I sell.

My designs & process, my bosses' ideas, their clients' product; I sell. Visually, verbally, however the situation demands. I wish it were more glamourous. I wish someone in college had told me. I'm glad it's not used cars.

Less lofty than "beautifying communication," but more accurate, I think.

I sit in a cubicle all day making web sites wondering why I'm sitting in a cubicle all day making web site.

Many mornings I tell my wife, "I'm off to save the world from ugliness!" Then I adjust my cape & tights, & I'm off.

Actually, it's just little bits of Wales & England, & I'm not always successful. This afternoon I DID manage to convince a client that the fact that their p�té will keep in a freezer for a year is not a prime selling point, considering their hand-made traditional food image, & that it probably shouldn't be plastered on the FRONT of their packaging. Every little helps.

-

Mr Swanson, are you officially an SU author now? If so, wonderful! If no, Armin, please make it so!

Well, today I'm sitting on my sofa taking care of my daughter's who left leg is in a cast from her toes to her thigh. At work I work on ideas and strategies that will give us better direction for our visual work (as in a brand audit) and hopefully improve our standing in the marketplace.

When I have time, I've really enjoyed adding my voice to Speak-Up and on occasion Design Observer and Voice. I also like to test my knowledge on branding and other issues at MarketingProfs.com. I have really enjoyed getting back into writing—thanks Speak-Up—and making some use of that BA.

Then of course their's my role as a member of AIGA. My goal there is simple. To help educate to business in Baltimore that value of design. Designers should already know it, and I want to educate them to the language of business so that they can better relate to their clients. Also, I am leading the creation of a mentor program very similar to AIGA-NY's very successful program.

I also find time to design pro bono work and do some paid freelance too. (Currenly working on stationery package for a Catholic High School's Capital Campaign and a brochure for a local printer).

I've only designed one piece of furntiture. A doll house bookcase very similar to one. A friend who's a great woodworker helped with the actual construcion. And I saved a lot of money and got the pleasure of knowing that I had a hand in its actual creation. And that really makes a difference when giving the gift.

And like Rebecca, a lot of the time, I'm busy selling.

my job is simplify and direct. to break down a complex thing into smaller, easier to understand things.

i work in wayfinding design. if a mother comes to a hospital with a sick baby and is already frantic, my hope is to make her day a little easier.

hopefully because of our design she won't have to figure out where to go but instead can just go there. hopefully, the wayfinding process won't even be anything she has to think about.

I'm someone's b*tch in a repressive prison of old ideas run by a warden who beats me in the showers with statements like "Using 4 fonts on a page and mixing serif and sans-serif adds visual interest." and "Make it more curvy" or "More Polished".

I think the main reason graphic designers don't get no respect is because of what we call ourselves. My job is not to "make the world more beautiful." I'll leave that up to the people who watch home makeover shows. To label myself a graphic designer in public is an open invitation for people who need an artsy computer geek to spice up a document with wizardly technical skill. Of course, "graphic" means pictorial, but nowadays people use the term as an equivalent to "photoshop expertise" or "computer graphics."

I think it would be more appropriate to call ourselves something like image developers. That way, we can keep at least some of the creative tinge to our title with the word 'image', but at the same time appear more in tune with the business world.

Could you imagine a "Work at home! Become an image developer without any prior experience required" ad? It'll be a little harder, wouldn't it? If graphic design is swayed by the times, then why not evolve our title to fit our current needs?

The word "image" deals with a lot more than just pictures-- it evokes the meaning abstracted from a picture, personality, dimensional space, identity systems, and anything else we design. "Developer" offers a glimpse into the process. Our "graphic design" work is developed from research, understanding function, gestalt theory, typography, achieving flawless form, and the client's marketing goals- not just drawn once and tweaked on the computer. As an image developer maybe we'll even be trusted with a greater responsibility of content weeding, presentation, and control. We'd still be doing graphic design, but it will appear more respectable when presented as image development. Presentation- isn't that what graphic design is about, anyway?

I work with people/groups/companies to make their intangibles tangible

> Mr Swanson, are you officially an SU author now? If so, wonderful! If no, Armin, please make it so!

