Just received news that Zina ’s been featured on the latest Elle magazine in China !
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
Above: doingbird#twelve cover
(Natasha Poly // Photographed by Alasdair McLellan //Styling Kim Jones)
Having been away from Australia for the last five years, I am quite foreign to Australian publications and designs. Here is a publication called doingbird, which I have never heard of, but apparently is quite big in Europe. (Thanks for the heads-up from Papercut ).
Check out an interview here with NowNow , also another great publication from Melbourne, Australia.
Another publication from Oz, is SummerWinter , which was started by Christopher Furguson , with art direction from Emma Scott-Child .
Above: Heatspell, 1938. Stunning collection from the master Weegee. Photos taken in New Yorkbetween the 1930s and the 1960s.
Wow, this is just pure mesmerizing. I hope you guys in Milan are doing ok…
Here’s a pretty good concept from David Airey , the Design Pricing Formula .
He also lists a few interesting links to articles about Design Pricing:
12 Realities of Pricing Design Services , by Steven Snell
Nine Factors to Consider When Determining Your Price , by Collis Ta’eed
Is Charging More the Right Thing to Do ? on Men With Pens
The Subtle Effects of Pricing on the Mentality of Clients , on FreelanceSwitch
Edit: After reading through all this, I feel it like it’s the same old song sung by different birds. This is the same problems as for kids coming right out of college of any design schools. First thing. why is it that almost no schools never teach how to value ourselves? (Please leave a comment if you come from a school that actually teaches you how to do the business of design). Yes, we are not trained to lead the management side of a design studio, however, how many of us end up to be freelancers, and are just left running around having no fucking clue as to how things are done.
More often than not, I have a feeling most designers are undercharging. Perhaps most of them are not very good, but is that really the point? Has design gotten to a point where it can be compared to a painter for your house? Have we become ‘interior decorators’? Let’s move your ugly couch over here, painting there, logotype here, acid green there.
Any case, what strikes a chord with me, is that if you call a plumber to check on your pipes because there is a leak, the moment he/she steps out the office, that’s €50-€75. He takes a look at your pipes, thinks for a second or two, the meter is rolling! €50/€75 isn’t unheard of.
Shooting starts October, can’t wait to see this movie! Very uplifting.
The other night, while coming across the topic of marriage, I remembered the article I came across from The Atlantic, “Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? “. The article was very informative and extremely interesting. It makes one think about the origins of “A Diamond is Forver” which is actually coined by the advertising agency N. W. Ayer & Son, in 1948, and “Diamonds are a girls best friend”.
This is one of the many wakeup calls to remind us that what we take for granted, the values, the ‘morals’, the cultural norms, are in fact, fabricated, and much of it, fabricated in only recent times, to fuel the ever growing monster of consumption.
To reach to how we conceive diamonds today, DeBeers and the Anglo American Corporation have twisted words, in what we would label as ‘terrorism’ to get to what they wanted. What saddens me the most however, is not the ignorant brainwashed people in the west flocking to buy into this fantasy of diamonds, but the exploited continent of Africa. Again, they are robbed right in front of their eyes through corruption and greed. t
What if all the things that you’ve ever been taught was wrong?
Excerpt from the video:
De Beers is able to create an artificial scarcity of diamonds through its wholly-owned Central Selling Organization (CSO), thus keeping prices high. A cartel is a group of formally independent producers whose goal is to increase their collective profits by means of price fixing, limiting supply, or other restrictive practices. The US oil and gasoline markets work the same way seeking to restrict the flow of IRAQI oil for example. Now hold on a minute: Why is our government in a “difficult” position if Iraq is a “swing producer” of oil? The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to “support the Palestinian intifada” and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control. “Control is what it’s all about,” one oilman told me. “It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.”
What else have they lied to us about?
Had time to make a test shoot with Filippa Smeds the other day, there’ll be time for more.
Check her out on Lookbook too.
Click below for more photos:
