Bad Idea by Kapungo

The Work

This is going to get a little personal, but bear with me. Have you ever considered that your designer’s block is actually a psychological defense? It’s probably stemming from fear about something (yes, I was a Psychology major before discovering graphic design).

I just discovered this awesome process that I think might help combat the block. It’s called The Work by Byron Katie.

Designers can use it like this:

The instructions on the site say to answer the questions (copied here for convenience).

Don’t censor yourself; don’t be wise or “spiritual.” Take this opportunity to express your negative feelings on paper.

from ellikelli

1. Who angers, irritates, saddens, or frustrates you, and why?

I am frustrated with Bob because he doesn’t like the way I design. He always criticizes me.

2. How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?

I want Bob to declare my design the best in the world… or at least affirm my creative solutions.

3. What is it that they should or shouldn’t do, be, think, or feel? What advice could you offer?

Bob should give me constructive criticism so I can improve.

Bob shouldn’t berate me and my work.

4. What do they need to do in order for you to be happy?

I need Bob to affirm my design choices and encourage me.

5. What do you think of them? Make a list.

Bob is inconsiderate, rude, egotistical and close-minded.

6. What is it that you don’t want to experience with that person again?

I don’t ever want to be criticized by Bob again.

Turn Negative Thoughts Around

Take one of the negative thoughts from the above 6 questions. For the example, I’ll take “Bob thinks I’m a bad designer; that’s why he’s always criticizing me.”

Then ask the following questions. Meditate on the answers.

1. Is it true?

Yes it’s true. The evidence is he is always criticizing my work!

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

Well, I’ve never asked Bob if he thinks I’m a bad designer, so I suppose I can’t know for sure, no.

3. How do you react—what happens—when you believe that thought?

When I believe Bob thinks I’m a bad designer, I start feeling like I really am a bad designer! I question my ideas and I doubt that I can ever produce another good design in my life, no matter how hard I try, how many books I read or how many “inspirational” design collections I look at. It just makes me feel bad about being me.

4. Who would you be without the thought?

I would be someone free from the fear of negative criticism. I would feel free to explore my own creative ideas and take my own path to an effective design. Hmm… I kinda like that idea!

Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning), and don’t forget to find three genuine examples of each turnaround.

The original statement: “Bob shouldn’t berate me and my work.”

Turnaround 1: Bob should berate me and my work. (Bob can do whatever he likes, the affect his actions have on me is MY choice… and maybe there is some truth in his criticisms)

Turnaround 2: I should berate Bob’s work. (Well, I don’t really want to repay like for like. It doesn’t feel good afterwards)

Turnaround 3: I shouldn’t berate myself and my work. (Hmm… so are these negative thoughts really coming from me? Do I discourage my own creativity because I judge my new thoughts before they come to fruition?)

Do this section for each though for questions 1 – 5 above. The sixth question is where the magic happens…

Original: “I don’t ever want to be criticized by Bob again.”

Turnaround 1: I am willing to be criticized by Bob again. (More than likely it’s going to happen whether I like it or not. Can I be brave in the face that reality?)

Turnaround 2: I look forward to being criticized by Bob again. (Maybe this will give me a chance to confront Bob and ask him what he really thinks of my designs!)

Getting Back to the Design Part—Jumpstart Your Brain

So now that you’ve done The Work, do you feel freer to explore your creative ideas? Perhaps you need a little help getting started. Here are some ideas:

I’ve written before about copying designs you think are successful. Well, the underlying layout at least. It really can help get your brain in gear. Thumbnails are important and you need to get all your ideas on paper. Then you need to dig deep to get the really good stuff—the less obvious solutions.

Pick apart just one or two designs that you think are successful—the point of this is to work through being overwhelmed by thousands of designs. Ask questions: Why are these designs successful? How can you use the elements and principles of design to discover their “secret” and implement it into your own designs?

Brainstorm with a friend—designer or not. Non-designers can offer you a perspective you couldn’t have thought of on your own and maybe they will be less inhibited by the details of making an idea work. There are benefits to bouncing ideas off of a designer, too—already knows the industry, maybe has done something similar, keeps up on latest news and trends.

Doodle! The creative benefits to doodling are championed by the likes of Von Glitschka, Milton Glaser
and me

So what do you think? Is this all a load of hooey? Does a designer’s psychology really play a role in how creative he or she is? Do you think this process will help you at all? I’d love to talk in the comments!

