How Much A.I. is Too Much A.I.?

I don’t blog enough to be topical or cover current trends, and I like to keep things light and funny, or positive and optimistic in general. In fact, at the end of 2022 when I actually tried to be topical and write about artificial intelligence, I did it from a pretty altruistic standpoint with the hope that working with the changing landscape that a.i. isn’t going anywhere is a better approach then railing against it. At my core, I still believe that, and I’ll put a pin in that for now, but today I’d like to revisit a.i. with a little more experience after having had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Adobe Max Conference in Los Angeles as an attendee.

At the Adobe Max Conference, October 2023 where I got to meet Aaron Draplin!

I say, “a little more experience” because not long after my initial blog post about a.i. in December, I followed that up in April of this year (I told you I don’t blog enough to be topical!) with a post detailing my impressions using ChatGPT and Dall–E which very quickly became dated after both platforms made serious advancements technologically. I think for most people at that time, a.i. was still a fun and funny little moment of pop culture that humorously added to the zeitgeist with things like Keaton Patti’s bananas Olive Garden commercials and Trump Rallies—all created by feeding hours of those particular brands original content into a.i. bot programs. Maybe the undercurrent had a slight worrisome tone of the inevitability of robot overlords, but it was still relatively light–hearted and quaint. Who could have ever imagined we’d be pining for the simpler times of 2022.

Of course, like most technological milestones, once something starts to get traction, it really takes off. Granted, a.i. has actually existed since the mid 20th century (starting with the Perceptron Mark I in 1957), but really started to generate public interest in the 80s with the goal of revolutionizing computer processing. It’s directly because of this that artificial intelligence has thrived recently—not so much because tech geniuses have learned more about a.i. themselves—but rather because computer storage, memory, and speed have increased beyond what most average consumers even need. And in 2023, Dall•E released its latest text–to–image model featuring significantly more nuance and detail, and ChatGPT became the fastest growing consumer software application which now offers it’s GPT–3.5 engine operating its services on a freemium model while ChatGPT Plus offers its GPT–4 engine to users for $20 USD a month. If that’s not impressive enough, as of this post, ChatGPT itself isn’t even a full year old yet having launched in November of 2022! In March 2023, Adobe released its generative a.i. tools to Photoshop in beta testing. Today, those a.i. tools are fully integrated into Photoshop and Firefly a.i. is in beta for Adobe Illustrator—creating editable and functional vector illustrations—as well as Adobe Premiere Pro which also offers beta tools for speech to text editing for videos. It is insanely easy to use and saves lots of time.

All of these images on Adobe Stock are generative a.i.

Let’s step back and address just a couple quick bullet points I made previously regarding a.i.’s learning technique. Now initially I made a mistake and thought the process was called stable diffusion, but that is in fact the name of a latent diffusion model developed by a company called Stability AI. Artificial intelligence uses machine learning to develop a deep knowledge of whatever subject it’s tasked to create. I’m cutting out a lot of context here for the sake of brevity, but imagine a robot who has the capacity to instantly read every single book on a particular subject so that it can then use that knowledge to compose its own creation based on that immediate education. It only has the information it has acquired, so it bases everything it can do on that information alone. I read hundreds of text books about various software programs when I was in school, but it almost all felt useless after I actually started working and realized experience was vastly more important. As a result, most of my initial professional work looks ridiculous, much like what a robot who only learned from reading and not actually doing.

Now imagine that same robot is instructed to paint a masterpiece, but in order to do that, it has to visually take in every painting currently on display in the Louvre. So it rushes around the museum and sees works from DaVinci, Géricault, Michelangelo, and Jacques-Louis David. Afterwards, you ask the robot to paint its own masterpiece, but upon completion you notice it hasn't really painted anything original, but rather cut and pasted elements like the Mona Lisa's smile or Roman columns from the Oath of the Hoaratii. It's specifically these issues that have a lot of creative people feeling pretty upset because the robot hasn't actually created anything, it's just stolen components from others. But then you also notice that because the a.i.'s creators have basically told this robot to go out and learn everything from the internet, you start getting into real troublesome areas because if you haven't noticed, there's some pretty horrible stuff online and it's not exactly hidden either. So now on top of being an art thief, the robot has also learned to be racist, sexist, and creepy. You know, like actual real life people.

Again, I'm really compacting a lot here to keep things from getting bogged down with technical jargon, but these are real concerns that have had companies like Adobe make serious public efforts to proactively promote responsible guidelines for generative a.i. learning and sharing, as well as protecting intellectual property and reflecting diversity in a positive way. For the most part, this corporate responsibility and good faith approach has been necessary, not just because of the reactions from creatives worldwide, but because of the accountability these types of organizations can be held to legally. Remember, theft of any kind is generally frowned upon.

