De video op Vimeo.

Falling on the doormat carrying a nice 112 pages, it’s money well spent. The entire issue is about repetition. It doesn’t just show patterns or copies, it widens the perspective. There’s interviews and articles about lookalikes, serial killers, collecting, Tourette’s and yes; patterns and copies. Even the cover itself has been crowdsourced. The original was broken down into tiny sections and then recreated by contributors. Resulting in a recreated (thus repeated) cover.

O.K. has short articles. It’s not Nature or National Geographic. Instead it’s a quite a visually stimulating magazine with short articles to kill time. Short, though they might push you to come up with new ideas. At 112 pages it’s good value for money. One small downside of the magazine are the occasional spelling mistakes.

Basically what O.K. Periodicals proves once again with this issue, is it’s great capability of taking a single subject and broadening it as much as possible. Like a small brainstorm in a book. They cover basic subjects (Collections, Failure, Repeat) and thus create a platform. It’s not about cats, Bugatti’s or filter cigarettes; it’s much more about abstracts. Verbs rather than things. See how wide a subject can stretch one magazine at a time.

A magazine covering such planar subjects is much more compelling to anyone in the creative industry who has to come up with solid concepts. It can push you to create a foundation to construct your ideas on. Better than, for instance, a book with portraits.

Periodicals #3: Repeat can be ordered from the O.K. Periodicals website. Also still avaiable for order are #1 and #2.

One thing I was confronted with during my internship at Crabsalad, was the way I spoke. To be more precise; the words I used. One thing has to be utterly clear if you’re designing. The ideas you have, the concepts you create, are to be sold. The client invests in you and wants something in return. A great design.

Designing something can be an abstract process. Almost magic to an outsider such as a client. The results you produce you need to convey clearly. Everything you do should have a reason, otherwise the client could either lose confidence or start breaking down your ideas. You don’t have to tell him how you did it, but why you chose that font. That colorscheme or certain lighting. That grain or that texture. What it all means, what it breathes and why it fits the client’s wishes. If all your holes are plugged, all the client is left with is a floating great idea. And that is what he pays you for.

If all your holes are plugged, all the client is left with is a floating great idea. And that is what he pays you for.

There’s hardly a single designer who likes their clients to design with them. Subjective ideas like “I like green” or “that font (Comic Sans) is fun!” should be avoided at all cost. That is my humble opinion after having been through situations where the client sat down next to me and made design decisions for me, as I was finalizing. If you’re a designer with a bachelor degree or higher, such situations should make you wonder why you spent four years or more of your life becoming a specialist. You don’t do your dentist’s job either, do you?

Personally, I prefer a client to give me a good, open brief. Tell me what he wants, then tell me which things inspire him. Those sources of inspiration I can either use or ignore completely. Usually I produce more than one concept for a client. That way I get to have a couple of options, as does he. Follow his brief to the letter, let it go a little or ignore it completely. Or different approach altogether. In any case these concepts should allow enough space for you to move around in design-wise, and make the ideas clear to the client.

Now, how does staying positive fit into all of this? If you’re not positive you’re probably negative. Indifferent fits into that category too. Because you don’t care, apparently. And who likes to buy bread from a baker, who couldn’t give f* all? You’d go there, get a half-hearted greeting, served with a lot of sagging and sighing – not a positive thing. That’s not someone who enjoys getting paid, so why pay him? It can get worse. If your concepts are flawed and the client can easily punch holes in them – you are left with a problem…

…will you address this by saying you’re sorry? You’re the professional, aren’t you? Yet you don’t really have an answer. Or you think you do and you fix some kind of excuse. Ducttaping is what that’s called. These could be backfire, creating more questions than answers. Or you could shrug it off, basically saying that what the client asks doesn’t mean anything. You don’t care. Meh. Is that what your client is paying you for? To do a job with half a hammer and one-third of a screw?

And who likes to buy bread from a baker, who couldn’t give f* all?

Staying positive is all about words. Human communication is all about these conventions that we call languages. Basic agreements that certain sounds that eminate from our throats in certain orders, convey certain meanings. However some things can be interpreted in different ways. Written word is a tricky one. If I write “Wow.” or “Wow!” the exclamation mark makes a difference. The first is almost sarcastic, the second radiates a little more happiness.

The same goes with spoken word. The wow-example is just a small example. Imagine you’re having a meeting with a client and you’re presenting your concepts for a design. What he likes to see, is you eminating your enthusiasm about the assignment he gave you. He chose you to tackle this challenge, here you are presenting your solutions. That’s awesome, isn’t it?

Basically there are two parts to this story. 1) your idea has to be good. 2) the way you tell it, has to be good. Good as in positive. As in activating. Creating enthusiasm for ideas. If you know the brief, you can connect the client’s wishes to your design solutions (almost) directly. If you did a job really well, you should even be able to explain it without any notes for yourself. In such a case the design will help you explain it, once  you start talking about it.

If you, however, remain indifferent whilst explaining your ideas – or if you use words that have a more negative/deactivating meaning such as “I can’t”, “they won’t”, “we couldn’t” – you name it – the client will wonder why he is paying you. Why on earth would he give you another assignment next time, if this is how you deal with it? Apparently that client isn’t good enough or at all important to you. Nor is his assignment he’s granted you.