This post is my entry for Just Creative Design’s $11,000 Group Writing Project. There’s still time to join in! Deadline for entries is November 22nd.

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I love this design publication and if you’ve been around here any length of time you’ve probably heard me say that it is like getting a design book in the mail 8 times a year. It’s only $53 per year for U.S. residents (sorry overseas friends, it’s $110 USD for you! Canada friends, you’ll be paying $70 USD). Even the international price is a steal, considering that just a single Annual can cost $16-24 (you’ll get FIVE annuals with your subscription—Illustration, Photography, Design, Advertising and Interactive). Oh, and students! Check out the Comm Arts website for special student pricing ($39/yr).

So enough about my Comm Arts plug. Time for pictures! The following are some of my favorite winners from the Design Annual 49 (November 2008). I did a showcase from the Illustration Annual earlier this year, too.

Even if you’re not religious, you have to appreciate the design of these Bibles. I love the typography! These were designed by Unreal Ltd for Hodder & Stoughton.

From the packaging section, Interbrand New Zealand designed this packaging system for Endue Ltd. for their Snowberry line. From the description, “The unique artwork that makes up its visual signature is multilayered and tells stories within stories that reflect the Snowberry philosophy. Different parts of the same illustration have been used on products to ease product differentiation and to provide a fluid, unexpected nature to the packaging.”

I want to be a member of Geek Squad just to get this book! For those of you who may not know, Geek Squad is a computer support/repair company run by Best Buy, a leading electronics dealer in the U.S. Designed by Crispin Porter + Bogusky (while I was writing this I couldn’t actually access their site).

I want some of these, too. Fun! Designed by Knock Knock.

Yet another product I would buy purely for its design aesthetic. It’s a good thing they don’t carry these products at my grocery store. Lewis Moberly for Waitrose Ltd.

You’ve probably seen those awesome Luxor ads, but have you seen the identity system? Sorry the image is a little blurry, but you get the idea; the important information like addresses, invoice totals and signatures are highlighted! Leo Burnett India for Luxor Writing Instruments Pvt Ltd.

Remember the logo that won the first annual Wolda competition? At first many were a little puzzled why the One Degree logo won, but after seeing it in action, I think Jason Little and his design team from Landor did a pretty good job! It’s quite a versitile mark, don’t you think?

Awesome season campaign from Chen Design Associates for Stanford Lively Arts program. Below is my favorite of this group.

Hmm, can you guess why?

And guess what! Our very own iLT was featured in the Typography column this issue! Congrats, John! I wish I could type up the whole article for you guys to read, the author says some really nice things about iLT (all of which we already know—how wonderful iLT is!), but I thought what John said was particularly sweet:

Reading the comments is undoubtedly one of the best parts of iLT. And it’s in the comments that I see the really collaborative nature of the site … It’s also a wonderful way for me to get to know others who have an interest in type and typography. Without exception, I visit the site of every commentator (who leaves a URL), and in doing so I’ve discovered hundreds of additional resources and made numerous friends along the way.

Awwww!

By the way Alec, your Small Caps article was mentioned by the columnist in particular, as was the Arabic Calligraphy.

That was just a very small taste of the goodness in the Design Annual 49. Remember to grab a subscription to Communication Arts today! Also visit their website to enter your work in the Annual competitions. You can keep up with Creative Curio via a free RSS subscription, too!

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Please use them in an effort to Support Creative Curio. Thanks!

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Thanks for subscribing to the Creative Curio feed! You can pick up your free subscriber gift, a handy cheat sheet of common Photoshop shortcuts,  by going to the PDF Download Page. You are most welcome to read the articles and comments that helped create this PDF and contribute more if you have some!

Thank you for being a loyal Creative Curio reader. Since you like the content I publish so much, why not tell a friend?

Add CreativeCurio to your Twitter friends! It would be so fun to meet some of you readers who don’t comment but have a Twitter account. I’ll get a badge or something in the sidebar or footer soon, too.

Meanwhile, let me know how you keep up with all this action. Do you have a favorite browser plugin, widget or do you just use the web-based version?

And what else do I need to know? Any special Twitterquette?

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Thanks for subscribing to the Creative Curio feed! You can pick up your free subscriber gift, a handy cheat sheet of common Photoshop shortcuts,  by going to the PDF Download Page. You are most welcome to read the articles and comments that helped create this PDF and contribute more if you have some!

Thank you for being a loyal Creative Curio reader. Since you like the content I publish so much, why not tell a friend?

If you’re currently working on this type of project, you are so in luck because InDesign will automate the creation of these sections of data! All you need to do is set up the source properly and create a template for the data in InDesign. You’ll never go back to Mail Merge again!

A little disclaimer before we get started: These coupons are for example purposes only and they are completely fictional. Don’t try to use these codes!

Data File Setup

The first line of your spreadsheet must be field (variable) names. The order of data from column to column in your spreadsheet need not be the same as what you will use in InDesign. The only part that matters is the field names at the top of the columns need to correspond to the information in those columns.

You can also specify pictures or even other files to be imported into InDesign. In your spreadsheet, make the field name (title at the top) @Name, with Name being whatever you want to call the field—images, pictures, logos, etc. Then in the rows below, list the file name and path to the file if necessary. Use a \ for Windows and : for Mac to denote directories. Remember to put a \ or : before the name if using a document relative path, \hallmark\logo.jpg or :hallmark:logo.jpg for example, otherwise InDesign won’t be able to find your image. Read more specifics about naming in the Live Docs.

Finally, export your file as a tab-separated (will be a .txt) or comma-separated (.csv) file.

Now to InDesign

Open InDesign and create a new document. For the document dimensions, use the size that the final page will be (as opposed to the size each data area will be). For example, if you have a coupon book and you want all the pages to be 6” x 6”, with two 4” x 2.5” coupons per page plus some extra padding, then make your document 6” x 6”.

Now you want to pull up the Data Merge panel by going to Window>Automation>Data Merge.

In the panel flyout>Select Data Source and choose the file you exported from your database. Now the field names you created at the top of the file will appear in panel.

NOTE: You only need one instance of the coupon template on the page! It doesn’t matter where you put it. Everything on the page will be a part of the template. Create graphic frames for images and empty text boxes for text areas.

To insert images, select the graphic frame, click on the image field name you create in Data Merge panel. You’ll see the graphic frame populated with a placeholder, <<field name>>.

To insert text, click in text frame and add field names by clicking on field name in Data Merge panel. You can add extra static text manually outside the <<field name>> placeholder. For example if you wanted to add a SAVE before a placeholder called <<percent>> or some kind of disclaimer to the bottom of each coupon.

Create the Merge

Now your template is all set up and you need to create the actual merged file. Easy! Go to the Data Merge panel Flyout>Create Merged Document.

In this dialog box, you’ll find three tabs (in CS3 at least). In the first tab, Records, you’ll probably want to choose All Records and then under Records per Document Page drop down menu, select Multiple Records.

In the next tab, Multiple Record Layout, you’ll find options for how the record should be laid out on the page, including the way the records will go (go across rows first or down columns first), vertical and horizontal space between record sets, etc. It’s really helpful to use the preview checkbox at the bottom.

Now this part is a little strange, to me at least: the Multiple Record Layout doesn’t work if you have a multiple-page document! There are some easy ways around this, including making the data merge template a separate file and then importing that into your multiple page document after you’ve created the merge.

There’s one more tab in the Create Merged Document dialog box, the Options tab. This has options for how pictures are imported. For fitting, I like to choose Fill Frames Proportionally and check the box to Link to Images (just like you normally would when importing images). You may also want to check the box to Remove Blank Lines for Empty Fields.

Click OK, wait a few minutes and… magic! You have just saved yourself loads of time formatting, importing and arranging text. Now go take a siesta. For all that hard work, you deserve it. And hang on to the files for a few hours, just so they think it took you a lot longer

What Else?

What else can you use data merge for? Tons of things!

• Mailing labels (you’re probably used to that idea from MS Word)
• Personalized letters, postcards, etc (i.e. “Dear Lauren, …”)
• Catalog items
• Contact directories
• Directional signage
• Nametags
• Sponsor information posters (gee, can you tell I work on a lot of events?)

The list could go on! What types of projects have you used data merge for? Do you have any tips or advice for working with this awesome InDesign feature?

Final Notes

If you need more advanced data merging capabilities, there is an InDesign plugin by EM Software called InData.

PLEASE REMEMBER: These coupons were for example purposes only and they are completely fictional. Don’t try to use these codes!

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Thanks for subscribing to the Creative Curio feed! You can pick up your free subscriber gift, a handy cheat sheet of common Photoshop shortcuts,  by going to the PDF Download Page. You are most welcome to read the articles and comments that helped create this PDF and contribute more if you have some!

Thank you for being a loyal Creative Curio reader. Since you like the content I publish so much, why not tell a friend?