So now we get to the Max conference where the undeniable star was Adobe's generative text–to–image a.i. program, Firefly. All over the conference floor, in its classrooms and displays, and promoted heavily at each keynote session were strikingly beautiful images all created by artificial intelligence. What Firefly offered was so prominent that it sometimes felt invasive. Is it cool and will it save designers from doing tedious things like masking, editing, and rough concepts that require super quick turnaround? Oh man, you bet your a$$ it will. But as one classroom speaker jokingly noted at the beginning of one session that it was the only conference event not promoting any new artificial intelligence tools, he was met with a roaring standing ovation.

Adobe competently showed that it's a.i. deep learning methods were trained solely on its own library of photographs, illustrations, images, and graphics (pretty much its entire stock library) and that its engineers were working tirelessly to integrate guardrails so that diversity and inclusion were represented equally and respectfully. So there you go! Problem solved. You can stop worrying now about everything. Robots are kind, love is love, intellectual property theft is a thing of the past, and the system works great.

Even if all that were true, there's still a hiccup or two. Now put your personal feelings about a.i. aside for just a bit and let's pull that pin out regarding my optimistic outlook from earlier. The cold hard fact is that a.i. isn't going anywhere, and just by looking at what was just a year ago and what is now today, it's pretty obvious that what a.i. can create is only going to get more impressive and it's going to be up to everyone to ensure it's guided properly, safely, and responsibly. Up until the Max conference, I could be heard saying, "Man, if this is where it's at now, imagine what it'll be like in ten years!" But that was out dated thinking when I first wrote about a.i. Especially when Adobe has expressed its expectation to see user generated a.i. images increase 5 times more in the next 3 years than it currently already has which is already over 15 billion!

So while ethically we have a lot of work to do, I think it's also fair to say that we're currently pretty early on in this saga and we're already experiencing some pretty heavy a.i. fatigue, and to that point, I'd like to redirect your attention to stock images. I love stock images, like I adore stock images and I've written about them before (and it's a funny article I'm really proud of too), but because I almost exclusively use Adobe Stock, and because Adobe Stock is the epicenter of Adobe a.i.'s learning process, it's kind of saturating the store with its own product and nothing else. Imagine going to your local grocery store, and all they sold was their brand of corn flakes. No produce, no deli, no butcher; just aisle after aisle of varying sized boxes of store brand corn flakes and nothing else. Because Adobe's generative a.i. has come along so far and has gotten so good, it offers generative a.i. images as stock image options. Originally you'd see one ore two pop up, then it became the majority of what was offered. Now depending on what you're looking for, a.i. generative images can be all that's available.

Real quickly if you haven't read my post on stock image sites; they provide a designer access to photos, graphics, templates, or illustrations the designer wouldn't otherwise have time to create themselves. Creating an ad for a new coffee chain? I can search for something like, "Friends enjoying coffee together in a cafe" on a stock image site just like I might look for something in a search engine and I will get various results that will hopefully match the look and vibe I'm going for.

So just to clarify, I don't have an issue with a.i. generated images. The quality is really good and getting better. There will be times when an a.i. generated image is much better than anything else the stock image site is offering, but it's frustrating how much of it there is. When searching for "Friends enjoying coffee together in a cafe", the language in the search itself is referring to a very human experience. The generative a.i. image is good, but it's not perfect. Plus I think there's a subconscious bias that I personally have that (at least in this instance) using something that was not created by humans but that is supposed to be representative of a human experience does not feel like a genuine, intentional choice to encourage others to buy into the design I'm making.

This image was generated by a.i. Can you tell?

I realize there's so much to unpack there. I'm using a computer to design this resource, is it really that bad that I'm requesting a computer create an additional element to that? Will future designers be less likely to have such a bias if they grow up understanding how ubiquitous this technology is? How "human" does an image have to be to properly reflect a human experience when we're all already familiar with shorthand cues like seeing people in such settings—photographed, illustrated, or otherwise—that creating that established connection is even necessary?

For their part, Adobe has a very clear and up front policy regarding their ethical standards and practices regarding posting, hosting, sharing, and creating generative a.i. images. Now people will point out a lot of that responsibility falls heavily on the users respecting that system, and this is what I personally believe is at the heart of all of this and creates the endless loop of debate surrounding this. Policing people from playing with this technology may be noble, but it's also antithetical to creativity in general. I'll repeat it again:

Artificial intelligence is not going anywhere and will continue to develop, but a.i. is a mirror reflecting back on the people who use it, interact with it, and engage others with it. Just like the world we live in, what we put in will be synonymous with what it gives back.

