Justin Ahrens
Principal of Rule29
Sarah Ahrens
Client Services
Kara Ayaram
Designer
Tim Damitz
Designer
Bob Davidson
Creative Producer
Susan Herda
Designer
Kerri Liu
Senior Designer
Katrina Strich
Studio Manager
Intern
Design Apprentice
Guest Blogger
Friend of R29
30 days from now…who really knows where you’ll be? Is there something you’ve always meant to do, wanted to do, but just … haven’t? Matt Cutts suggests: try it for 30 days. This short, lighthearted talk offers a neat way to think about setting and achieving goals.
This is a great place to start. Watch this or try reading Life Kerning – you will see some nice similarities. What would you do for 30 days?
Is passion really the defining factor to a great career? Does the possibility of a good career still exist in an ever evolving, technology and idea focused culture? Is velcro really a failure? Economist Larry Smith delivers an engaging talk about why many of us aren’t pursing our passions and why we can’t afford not to.
What are you passionate about?
What stops you from pursuing it?
Why do we go to the movies? This is a question I have been pondering over the last week as both myself and Justin settle back from what has now become an annual trip to the Sundance Film Festival – seeing 18 films in 4 days. I know. It sounds exhausting. It is. To sit and watch movie after movie after movie is hard work. But before you scream foul, let’s consider the real question – “Why?” Why immerse yourself into what is seemingly an over-hyped, celebrity infused, celebration of entertainment (other than getting our pictures with Chris Rock and Ty Burell of course)?
Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s because it’s not about entertainment.
Sure, this is not the case for all movies. Anything being released from the Big 6 (studios) is ultimately banking on you buying an experience in “entertainment”. But for a significant portion of the independent filmmakers that find themselves at festivals such as Sundance, it’s about something else. And it better be, as out of the 10,000+ films submitted and the 114 films that make it into the festival each year, less than half get acquired for distribution (45 films in 2011). Actually, the percentage of films being sold has historically been more like 10% (14 in 2010). All this to say, if filmmakers are creating films with the hopes that they get bought, they are better off playing their local lottery.
Fortunately, this is not the drive for most. Filmmakers are artists. They are ultimately about expression. Expression of an idea and form. An idea that happens to get disseminated through a visual medium such as film. An idea that’s tethered to a passion. And whatever the angst, in a space such as Sundance, the ideas emerge via story form. Stories about social change. Stories about life’s complexities. Stories about relationships. Stories about what could be.
We often say on this blog that design can change the world and we frequently encourage our designer & non-designer friends out there to use their talents to do just that. In this post we wanted to take a look at designs that have in fact changed the world, specifically graphic designs that have had a large amount of influence either on our day-to-day experience or our view of the world.
In our search we have made a couple realizations. First, graphic design, while it can be a means to its own end, can have extraordinary power when used as a vehicle for communicating an idea. Considering this, we have found that the most influential designs are born from a very potent idea that resonates with a large or influential group of people. This is not to say that these designs cannot take on a life of their own outside their original purposes, as many of these designs have done just that. Second, when you encourage people to go out a make a difference, you are taking a risk. Not all design that has had impacted the world has been for good. And not all creators of these designs have understood their potential.
As 2011 drew to a close, you probably had giving on the mind. Not just with holiday presents and host gifts, but combined with the many requests for your year-end donations, it all conglomerated to form a whirlwind package of year-end generosity. But of course, giving doesn’t stop when January first rolls around. It’s the more subtle giving that lasts throughout the year that, perhaps, makes the bigger difference for both us and the community and world we live in. As we settle into the blank and fresh 2012, we’d like to take note of changes in the way the world gives, and perhaps write this year’s story of giving a little better than the year before.
There have been three major shifts in how we give. The first is an turning from a one-way donor-to-recipient model to a community-oriented, grassroots partnership model. Instead of giving toward large, multifaceted undertakings, projects are smaller, and communication between donor and recipient is increased, and sometimes even tangible. Therefore, gifts aren’t seen as much as donations, but more of a support partnership. It’s been around for a while, with the likes of microfinance-oriented sites you’ve heard of like Kiva and Kickstarter.
