Get your milk and shoes (and that one hot new album...)

Today's Song that you used to love is Promiscuous. I might have listened to it twice. I can't say that I'm proud.

I taught my first kids' yoga class yesterday and that was interesting. I think it was fun for the kids, but had me reconsidering having children (or, at least, nine children at once). The whole experience reminded me of science class, when they showed us atoms bouncing around, primary colors and all. The quote of the day came from a little girl who came up and said, very seriously: "I like yoga because I, I like ice cream".

In the design world, things are still moving, but at a slightly slower pace. A friend recently asked me what I was going to do and I had to just admit that I don't know. Compared to two years ago, the market is drastically different. I'm trying to figure out how to adjust. I'm also trying to build on my skill set while riding this all out.

Instead of a print designer, companies now want a designer who can do print and web, who know print production, PHP, HTML, Flash...the list goes on. Instead of a good designer, people want someone who can "do it all". I know there are people out there who can do it all, but not surprsingly, I've seen some really horrible designs come from this set-up. The design industry tends to mirror what is going on in culture, and I think this is especially true now. People no longer go to specialized stores for things, they go to large retailers. It's easy and saves both time and money. We are a culture of convenience. Unfortunately, I think we have given up quality in a lot of cases. If you have a print designer and a separate web designer, you more likely to get higher quality work because they are each specialized in what they do. Design has also become watered down thanks to pirated copies of Photoshop getting into the wrong hands. Anyone can "photoshop it", but not everyone can edit and design well, and unfortunately, people seem to be forgetting this when they are comparing costs. I'm not happy about the current economic situation, but I can't help but think that this time of reevaluating our spending habits is a good thing. Maybe we can actually get back to a place of higher quality and greater markets for focused skills.

So, until I master the web/photography/marketing/design/general office duties, I will stay busy. Tonight that means dancing, tomorrow, working from home on a rainy Friday...