A.I. images generated from Dall E 2 and Firefly using the prompt, “Renaissance painting of a black cat in a pink tu tu”

But what do you think? Is a.i. the cool new future that will bring the world peace and prosperity? Is this the beginning of the end? Will a.i. steal jobs from creative people as well as blue and white collar workers? Or am I just fixated on the loving memory of our cat Destiny and want a.i. to realize how special she was like my wife and I do?

Our actual (late) cat Destiny killing it better than any artist—a.i. generated or otherwise—ever could. Rest in Peace, sweet girl.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I really would love to hear your thoughts on this. Please follow me on Instagram and let me know! Also like last time, here are more sources as well as some other great articles about a.i.:

Return to Innocence

Aaaaand that’s about a long enough break from this blog. Let’s get back to it!

This isn’t today’s topic, but I have been feeling disenchanted—or at the very least bored—with drawing lately because I’ve been doing so much of it professionally. This has made my personal time drawing to relax feel tedious and exhausting. You see, even though it’s how I make a living, it’s also something I love to do. The problem is that when you do anything a lot—especially when you have to—it can sometimes feel burdensome. This is a topic I will absolutely write more about soon, but in the meantime I have been trying to rediscover how to rekindle my love for illustrating. These trials have resulted in a lot of fun exercises (all of which I’ll also write about in the near future as well), but none of them were hitting their mark, and neither were previously reliable standards either. It wasn’t until I took things all the way back that I rediscovered my original muse—my childhood dog, Ballington.

1985–86

First off, it’s very important to me you know how to pronounce his name properly. The first part is not pronounced ball like a spherical object you play sports with. It’s softer and lighter like the touristy Indonesian province, Bali (incidententally also Ballington’s nickname). Ballington was my 7th birthday present from my dad who’s primary directive was to name all our pets after (founder of The Salvation Army) William Booth’s children. We also had a dog, Bramwell and a cat, Evie (short for Evangeline). This entire paragraph is substantially more information than anyone would ever care to know for a blog dedicated to art, illustration, graphic design, and creative thinking, but after my Canadian cousin found too much glee teasing me as a child by calling him “Barflington”, it’s become a bit of an idiosyncrasy of mine to over–inform on this one.

Ballington left and me (circa 1983) with Bramwell & Evie right

My creative pool of illustrators at age seven was understandably shallow, promoting cartoonist Jim Davis way above his station as my artistic gold standard. As a result, everything and everyone I drew looked marginally related to Jon Arbuckle. Jim Davis drew Garfield, so I drew Ballington. If you’re a Simpsons fan, there’s a 13th season episode called “I Am Furious (Yellow)” where a cartoonist comes to Springfield Elementary to promote his comic, “Danger Dog” resulting in every single student creating their own derivative work like Danger Cat, Trouble Dog, and Danger Dude. This is a pretty good analogy for how I was inspired to start drawing my dog after admiring daily Garfield strips.

All my favorites including my grandmother (1989), early art of Ballington (mid to late 80s)

I don’t recall ever thinking that drawing comic strips about my hyper–active English Springer Spaniel—who in reality humped any and everything—would be a career choice, but I loved anthropomorphizing him and would include him in absolutely everything all throughout my childhood and well into my adulthood. As a kid, he would express ideas and thoughts I was too sheepish to say myself. He had adventures with his friends, was a perpetual optimist, and wore every emotion he had on his sleeve. While he never strayed too far from his initial Garfield inspired design, he picked up other influences along the way, embracing madcap and overly cartoonish flare, eventually embodied by the 90s resurgence of the Looney Toons and the collective renaissance of animation from films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Aladdin. Like every single other kid who draws, he was an OC (original character) that only mattered to his creator. His dreams would always surpass his reality and be a mega star to an audience of one. Deep down I knew this and when I would see other illustrator friends embrace and promote their own characters, I completely understood that love and pride they had. No one else knew who they were, what they represented, or why they existed, but they were very special to their creators. I think it’s the equivalent of someone extending the life of a security blanket, teddy bear, or in my case; childhood pet.

Various Ballington drawings from the late 80s–early 90s

Ballington would silently star in many personal projects like comics and flip books, as well as play the lead role in college assignments like my first ever vector drawing and gif animation. Bali would accompany my well wishes in a friend’s birthday card, a doodle made for a high school crush, my signature in a classmate’s yearbook, and even a presentation slide for a meeting at my dad’s work. The cartoon Ballington was indestructible, not just as an over stylized, personal mascot, but as a pet too. My family wasn’t able to keep the real life Ballington, and after a few years by my side, he moved up the block to spend the rest of his life with my grandmother. I still took care of him every day, but by then my love for the unnaturally proportioned, puff–chested, illustrated Ballington outweighed his own real life counterpart. Maybe it was an emotional defense mechanism to let him go, maybe it was the imagination of a suburban white boy who spent too much time day dreaming, or maybe it was the safe space of believing the inked version could never die when the writing was on the wall that my real life childhood pet soon would. Loved ones will always come and go, just like life experiences, but the cartoon creation of a seven–year–old is immortal.