Yup, Mr. Swanson is officially an author now. His bio will be up momentarily so that you can all meet him and send him fan-mail.

So what do you do?

This question, when asked of me at any social gathering, causes me to panic and triggers a stutter that I never had as a child or at any point in my life until now. You don't know me until you've seen just how incredibly verbally inarticulate I can be.

"I uh ... I'm sortof a ... well, I'm a lapsed [insert forbidden words here], except I'm not, because I still ... sortof do, when people ask. But really I work with words and ... well i i i i write, I do do that. And the rest of the time I make these kindof complicated, um ... it's sortof art, except ... I'm not sure what to call it ... I work with words and um, patterns and um, stuff, and I make ... I'm trying to elicit some kind of of of of response, but ... it's hard to explain. You kinda have to see it."

I have one thing that i really strive for every day.....no, it is not to radically change the world, or to paint the world pretty. As long as i stay excited with design and spend 8-10 hours a day trying to master our chosen field, I am happy.

Like 90 percent of designers, I have a hard time explaining to people what I do. "I create logos" seems to hold them at bay...sometimes. Frankly, their perplexed looks don't phase me. I will never understand how a person can sit in the same desk for 25 years analyzing mounds of financial data.

.......now, where did i put my pistol??

I really enjoy reading Speak Up. It reminds me daily that there are people like me out there that love what they do. I think from now on when some one asks me what I do....i will send them to this site.

I craft visual identities. I show 'em what your made of.

It likely sounds pretentious but for a while now I've been regarding and speaking of myself as a cultural participant. The other side would be a cultural observer, or consumer. Whether I am "making art," writing an essay about design (or my children), teaching, or, really, anything I am attempting to be actively involved in the commerce of ideas.

An essential aspect of this is that I'm trying to bring concerns/attitudes that aren't present. However, this doesn't mean I'm striving to put forth an opinion solely to be a contrarian--though it happens.

i help companies to sell their products by making them look better then they are.

Solve visual communication problems, regardless of media.

I illicit emotional response to identity/print/web materials.

Or at least try. :)

Just a comment on the original post:

i was talking with Ellen Lupton the other day and she said something to the tune of "design is about the everyday beauty of everything."

I thought this comment wonderful enough to write down in my sketchbook, and sure enough, we're talking about the subject the next day on SpeakUp! Back to the quote, i think that we as designers look at the world around us and wonder how we would have designed it. One of the posters for the poster contest had a similar ring to Mr. Gill's though "Fight Ugliness Everywhere"

I think that between the four people, the designer mentioned in the first post, E. Lupton, J. Gill, and the person who created that poster, sums upp for me what design is all about.

Well, I cut and tape and glue things together-- package prototypes usually. I also sometimes draw up ideas for package labels. I'm hoping that soon I'll be spending a little more time drawing than taping and cutting, though it's all pretty interesting.

Mostly Im a hack.

At my best I am at least attempting poetry....poetry for commerce.

I take a (visual) language we all share and arrange it in a way that creates a link between the client and the reader/viewer.

Poetry for commerce.

I like that.

-

Can someone please explain to me the anti-beauty thing? Is it an over-reaction to being viewed as just a page-decorator? Is it because of a very narrow definition of beauty? Is it because you want to be cool like some modern artist who's rejected beatuy for something deeper (i.e. do you have a very narrow definition of beauty?)

Are other design disciplines this embarrassed about the fact that part of what they do is make things look nice?

i organize information and make it easily accessible and visually pleasing.

> Yup, Mr. Swanson is officially an author now.

Congrats Mr. Swanson!

This is a good question because I've found that "what I do" tends to vary from place of employment to place of employment. Not that it's a great difference, because it all falls under the very big picture of what we all do.

However, that being said, currently I'm paid to adhere to corporate guidelines in creating printed material in-house for various business groups within a large corporation. Also though, I don't get paid to do more creating for friends who have their own small endeavors, which allows for a more creative experience. And I also spend a good amount of time here at SU (and the other staples, DO and Voice and a few others not so often) contributing and learning which anables me to expand my craft so that I may be better at doing the first two things I mentioned above.

