A collection of thoughts, musings, and inspiration by Graphic Designer Michael Faber.

Ok, so if you don’t know who Frank Chimero is yet, you obviously are new at this internet thing.  But Frank has updated his site a bit with some new work and a new blog for his really insightful writings, one of which really caught my eye the other day.

Chimero writes about Curation Culture (which I think he may have coined as a term) as a rebuttal to John-Kyle Mohr’s critique of the current state of content on the internet.  Mohr writes that since the turn of the 20th century, there has been an inescapable and ever-forward-pushing move towards more automation, more replication, and less original work that is certainly evident in the plethora of web-publishing platforms that are pervasive today (ie. Twitter, tumblr, etc.).  Chimero counters that although Mohr’s point is true (and likely due to the fact that work is hard), it’s not always for the worse.  Certainly, in many cases, there isn’t much to be gained by a repost of someone else’s thoughtful work, with the exception of the superficial exposure it gets you – which by the way, as Chimero notes, is a helluva lot easier than actually making something yourself.  It is through thoughtful curation of those inspirational nuggets we find as we troll the tubes that actually adds something to the zeitgeist of the design-o-sphere.

I think there is something to be said about a ‘pure admiration’ post, not only from the perspective of the author, but also for the audience.  Obviously, by taking the time to admire someone’s work and finding out a bit about them and doing a little bit of a write-up about their work and what you like about it, you are inherently consuming and absorbing more of the that person’s work than you would be by just perusing their website or nodding and stroking your wizardly beard as you flash by a cool poster on ffffound on your way to the inevitable booby shots.  And from the perspective of the audience, you are adding context maybe not to the work itself (although ideally, you would), but to your own personality as an author on the web.  Yes, if you post a picture and say “Here lies the work of Mr. XYZenstein.  It is totally wicked,” you really aren’t providing anything useful.  But by making some comments on the work and allowing yourself to speak the language of constructive critique, you are providing your readers with personality and insight into what makes you tick and what your eye sees.  Then when they come back later and see the next poster you created, they have a context, given what you’ve written about previously with regard to who inspires you/your work.

That said, I can’t deny the affect the internet and these thoughtful ‘admiration posts’ have had on me over my nascent design career.  After all, I did a tribute design to some of those that have inspired me and plan on doing another one this year.  Not a replication, but an interpretation through my own lens.

The big However:  I have no patience for blogs that are endlessly boring catalogs of other peoples work without any context.  These easy-to-spot blogs feature posts like “25 Dark website designs – Spooky!” and “1001 Jumping Hipsters with flashy lights!”  or “200 business cards made out of water-jet cut 1/4″ Steel!  ROCK!”  and “Logos that start with the letter J” (sorry I could go on forever).  These posts provide nothing to the zeitgeist except to perpetuate trends which most likely need to die hard.  Instead of spending an hour finding all those dark website designs, how about pick one and tell me why its successful, or unsuccessful, or how the content drives the form.  Or pick two and explain how these two very different websites can both successfully employ a similar design theme, etc. etc. etc.

Frank makes the point that

[m]ost people will never make anything. Because making something is work. Optional work, at that. Design, art, writing, whatever: it’s work, and work is hard. You have to organize your ideas and sweat on the page until something good shows up. I think what has happened is that these newer tools that promote sharing allow audiences to feel like they’re making something through curation.

To which I would add that curation is hard work too!  And maybe thats why there’s isn’t much of it around either.