Posters I made that hung on my wall as a child, my grandmother again with Ballington (and Bramwell, late 80s), and comic books I made of Ballington from 1988, 1992, and 1994 respectively

Variations and updates to Ballington between the mid 90s through the early 2010s

For a short time, my soon–to–be brother–in–law and I started our own production company that enjoyed a modicum of success. While Ballington was not our collective OC, our small sensation in the form of The Bang and Bump Show put me in contact with so many talented people that I was eventually able to commission the very talented builder James Kemp to make a Ballington puppet. I had to update Bali’s initial design for the obvious reason that I didn’t want Jim Davis to sue me, but also because that old style wasn’t conducive to a three dimensional puppet. James kept me in the loop with things like vacu–forming the eyes, shaving the fur for different styles, and dying the fleece. Having that puppet masterfully built and brought into the real world and off the reams of dot matrix computer paper my father brought home for me to draw on was a surreal moment in my life. I felt like I had completed something that I had always wanted to, and now that it was done, I was able to move on. Ballington was no longer confined to just my imagination anymore, so I effectively stopped drawing him.

Ballington puppet by @jameskemppuppets along with my updated illustration

Until recently.

I’ve always been quick to acknowledge that I never developed my own distinctive artistic style, and Ballington was proof positive of that. But I have learned new techniques and attitudes and was randomly doodling a dog this past week—trying to spark some artistic interest as I mentioned at the top—when I noticed he could kind of look like Ballington… if I wanted him to. It was an exceptionally humbling moment that made me think of the 1993 new age song Return to Innocence by Enigma.

Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence

The doodle–dog that inspired this post, Ballington IRL (as an adult mid 90s), my latest Ballington art and he’s still got it!

What a testament to the immortal imagination of a child. I’ve often thought the best way to grow as an artist of any kind is to push past your ability, leave your comfort zone, embrace your flaws and grow from them; but I never once considered that sometimes it’s the complete opposite. Ballington will most likely never have a weekly comic strip, appear as anything other than a background Easter egg in any media, nor will he break out as the star I always saw him as. I don’t say any of that from a defeatist point of view though. I say that because he’s not for that, he’s not for any of you. Ballington is for me. He always has been, and I’m so grateful to realize that he always will.

I’m hoping to keep this blog relatively consistent again, but the best way to know for sure is to follow me on Instagram and Twitter. You should also follow James Kemp on Instagram @jameskemppuppets as well, and if you’d like a brief but deeper dive into his time building Ballington, he blogged a bit about it too starting back in December, 2013 through March, 2014 that you can read in three parts:

Balli the dog for Dave Hulteen
Update on Bali for Dave Hulteen
Bali completion!

2022 Year in review

As 2023 comes upon us, I wanted to reflect on what I’ve learned, accomplished, and celebrated over the year and also what I’m looking forward to!

Personal Projects

The Making of The Great Muppet Mural

While almost everything about ToughPigs pièce de résistance happened in 2021 (including all the work that saw the project to fruition), the documentary premiered on January 29th of 2022 and it was a huge and wonderful experience. Recently I learned that this labor of love did not make it to the final selections it was entered into for a couple independent film festivals, but it still remains one of my own personal Crown Jewels of the year. I will be singing its praises and all those involved for decades to come.

This Blog!

I've been doing a relatively acceptable job maintaining this blog for over a year now, and there are a few posts I'm very proud of. I was also very fortunate to have so many wonderful people contribute as well, so if you haven't already, you should give some of these articles a read and support their contributors as well!

Do You Have to be Creative to be a Graphic Designer?

Seriously, I'‘m super proud of these posts!

Illustrative Stuff

I did not draw much this year at all (outside of commissioned work) but what I did do continued my understanding and development of my craft and the mediums I use to create them. I also did not keep up with my figure drawing classes to the extent I had wanted, but I’m already trying to arrange things for next year so that I don’t slack again.

Some of the illustrations I’m most proud of from 2022

Of everything I drew on my own time, my illustration of Luisa Madrigal in the style of Charles Dana Gibson was my favorite. I have plans for more redraw challenges as well as doing more artist games like I did with Will Carroll and Noah Ginex.

Freelance

For the first real time since my daughter was born, I started taking on serious freelance work again. I took on several more notable clients this time around the sun as well as connected with some old friends. The biggest one of course was getting the opportunity to work with Craig Shemin on his newest book, Sam and Friends: The Story Of Jim Henson’s Television Show.