An aspect of the word "creating" that I used is for creating logos, creating layouts, creating identities, creating solutions, creating relationships, creating new perceptions, creating better possibilities... I do consider myself to be more than a page decorator. ;-)

I organize information visually.

I translate ideas into concepts.

I create order out of chaos.

I let the serendipitous look intentional

and make choices in a sea of options.

I give words a face, and visuals expression.

With style, color, experience, knowledge

and intuition.

It's like all the best parts of kindergarten.

And we get paid for it.

i create landfill :)

"I work on a lot of branding objectives for corporate clients. It's more like marketing consulting. (Unfortunately I have to say that so people will understand)

In my spare time I work on music and graphic art for less mainstream clients. Ya know, posters and crap like that."

It's so much easier just to talk on a level everyone understands. Ya know, like what does visual problems mean? You work on eyeballs?

Its funny how the comments fall into 2 categories. Half are incredibly optimistic about the definition of what they do as being beautiful and the other half are cynical and dissapointed.

I also find the comments about making bad businesses look better than they are very interesting. To me this is a cliche and was something I was expecting to find once having gradiuated. I avoided coming to grips with having to use my design skills to sell sell sell and to gloss up disreputable companies.

Now that I am in the field 5+ years I find the situation very different. Most of my experiences in providing design to companies hasn't been about creating the appearance of something that isn't there. Most businesses are good, productive and valuable and provide a needed service to a thirsty demographic. Most of them don't understand the value of design and its ability to organize information ABOUT their business and communicate it clearly to a desired audience. I help them do that and most of them are convinced and elated in the end.

Its funny that most of my recent, overjoyed clients are reacting to finally being provided useful design that has value as a means to their desired end. It only shows that there is a lot of bad designers out there undermining the value of design by charging gross amounts for unstrategic mediocre red herring design.

These days, I'm a business person who uses design as a tool.

I attend lots of meetings, reassuring clients that the unknown is not to be feared or hated, but conquered. And that those who get there the fastest and smartest, wins.

I traded in my craftsman uniform to become a thinker and a tactician. It has its moments.

And at this very immediate moment, I'm a writer in a giant, collective, design diary.

I do what people ask me, and then I collect money.

Just quick congrats to Gunnar! I truly look forward to reading your spin on the world of design and all that we are and do.

I think that working together, we can all help to make the world a better place. I suggest that each and every one of us take extra time every day to better groom our nether region. I've found that tea tree-based health products mixed with soft lighting is incredibly effective.

"Many mornings I tell my wife, "I'm off to save the world from ugliness!" Then I adjust my cape & tights, & I'm off." (I love this!)

"It's like all the best parts of kindergarten.

And we get paid for it" (i love this too, viviane)

marianne, i also empathize with that gulp at social functions with the question "what do you do?"

if i was honest:

i organize information

i visually digest information

i defend design

i squeeze my way into the "early" meetings

i use scissors, and glue, and high-tac

i ask lots of questions

i research and read

i think and draw

i animate

i do what i'm told (what the boss wants)

i make some stuff that looks good, and some that doesn't always look good....

I fulfill.

> His bio will be up momentarily so that you can all meet him and send him fan-mail.

As promised (scroll down to "Swanson").

He's a fine addition...and a handsome man too.

I sell myself in the streets of Las Vegas! / Crack Whore.

I make Things.

Strange, wonderous (to my eyes) things!

Poems, stories, wierd half-completed dolls, scarves,

tea..mmm....tea....

(Tazo team. Mmmm. Passion tea. Mmmm).

I don't know why I create things;

it's just a rabid impulse I happen to follow, without the luxury of design's guidance (though not to say, without some horrid and grand influence from you guys! hahaaa).

I suppose money-wise, it's something I do 'on the side', being not the source of my paycheck, but...

it's more habbit than anything.

I get irritated that at least 51% of all citizens of my country are complete idiots....

and oh, yeah.... i observe and interpret visual languages.

Speaking of furniture....

House Industries makes some damn nice chairs and pillows.

>complete idiots

No shit. They don't give a damn that the economy has gone to hell and that they're unemployed — but it's a fucking national imperative that gay people can't get married to each other.

