans don their favorite team’s colors week after week and relish in the inevitable emotional roller coaster ride that characterizes a season. Fanatics, on the other hand, experience emotional extremes that distort their worldview and compel them to think and act in ways that often defy social norms. Fans innocuously paint their faces and wear foam fingers. Fanatics subversively throw punches and set cars on fire. Fans opine around the water cooler. Fanatics call in sick after their team misses a game-tying field goal that could have ultimately landed them in the Super Bowl (sorry Ravens die-hards). Fans would agree that college football lost a great coach this past weekend. Fanatics would claim the sport lost a great man.
Again, there’s a difference.
There’s Something About Paper
The type of paper you choose for a project can make a design sing or fall to the ground in a clumsy, unfortunate mess. It’s as important as any part of the design or the message, and it should never be an afterthought. It’s not something to be thrown into the mix at the last second, or reduced in quality to marginally lower the budget. Paper is a design choice, along with typography, color, form, layout, illustration, photography… all of it. It matters.
Be a failure
Fear is an interesting emotion. It’s much more deceitful and sneaky than, say, happiness or sorrow or anger. When I’m happy, it’s pretty obvious. When I’m pissed off, it’s even more obvious. But often, I can go for long periods of time, completely unaware that my decisions are being driven, or at least influenced, by fear — whether as a father, a husband or as a business owner.
