Everyone has a side passion project, or at least aspires to have one. Some people spend their evenings and weekends working on projects that test their creativity, learn new skills and experiment with their comfort levels.
Side projects are not usually money-making businesses, but they can turn into one if you really put the time and work into it. That is how Global Wire Associates started 10 years ago, when it was just me blogging about communications and human rights. I would have never thought that a blog would be a jumping off point for a new career as an entrepreneur. In today’s changing economy, more people want (and need) their passion projects to turn into a paying job.
But most people don’t do passion projects for income. I think it is a great idea that for everyone to have a side project because it helps to reveal your deeper desires and lets you focus on what is important to you. Whether you had a bad day at your job, got into an argument with your significant other or just tired of all the crappy news about mass shootings, police brutality, ISIS and other awful things happening in the world, having a side project can be an outlet for relieving stress.
Most importantly, life is too precious and short to not to find time to do something you really love. One day you will be older and regretting not doing something.
What is my passion project? Well, actually, I have two projects. I like collecting vintage posters, postcards and book covers and trying to recreate them in Photoshop or Illustrator, or creating a website complimentary to the art. Sometimes I sell the posters and book covers for some good money! It is work-related, but it is a great way to learn visual communication history, find inspiration and improve my designing skills. I have also been working on a documentary for a while that I hope to finish one day…
So go out there and write that novel, knit that sweater, paint that portrait or start blog ging. Summer is a great time to start doing something.
Stop with the excuses and indulge in your passion (project).
Believe it or not, I actually do take a break once in a while from all the business and journalism projects I am working on at any given time. While it is very rare that I go on a actual vacation where I don’t think about business, I try to use the many business trips I do go on to do a mini vacation.
A couple of weeks ago I was in New York City to meet with some clients and to finalize the plans for GWA’s 10th anniversary party with my event planner. I did schedule in some time to do some fun stuff by visiting three museums. I highly recommend visiting the following exhibits if you happen to be in the Big Apple this summer!
If you are a graphic designer, branding specialist or just a design history buff, you will appreciate this exhibit about the grand master of American design himself Paul Rand. There are over 100 posters, advertisements, book covers, logos and corporate brand collateral that show the diversity of Rand’s career. He is best known for creating the logos for IBM, UPS and ABC-TV.
You know you are getting old when you start to see people you grew up listening to exhibited in museums! I felt like I was stepping back into my teen years when I saw the exhibit of the dozens of photographs of memorable rappers from “back in the day” like MC Lyte, Run DMC, EPMD, Big Daddy Kane, A Tribe Called Quest, Salt N Pepa and Queen Latifah. It was also pretty cool to see old copies of Word Up! magazine and pictures of some of the early movers and shakers in break-dancing and graffiti writing. This is a must-see exhibit for people who appreciate what real hip-hop used to sound like.
So as a web designer, I get inspiration from seeing the work of other designers. This exhibit shows how posters can be powerful forms of visual communication. If you love vintage posters, this exhibit is worth checking out.
Adjaye is the architect behind the upcoming National Museum of African-American History in Washington DC. He put together this exhibit displaying textiles from West and Central Africa, including some beautiful Asante Kente textile and Malian mud cloth.
The “Pen”
While the museum is housed in the former home of Andrew Carnegie, which was built in 1903, the whole space is very tech-savvy and design forward. Once you pay your admission fee, you are giving this pen that works like a digitized USB drive and a specialized URL on a piece of paper. All the items in all the exhibits have small, black plus signs next to them. If you like an exhibit item, you can press your pen on the plus sign and the information about that item is saved. All the items you saved on the pen are saved on a webpage that can be accessed using that specialized URL for you to view later. The webpage gives more in-depth information about the items you selected. You can also use the Pen to draw your own designs on computer-aided design tables that also get saved on that webpage. It’s a great to remember all the cool stuff you saw and did at the Museum.
I got to play furniture designer and created the following table, hanging lamp and vase using the CAD and the Pen.
Most artists, writers, designers and other creative people keep a notebook to jot down items of interest and inspiration. This is what Jean-Michel Basquiat did. The Museum recently acquired newly discovered notebooks with sketches and writings that show the early process of many of Basquiat’s works of art. The notebooks give a nuance perspective on his thinking, ranging from politics, racism, class warfare, history and everyday life in general.
Zanele Muholi is a famed photographer and activist who specializes in capturing images of black lesbian and transgender life in her home country of South Africa. The exhibit showcases 80 of her photographs, commentary on homophobia and a short film of a lesbian wedding in a township. While South Africa was the first country in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1996, it is still one of the most dangerous places for LGBT folks, where homophobic violence is commonplace. As the United States moves forward on marriage equality, this exhibit will quickly remind you that there is still work to be done in other parts of the world.