Americans deserve what they get.

those guys from house industries are real nice...i see them on a weekly basis, Tal and Ken to be specific, good guys, funny and serious about what they do...

as for the "popular" vote...im not sure i understand what world more than half of the population has been living in for the last four years, but they somehow think Bush has good Christian morals...not so sure about that or what that has to do with being President...

Concurred. I'm hoping that they find enough smart people in Ohio. And that's what I am doing today.

- anyone want to move to denmark ??? -

america needs more atheists

parek... agnostic here... of course 51% of Americans wouldn't know what that means either....

they would probably call me "atheist"

I make things better.

What things?, you ask...

What you got?

I start at point A…

I then take requirements, limitations, vague ideas, images, typography and mix them together…

To get to point B…

Then I start all over again…

I communicate ideas as clearly as possible.

And I look at America in amazement.

I wonder.

i question absolutely everything

in an attempt to understand

if it is actually doing it's job

and doing it well

i strive for consistency

dammit dammit dammit

its job

sorry

i study the relationship between the typography and image that i am combining, evalute the hierarchy of the information and then put that on an overly complicated grid system, which i have no business creating because i am terrible at math, and then ask someone else if the color works because im colorblind...

yeah thats about it.

oh, and then there's that whole learning thing...

I’m sometimes a teacher and sometimes a writer but I’ll deal with this in my graphic designer mode. Wait. I wasn’t supposed to call it that.

I’m not sure how I would have answered my question. I used to know. As I’ve gotten better at distilling things for others I’ve gotten worse at doing it for myself. Objectively, I’m not a [insert brilliantly rephrased job title here] in the strictest sense. Since I work alone I perform all of the functions of everyone at a strategic planning and communication firm. I’m the receptionist, account executive, bookkeeper, computer maintenance technician, studio-remodeling contractor, and janitor. (I’m not particularly good at the last.)

Even ignoring being my own support team, a project like a trademark involves more time discovering what it’s all about and bringing all parties to a buy-in than actually crafting the object. (A good chunk of my job is being a corporate psychiatrist.) On a book project I spend most of my time making the thing (including supervising the other people on the thing-making team.) Smaller projects can involve as much or more “overhead” time as bigger ones.

But that’s a list of tasks. What’s the essence of what I do? I don’t know. Or at least I can’t put it in one terse sentence. Too bad. That’s one of the keys of marketing yourself. The elevator speech, the twenty second blurb that sticks in someone’s head. . . whatever you call it, I don’t have one anymore. I’d rest on a phrase from a couple of paragraphs ago—strategic planning and communication—but that doesn’t cover everything, isn’t very precise, and doesn’t capture an essence for me.

Nearly two decades ago—when April told me that she made the world more beautiful—I would have said that I do the visual part of marketing. I suppose I still do that but I do a lot more. I’m aware of the fact that everything I produce becomes part of the world and part of people’s experience so part of my answer now would include a bit of April’s and Kenneth’s.

I do a few interlocking things. I help organizations figure out what they need to project and/or organize and I help them project and/or organize it. I usually do that by building tools. Usually visual tools. (In the case of trademark design, tools for building tools.) My clients and I use the tools for specific purposes but they’re also used by other people for other purposes. I also work for those people. (It should be noted that helping my clients’ constituents generally tends to help my clients.) I make it easier for people to read or find stuff and, I hope, more enjoyable for them to look for the stuff. If I could hope for one single-but-significant legacy it would be that I helped empower others.

Whether I like it or not I’m a cultural participant. Everyone in “our business” (I put that in quotation marks because I’m not convinced that graphic designers are all in the same business) is a cultural participant. Often the culture is a lot worse off for it. I do think I make the world more beautiful. That’s not the primary good I do but it is, as Martha used to say, a Good Thing� nonetheless.

Now she says “It's a Good Thing�. Give me two cartons of cigarettes for it.” Hey! That’s what I do. I go for the obvious joke. I try to beat life into clichés.