He chose you to tackle this challenge, here you are presenting your solutions. That’s awesome, isn’t it?

In the rest of your life it too helps, to stay positive. Ever since I was confronted with the fact that I was actually quite a pessimistic person, I started to notice what exactly I was saying. For starters, I used to blame myself for things that went wrong. Calling myself names whenever I dropped the ball. I used to end sentences trailing off with “or something like that…”. As if I myself wasn’t even clear about what I was actually saying.

It took a lot of training to get myself to filter out these words and habits. Basically it meant knowing what to look for when I was forming sentences in my head, talking to people or writing. Crossing out negative or deactivating words as I went along. Slowly but surely I started to communicate more clearly and suddenly I understood how conversations worked. It’s the activating part. Looking each other in the eyes, affirming, asking questions. Chuck a bad joke in there, sometimes.

All in all it has taken me almost a year now. I’m still training myself to think positive and to remain more open to people. More activating. A whole lot less afraid too, to talk. Just talk. Pick up the phone and take action. Have an idea? Know a person that could help? Give him a ring!

Now before it all gets too vague and “up there, man” – I would just like to point out this article isn’t a pamphlet to go about like maniacal yay-sayers. Nobody likes a suck up. And it’s okay to admit you made a mistake, instead of blaming – learn from it. Try to see problems as challenges, when it’s over you’ll have the tools to deal with similar problems later on.

Yawning is contageous, so is a smile.

O.K. Periodicals #3: Repeat

…the third issue of the O.K. Periodicals magazine, titled Repeat, has been released. Over on Pixelkink we reviewed issue #2 and made some nice photographs of it (which I happened to have recovered). Let’s summarize what was mentioned then, the original article has been lost in some database gibberish. So here goes, a small recap.

O.K. Periodicals #2: Failure

The great thing about O.K. Periodicals is the wifulness to experiment. #2, Failure, is a great example. The way the lay-out was going to end up looking like, was left up to chance. Every cover is different, the one pictured here happens to be the one in my possession. Each cover was screenprinted randomly. Inside, the articles inside are a 50/50 blend of pictorial and editorial. Making for interested reading aswell as something good to look at.

O.K. Periodicals #2: Failure - even tearing out a page if it fits the subject matter

What I particularly like about O.K. Periodicals is the physicality of it. If tearing a page out of the magazine fits the subject matter, the creators are not afraid to do so. It’s this realisation of a concept that really makes this periodical stand out from glossy mags you find at the local shop. Of course, this magazine is designed to be quirky and experimental – perhaps a smidgen high brow.

I wonder what an O.K. Periodicals about Empty would look like…

The fun part of O.K. is that it has a very low threshold. You don’t have to be an established designer with a portfolio at all to join in. As long as you have a real contribution to make to the magazine. #3, Repeat, is the best example of this with it’s “crowdsourced” cover. “Hundreds of people recreated the cover bit by bit. Each person got one square that needed to be recreated.”

O.K. Periodicals #2: Failure

What this does is create expectation, of course. You can still order #2: Failure, by the way. It’s a good way to start your collection as #1 has already sold out, though you can still check it out for free, online. O.K. Periodicals looks like a magazine which could go places. If they keep up experimenting with the medium it could only get more interesting. I’ll be ordering #3 and reviewing it, looking forward to it!

Canada (source: Wikipedia.org)

It’s something i’ve been wanting to do for some time now. And it’s really my next big goal in life. This post is more of a reference, one that I’ll be referring to many times probably. Because in order to make this dream a reality I have to pass some markers first; 1) get a driver’s license. 2) figure out the laws and rules. 3) find some spots to travel to. 4) figure out how to organize mobility. 5) anything else that is worth organising.

The reason I want to undertake such a big trip – probably on my own, as it stands now – is to have some kind of adventure. I need to see more of the world. Maybe i’ll make a short version of the trip through Europe first, hone my skills.

The goal is to have a much brighter design. One beaming with positivity. Thing is, the last couple of years i’ve learned a thing or two about design and especially communication. I’d love to share these ideas along with some other – probably more philosophical – ramblings. Slightly more personal, way more professional and much easier on the eyes.

Oh, and i’ve finally settled on the language: English. Why? Because almost everybody in the Netherlands reads/speaks/writes English reasonably well. Well enough to know what I am on about. Chances are you’re not even reading this. Who would be? There’s just one other topic – in Dutch – on this blog. And it never really attracted much visitors in the past. Well, we’ll see how things pan out this time round. The new look is going to be killer.

Er zijn de afgelopen tijd een paar mooie opdrachten afgerond. Verwacht ze binnenkort in het portfolio. Het gaat hierbij om twee animaties, een montage- en een registratieklus plus grafisch ontwerp voor het Midnight Express Festival.

Ook ben ik sinds kort verhuisd. Daarmee is ook bldng. verhuisd. Ik beschik nu – naast de geweldige werkplek bij Studio Pats – ook over een hele kamer vrij voor allerlei spannend studio werk. Ideaal!