I thought this was the coolest exhibit at the museum. Sneakers have contributed greatly to our social and cultural history. There are over 100 pairs of sneakers to mull over, including Air Jordans, and the Adidas X autographed by Run DMC. Again, I’m feeling the aging process!
This is video of Adidas designer Rick Owens famed Vicious runway show celebrating sneaker culture, which was shown at the exhibit:
With all the hysteria in the United States around Ebola, it is easy to forget that 25 years ago there was similar fear for another then little known disease called AIDS. I remember when in the late 1980s there was also a call to actually quarantine those believed to most likely contact HIV, or the “4H Club” – hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, Haitians and homosexuals. This movement was led by perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, who thought AIDS was a plot by the “Soviet War Machine.”
Responses from government and public leaders to the AIDS crisis was dismal. President Reagan did not even say the word AIDS until 1987, when he proposed cuts to AIDS treatment funding and rolling back mandatory testing legislation. The Christian Right used AIDS to demonize the LGBT community, and William Buckley wrote in a New York Times piece that AIDS victims should be tattooed on their upper arms and behinds like a Scarlet Letter to prevent further spread of the disease.
Fed up with the hysteria and misinformation, a group of activists got together in the spring of 1987 to form ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). Over the next five years they would engage in direct actions that would force the Reagan administration, the media and Big Pharma to pay attention.
This was thanks due in large part to the group’s “marketing department” Gran Fury, a volunteer collective of artists and graphic designers who were charged with creating some of ACT-UP’s most cutting edge graphics, posters, films, billboards, performance art and other brand messaging.
ACT-UP is best known for the above graphic “Silence = Death,” which simply states the urgency of the crisis. During the Holocaust, gay prisoners were forced to wear pink triangles on their clothing in concentration camps before they were sent to their death. Gran Fury used the symbol to remind people that not speaking out about this injustice was like death.
This soon became the logo for ACT-UP, which made it’s first official appearance at the New York City LGBT Pride parade in 1987 on t-shirts and banners. The media quickly noticed the “silence”, as the whole parade looked like a perfectly choreographed staging of the pink triangle. Although at the time Gran Fury didn’t consciously think this was their brand strategy, they later realized the value of having a uniformed message for the media and spectators.
Legendary artist Keith Haring also used the same messaging of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” in his piece.
Gran Fury launched the 1989 New York City bus ad campaign “Kissing Doesn’t Kill,” which looked similar to Benetton United Colors advertising. The ad showed three couples of diverse races and sexualities to highlight that AIDS doesn’t spread through casual touching. It was created to intentionally confuse viewers. Like Benetton, ACT-UP wanted to also promote tolerance among all races, colors and sexual orientations.
At the time, images of interracial and same sex couples kissing in such a public display was a highly charged issue. When the ad began appearing on buses in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Chicago, Gran Fury agreed to remove “Corporate Greed, Government Inaction and Public Indifference Make AIDS a Political Issue” in order to reach larger audiences, but this still infuriated some people. The Illinois State Senate actually prohibited the ad on Chicago Transit Authority vehicles because it feared children would be exposed to the gay lifestyle.
By the early 1990s the tactics of ACT-UP forced the government to enact AIDS legislation, pharmaceutical firms to provide better, more accessible treatment for AIDS victims, and the media to talk about the crisis on its front pages. Gran Fury will be remembered for creating hard-hitting graphics that agitated for change. Both social activists, health workers and even marketing executives alike can take lessons from Grand Fury that can still be used today.
A couple of weeks ago I had my regular meeting with Cynthia and Keyshia, two students I am mentoring. In our latest gathering, I asked them if they had any thoughts on the role of the arts in STEM fields. Both of them were confused at first and thought I was joking. They didn’t realize that the arts played an important role in these traditionally technical fields.
I explained to them the roles a web designer and a web developer play in building a website. I think a recent Ask GWA post really did a good job explaining this:
…To put it into a different context, let’s think of a car. Web designers are in charge of how the car looks and feels, such as the color and design inside and outside, the shape and comfort of the car seats, the texture and use of the steering wheel and even the smell of the car. Web developers deal with how the car functions, like making sure the engine works in relation to the steering wheel, brakes and the gas tank, fixing a bad muffler and even making sure the radio works…
The same can be said about the iPhone. One of the reasons it is such a popular phone is not only because of its superior functionality, but also for its beautiful design.
I’m glad STEAM industries are getting more attention, especially in U.S. schools. Below I found these two videos that talk about this growing movement.
Renowned graphic designer John Maeda discusses the role of the arts in technical industries.
Everyone has a side passion project, or at least aspires to have one. Some people spend their evenings and weekends working on projects that test their creativity, learn new skills and experiment with their comfort levels.