Gunnar, your post reminded me of the Vice Presidential Debates and this question from the moderator, Gwen Ifill of The NewsHour and Washington Week on PBS

IFILL:�Mr. Vice President, picking up on that, you both just sang the praises of the tops of your ticket. Without mentioning them by name at all, explain to us why you are different from your opponent, starting with you, Mr. Vice President.

Mark—The only explanations for the “don’t mention him by name” thing in the veep debates that I could figure were an attempt to derail the usual canned campaign slogans or a weird Naderesque move to demonstrate that we couldn’t tell the players without a scorecard. I was hoping that my “don't say graphic design” challenge would highlight values and differences. I might have been semi-successful in the former.

I used to ask the question a lot. Noreen Morioka gave a nice answer but 15+ years later I can’t remember it exactly. Something about a Japanese word roughly equivalent to “service.” The answers were as varied or more than the ones we’ve seen here but none as cynical or depressed as some of the Speak Up comments.

The debate question—why you are different from your opponent—is a good one. That’s the hard one for me. It’s difficult to not sound like an arrogant ass—“My work has a quality of craftsmanship and well-considered form that these guys don’t even know exists”—or someone who has forgotten what it’s really about and is grasping at straws—“I’ve won over a hundred awards”—or like something from the standard cliché list—“My work is strategic” or “My work is user centered”—in that “elevator pitch.” It all ends up sounding too much like Dr. Gonzo turning around to the hitchhiker and saying “You can trust us. We’re not like the others.” Sometimes it’s true but it’s rarely convincing and always a bit creepy.

I help people think about things in new ways. I often help companies solve problems that surround their business practice—problems which usually involve organizing and orchestrating information and interaction, and often also entail communicating and presenting a distinctive message and personality. I do this by talking, writing, thinking, and designing. (hi Gunnar!)

I think, I improvise, I work as fast as I have to.

I stress out, I feel like I'm making a difference.

I proof-read, I pull bleed, I make "design-tinis"

Sometimes they're shaken, sometimes they're stirred.

Sometimes they're dirty, most of the time their neet.

I do my best, and the result always depends on who I am drinking with...

I've spent the last 25 years perfecting the appearance and appeal of that "carrot" that dangles out in front of the American public - that "carrot" that convinces them they really HAVE-TO-HAVE, MUST HAVE that item or object that they really don't NEED at all.

Pathetic. But truthfully, I've enjoyed the challenge.

I make the complex easy to understand.

I help create impressions and experiences that are memorable.

I also use a fountain pen whenever I can.

I try to get by.

I try to remember that my job is actually a really good one.

I try to get better at what I do.

I try not to over think things.

But in essence - I arrange things in a rectangle.

I'm a husband and a father first. Secondarily, I brand entertainment options and ensure they get to the people most apt to want them: I remember every day how fortunate I was to rise in a career that I genuinely enjoy. I'm a positive reinforcer, a coach at work, at home and on my son's playing fields.

I'm a . . . coach at work, at home and on my son's playing fields.

Interesting. By “What do you do” I meant “Describe your job” but things aren’t always so easily divisible. Recently I’ve had several clients comment on how much I’ve taught them. Maybe my teaching career has bled over into my communications-through-objects career. (I dodged the proscribed words this time.) Or maybe it’s just evident that I don’t see my various roles as fundamentally separate.

It occured to me in my 30s how much people who worked around me felt my influence: granted, this can be both a positive and a negative, but i woke up one day wanting to help everyone around me do better, and not in a controlling, megalomaniacal fashion. That attitude has served me well at work (the common acronym for my title is CD) and at home, for over 20 years with my wife and nearly 5 with my son (no title there, I'm just DAD.) If this all sounds too touchy-feely, feel free to delete this entry.

I make expensive simulations of scary, dangerous, violent, stressful situations designed to frustrate people ~ but just not *QUITE* so much that they stop participating ~ at the end of which they feel the illusion of a great accomplishment and can soak in the endorphins of victory.

I manopulate ibjects.

I do what the situation requires

When I am an identity consultant, I sell ideas

When I am a project manager, I sell promise

When I am a designer, I sell solutions

When I am a mentor, I sell hope

When I am a friend, I sell myself

I sell.