Being back in demand was wonderful, but in many ways I feel that I jumped the gun and bit off more than I could chew, so…

Biggest Lesson Learned

I willingly and happily put almost all creative endeavors aside when my daughter was born with the understanding that someday when she was older, I’d resume drawing regularly (daily), taking on freelance again, and other passion projects. As she has grown more independent, 2022 seemed like the year to dip my toes back in the water for all of that. Unfortunately, I think I dove in the deep end and over–immersed myself. I’ve always been very good about my time management, but along with everything else, I’m a little rusty here too. 

In general, when you work full time (regardless of what your actual job is), it’s difficult at worst to manage your time properly and seemingly unnecessary at best if you’re good and well paid. The latter is very ambitious, but it’s an easy excuse to turn things down if you just don’t feel like doing them. These are all things I will consider in the coming new year.

New Year’s Resolutions 

Having learned that there will never be enough time to do everything, I am hoping to focus on expanding my tool set a little more in 2023. I would like to become proficient in Adobe After Effects, as well as the 3D modeling program, Blender. Part of this is a continued fascination with video production, but more than a few times in the recent past, I’ve realized the tools that I already know aren’t capable of creating some of the concepts I had hoped to present to clients. Learning new software will accommodate this tremendously.

So here’s looking to 2023 and everything that it has in store for all of us. Thank you so much to every wonderful, talented, and awesome person who has helped me on my journey, contributed to this blog, and taken a moment out of there day to give a blog post a read, an Instagram pic a double–tap, or a retweet on Twitter. See you all in 2023!

Thanks, Jim

How you define yourself is such a personal thing and yet it’s something you also want to put on blast. “This is what I like, this is what interests me, this is who I am.” Only, how difficult is it to categorize all those complexities into just one thing? Father, artist, husband, illustrator, son, writer, brother, designer, friend, gamer, CIS gender male, cheese–based snack enthusiast… I’m all of these things but none of them exclusively. This is a real hot button topic that can also both interest and infuriate people and yet all of us across every spectrum of life consider these things and consider them consequential.

Let’s play a game though for just a brief second and pretend you absolutely have to boil all those things down so that you can at the very least point in a general direction to who you identify as and so you can write a manageable blog post. That’s why today I want to briefly highlight my personal admiration for Jim Henson. Good God, I mean I’ve indirectly and directly credited his influence on my life so many times that I don’t even know which past post would even suffice to make that point. Tomorrow however—Saturday, September 24, 2022—would have been his 86th birthday. Side note: Can someone please tell me if referring to someone’s upcoming birthday in the past tense due to their death is grammatically correct? Maybe strike “writer” from my previous list of defining monikers.

Illustrations © DaveHulteenDesign.com

Creatively, Jim is my ultimate true north. His sensibilities and ethos have all strongly influenced my own. When I was younger, I’d say, “If Jim started a religion, I’d convert.” A tongue–in–cheek joke even I wasn’t sure was true or not. But even that way of thinking was inspired by him.

Illustrations © DaveHulteenDesign.com

The reality though is that I can’t even express those thoughts into a cohesive post. Not because I lack the ability to convert those feelings to text, but because I honestly don’t even know where I would start. I know someone who can though, and I’ll turn it over to them in just a second. First I want to share how I’ll be celebrating that upcoming 86th birthday.

Illustrations © DaveHulteenDesign.com

I’ve teased about it, I’ve shared snippets on social media, but I’ve yet to actually talk about the work I’ve done for Craig Shemin on his newest book, Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson’s First Book. Part of this is because my involvement has evolved over the last few months, part of it is because it’s super gauche to discuss a project before it’s completed, and part of it is because this particular story isn’t quite complete yet. For the purposes of this post however, I’ll be at the Museum of the Moving Image with Craig and lots of other fans for the book’s release. Having been given that chance to be a part of this book has pulled my admiration full circle, and I’d like to believe that if Jim were still here and gearing up for this 86th party, he’d know my name—maybe even speak it out loud—and my Lord, what a euphoric, dopamine–inducing daydream that is!

It’s most likely moot at this point, but not being able to fully layout my thoughts on how to express what Jim did for me, all I can really do—and for the record—is say, “Thank you, Jim. Thank you for inspiring so many of us. You absolutely made this world a much much better place, and we are all so grateful that you did.”

Illustration © DaveHulteenDesign.com

Now while this post is an opportunity to share my thoughts and art that pays tribute to Jim, I have to turn it over to Julia Gaskill (I was going to label her a poet but as I mentioned before, we’re all so many different things and putting just one label on her would be a huge crime). Awhile back, she created an exceptional video entitled An Open Letter from Kermit the Frog to Jim Henson that just floored me. She said everything I wished I could in this post only so much better than I could have ever hoped to, and so, I’m extactic to give her the final word on this.

For more of Julia’s work, you absolutely must follow her on Instagram and Twitter @geekgirlgrownup. Also, if you haven’t ordered it yet, pick up Craig’s new book about Sam and Friends in either soft or hardcover and learn a little bit more about the guy who inspired so much for so many.

Artist Games Featuring Noah Ginex

Two weeks ago, Will Carroll and I played a game together where we would take a pass at a drawing, back and forth adding to it until it was so crammed with stuff we decided to share it with you. This time around I’m playing again with Noah Ginex! Before we get into any of that, first let’s talk about Noah.

Some of Noah’s characters.

Aside from being a super talented artist (who is also a fellow Muppet Mural alumni), Noah is an award winning puppet builder who has an exceptional sense of humor and is wonderfully and wildly creative. I was very excited to play this game with Noah because he really knows how to look at things from a very different and even unconventional angle. He has also played this type of game with his daughter so this was not his first rodeo. For everyone else who may have missed the first time I played with Will, here’s how this works:

The Rules

One artist draws something rather fleshed out then passes it on to the other. There are no time limits or space restrictions. Either artist can draw as much or as little as they want before passing it on. One artist can add to or obscure the previous work as much as they like as long as they don’t manipulate it (within reason).

The Game

Whenever I play this with an artist, I give them the option of using a full color render of the illustration I did or just the line art. I drew a white gloved cartoon hand holding a phone receiver. Noah chose to stick with the line art.

“It’s for you.”

Noah Ginex: I didnt know what to expect at first. Honestly the first volley was a lot more fully realized than I was expecting, but that just meant i could bite off a bigger chunk myself. I responded with traditional pen and ink the first time, because I didn’t have my Cintiq with me. Which I think directed the piece more to traditional black and white.

Noah’s first pass.

Just as when Will first responded, I was so excited to see that Noah had taken this in a direction I never could have anticipated. For starters, I was excited we were staying black & white, but anthropomorphizing the handset was super cool. My high school nostalgia sparked me to channel my inner Sam Keith and go really off the rails. I also took the opportunity to refine my previous line art to pop more now that the black & white direction had been set.

This weird Radio Shack rabbit then headed back to Noah.

Noah: I see faces everywhere, so it was nice when Dave responded with even more opportunities to add little details. I especially loved the phone cord turning into curly ringlets.

I don’t know what exactly this thing does, but I’m skeptical of its warranty.

Aside from minimal cleanup on my previous passes, I didn’t want to do anything else to the main art. Truth be told, I was completely lost on what I had done and what Noah had done. This fusion that normally marries two different styles together whilst retaining each artists unique styles was somehow obliterated. Noah and I had achieved a very comfortable simpatico… thing and I loved it. Still channeling those Sam Keith vibes I felt before, I opted to add a splash of red and cover it in chaotic text so it looked like a splash page right out of The Maxx.

The final collaboration.

Noah: I think the final piece ended up looking very Ralph Steadman-y, which is fine by me, so I signed it with a Steadman-esque version of my artist stamp. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I think it's perfect.

Again, this was so much fun. I actually am sad when I finish these games because it’s liberating, exciting, and so creatively satisfying. If I were a braver man, I’d consider this for a tattoo!

Thank you to Noah for being a part of this week’s post! Check out all his art by following him on Instagram @artbyNoahginex and his website too: noahginex.com

You can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter and tune in every Friday right here for more creative thinking!

Do You Have To Be Creative To Be A Graphic Designer?

When I write regarding graphic design or even just introduce myself professionally, I make very little distinction between that and being an illustrator. My professional title is “Graphic Designer/Illustrator” which is driven by pure hubris. Getting that “illustrator” addition was the most satisfying moment of my career, but if we’re going by a definitional account of my job, it’s redundant. A graphic designer is the Swiss Army knife of media professionals. We need to have a working knowledge of published, printed, and digital media and that encompasses a lot of stuff. Typesetting, illustration, user interfaces, web design, production & rendering methods, communications, plus keeping up with changing trends and social & cultural norms just to give a broad perspective of our day–to–day responsibilities.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s travel back to the very early start of the 21st century when I was still in school. I’ll give a more detailed account another time, but in short, I was enrolled in a trade school for graphic art and design at the corporately named Brick Computer Science Institute. We were finishing up our class for Adobe InDesign (which is a desktop publishing and page layout design software program) when the instructor decided to kill two birds with one stone for our final project assignment. We had to design a “How To” book based on any subject we wanted, then present this instruction manual to our classmates to clumsily complete our public speaking portion of the curriculum. At the time, I was heavily involved in puppetry, even working in local productions, so my “thesis” was how to perform a puppet. The whole farce was good enough to elicit a lot of questions afterwards from my fellow classmates. The one that hit me harder than anything else, and one I still think about today (hence this entire post), was when a kid asked, “(Regarding puppetry) How do you get involved in something like this?” I started by stating rather matter–of–factly that it is similar to any other creative endeavor one might be interested in like dancing or painting. So I asked the class, “Has anyone ever taken singing lessons or gone to an acting camp?” Silence. “Okay, what about figure drawing, sculpting, or even writing short stories?” Heads shook whilst still fixating on me with deadpan stares. I took a breath and went out on a limb convinced I’d get a a tiny bite when I sheepishly asked, “Has anyone here ever tried to do anything creative?” In a mumble from a now awkward choir, the collective replied, “No.” My head began to spin and I have almost no memory of what happened after. I just felt so dizzy wondering how so many kids without even an inkling of desire to be creative in any way had all enrolled in a program with “art” in its title. Was I going into the right field? Was I going to have a leg up of any kind because I could draw? Was I completely off about what I assumed graphic design to be?

