First of all, here is the plug: Last month a project that I art directed/designed, design mind Numbers Issue, was selected for the "2009 STEP Inside Design 100 Annual" and is featured in the March/April issue.
When I read the intro for the Design Annual entitled, "All That Glitter Isn't Gold" written by Tiffany Meyers. I was inspired, a little surprised, and then I thought... This is how it should always be. The introduction focused about how designers who reigned in the excess in their work this year earned the jury's respect.
"As the economy continued to lurch toward an uncertain bottom, the jury arrived to evaluate the STEP 100 with the news very much on their minds. That made it hard for them to see excess and extravagance as anything other than tone-deaf. Sifting through mountains of entries, their patience for waste (pointless vellum, showy diecuts, luxe finishes), not to mention trendiness (cute animals) was finite."
A bad economy should not be the only reason we start paying attention to substance, thought and approach, over all of the empty glitter that we have become so used to seeing. Don't get me wrong, there is always a place for glitter, but there has to be more than just a superficial sparkle to the final product, it needs to have meaning.
We have all been hearing over the past few months that the world won't be the same after this economic crisis. How our spending habits, the way we do business, and our surrounding global economy has been changed forever. I am hopping that as other design annuals start rolling out this year, that there will be a similar message of change. That there we be a stronger amount of attention paid to substance, content, and purpose, and less on the accompanying glitter. That we start judging design by not just what the box looks like, but by what is the box, what is inside it, and it's impact.