My brief stint as a puppeteer in 1999 and then again only slightly better in 2016.

Maybe it’s not a huge surprise, but of the nearly 60 kids who enrolled, myself and one other student were the only two to graduate from our class. Everyone else dropped out. The institutional credibility of the school notwithstanding, I had placed all my eggs in this basket and headed out into the world afterwards as a green but still hopeful and determined graphic designer. My first job at a flatware company however proved the unimaginative dropouts may have been the majority as nothing I did required an ounce of creativity. My job was to be imitative and unoriginal by simply copying the designs of our competitors so that the work could then be outsourced to our manufacturer in China. One day I decided to take initiative by designing my own line of tableware for the company, fully understanding the Employment Agreement I signed had a strict statement of ownership that any ideas would belong to the company. My boss was visibly very upset at this ambitious move towards his good graces and gave me a real dressing down. One week later I was let go. Two years later I saw my designed tableware from the company on full display on an end cap at Target.

Now very depressing allusions to the life of a graphic designer aside, my story is not uncommon, and it can be justified repeatedly simply by looking at the world around you steeped in really bad graphic design. Graphic design runs along a very substantial bell curve because it’s one of those industries where anyone can—and does—label themselves a “graphic designer” just for owning an outdated, bootleg copy of Photoshop. Every time—and I mean every single time—I see really spectacularly bad design, I wonder if it may have been done by one of my dropout classmates who decided they didn’t need the student loan debt or color theory from good old BCSI and ventured into their own stint as a “graphic designer.” I think of those blank faces staring back at me who openly admit they had, nor would have, any creative interests at all and wonder how widespread that idea may be. It begs the question, do you have to be creative to be a graphic designer?

If you’re asking me, then the answer is obviously and unequivocally yes, but we can be a bit more diplomatic here. I reached out to a bunch of designers whom I admire to get their take on this idea. A lot of them were busy with deadlines and couldn’t contribute (again, the life of a graphic designer), but I cast a large net and spoke with both professional actual real life graphic designers as well as those who successfully manage things on the side as freelancers. There’s a wide range of education and experience here, but all are people I consider talented so I posed the question directly to get their take on this idea of if it’s even necessary to be creative in order to be a graphic designer. Also understanding deadlines and client specifications, I asked them to consider how much of their drive is motivated by inspiration verses profit, art verses functionality, and if they are moved in anyway when seeing good design verses bad design. Here’s what they had to say.

I consider the role of graphic designer most of all as a tool of communication. Anything I produce in that capacity has to send an easily understood message — Read this! Buy that! Being creative doesn't mean having a special sensitivity to taste and aesthetic choices, neither is it a special talent to draw, compose or write a novel — it simply means to effectively use whatever tools at your disposal to get a job done. Problem solving requires creativity. How much does it influence my work? I'd say it's the main ingredient, along with curiosity. One of my professors at SVA used to tell us: "Be informed! Read! Learn! The more you know about the world around you, the better you'll be able to communicate ideas through design." I profoundly agree with that notion. 

Mabel Zorzano

Even if it’s a project that is conceptually dictated or a simple layout, I can’t function without putting some creative spin on it. I don’t necessarily see myself as an “artist” but more of a creative creator 😂 so I can’t help but try to be creative in my approach to any project.  

I’m definitely moved by bad design…moved to hurl. But that doesn’t mean that someone with basic “functional” skills can’t create something pleasing to the eye. My main day job isn’t graphic design, so I feel I can still be motivated by inspiration. It’s still thrilling to start with nothing and end up with a creation.

Doug Berry

Being creative is integral to being a graphic designer. Our role is to take a client’s vision and deliver it in a way that stands out, draws in the desired audience and tells a story. Without creativity, anyone could do what we do. Creativity is what gets both you and your client noticed.

Christine Senak

How creative I get depends on the client. They lead everything. For me, creativity begins with listening to and learning from the client. Sometimes they have a very clear idea, but can't quite articulate it. New ideas are born through collaboration of some sort. I try to be more intimate, so I don't bombard them with a gazillion font choices and colors. I'd rather spend that time talking to them about what they really want. That seems to be rare in this business.

Many artists draw a distinction between artistry and craftsmanship. I think that line has always been a blurry one. Beautifully so. No matter what a design evokes in us, it's going to give each viewer a unique experience and that can never be cynically focus–grouped by a client or executive. I see bad design every day on busses and billboards in the city. Truth be told, it gives me more confidence in mine. Oof! Bad kerning is an epidemic. Good design, however, feeds the soul.

James Carroll

To be honest I have taken for granted the idea that “I am creative” hence “I am a graphic designer.” But, as I reflect on this question, I realize I have some doubts about how axiomatic that link is between creator and designer. In many ways, I feel like a painter is creative but a graphic designer, not so much. When asked if I am an artist, I frequently hesitate and my husband always jumps in to say, “You are an artist.”

I am a formally trained artist, there I said it. I attended the School of Visual Arts, but ultimately picked a marketable art form, graphic design. To be fair, as I dove into the art of graphic design I truly fell in love with letter form, typography, grids – an almost mathematical (I always liked math) approach to art. The experience of the reader, the audience, the consumer of my design is always foremost in my mind. I constantly ask myself and my colleagues: will the message be clear? Will the design entice the viewer to consume the content on offer?

Graphic design is most certainly an art form. Look around and one will see design that does not clearly and creatively inform a viewer. Leading and kerning (what a nerd) that seems somehow “off,” making the message hard to discern. Good design is marked by answering the question: why? The answer should never be – it looks cool. The why may not always be the right way to go, but diving into the why is where the creativity lies. It is from “the why” that one builds the design.

Fundamentally, graphic design taught me that creativity is where you find it. I was at heart a photographer, but chose my profession to make a living in the arts. Now I realize, it was perhaps the most creative choice I ever made; seeing how to make the functional beautiful and the seemingly mundane eye–catching. Graphic design, while seemingly all about utility and “marketability” contributes a great deal to our cultural aesthetic and I am proud to be a creative professional that does that.

Lea La Notte Greene

So in the end, the answer is not a definitive yes or no. On the one hand, this is a job and it has to get done if we want to keep the lights on. Clients can be fickle and stubborn and we’ve all created things we’re not proud of. Not everything has to go in the portfolio, but I find this to be rare as most people (clients) are hiring you because they like what you do and trust you to do it well. Granted, things like budgets, personal tastes, changing trends, and omnipotent deadlines can hamper these things and make even the greatest designers add to the pantheon of bad design. On the other hand though, it’s impossible to not admire really good graphic design. For me personally, I see some designers as master artists like Aaron Draplin, Martina Flor, Jed Chisholm, Krill Richert, Demas Rusli, or Gary Percival.

I think this is what tips this idea to an extreme; drawing a direct line between “graphic design” to its more definitively creative based cousin: “art.” We admire good graphic design like we admire good art; ergo graphic design is art, art is creative, therefore graphic design must be creative, right? Dain Walker prefers the title “brand strategist” to graphic designer, but at this point I’m splitting so many semantical hairs I think it’s better to just get to his point. He writes,

"In the minds of business owners, creative design can often be misunderstood as functioning alike art. However there are some important distinctions that must be understood between art & design. First allow me to express that they share things in common, often times they can even overlap or one piece could be both art & design all at once. Many even argue they are the same thing… That design is not art, but a very pointed item created with an objective rather than being subjective, essentially art sends a different message to everyone (pending their interpretation) whereas design tells the same message to everyone."

He goes on to make very broad but effective points like, “Art is to be admired, design has a job to do.” Noting that both art and design can be interchangeable, there’s most certainly two different languages an artist and designer have to speak fluently, that of a creative and that of the client. So effectively we live in a world where both of these are very true and open to a lot of interpretation. We know that graphic design can exist without any creativity because it’s literally everywhere. Whether it’s actual bad design or serves only the purpose of functionality, there is a lot of demand for uncreative graphic design. However, and this is the real silver lining, graphic design—good graphic design—aspires to be so much more.

Just like the work of all the very wonderful people who contributed to this post! Very special thanks to Doug Berry, Jamie Carroll, Lea La Notte Greene, Christine Senak, and Mabel Zorzano for taking the time to reflect on this idea and write me their thoughts. Please check out their stuff and as always, I would love if you followed me on Instagram & Twitter.