State of the Blog: A to Z

There are 3562 posts on my blog.
They are tagged with 3173 tags.
265 books have been reviewed.
1969 songs have been featured.
I’ve received 648 comments.
Every letter of the alphabet is represented. There are 7 entries under Q, but only 4 under X.
Look hard enough and you’ll locate a Hidden Agenda and a Hidden Orchestra.
It wavers between extremes of Solid State or Fragile State.
The funky house of Motorbass and the metal mayhem of Motorhead rub shoulders.
J. G. Ballard & J. G. Thirlwell are neighbours.
Lake Ontario is more popular than Lake Erie.
6 Fenix flashlights are reviewed.
There are Wicked Plants and Wicked Bugs.
The rocking of Jah Rocker causes Jah Wobble to wobble.
You can find The Bees, The Cobra, The Eagles, The Flamingos, The Black Dog and The Wolf at the Door.
The subject of DIY is brought up 131 times.
There’s a Jarkko and a Jaakko.
Coldplay and Coldcut each get 3 entries.
Hod Lipson & Hol Baumann live near one another. 
Cootes Paradise is mentioned 31 times.
Nico appears 6 times, but not once is it the 60’s chanteuse.
Add up the Jon’s, John’s, Jonny’s, Johnny’s and Jonathan’s and it amounts to 26.
There are 24 Dave’s or David’s.
Michael’s, Mike’s, Miguel’s and Mick’s represent 18 entries.
Rob’s, Robert’s, Robin’s, Robyn’s, Bob’s also amount to 18.
Jesus Jones gets a mention, but Jesus Christ does not.
Graphic design is discussed 137, typography 109, type design 67, and logos 33 times.
There are 12 DJ something or others.
Both Bin Laden and Shakespeare have been killed.
Ten Madison gets 2 mentions, Ten Walls only gets 1.
Hamilton is represented 117 times.
There’s a Hardfloor and a Hardkiss. 
You can go Inside Combat Rescue or Inside Delta Force.
Decide between Big Bud or Bigga Bush.
Lego appears 39 times and tattoos 33 times.
You can be either Above the Smoke or Below the Boat.
Doc Scott, Doctor Rockit and Dr. Seuss will see you now.
I’m sweet on both Sugar Hill Gang and Sugar Shack Tattoos.
Of all the music featured, Bluetech is far and away the most popular, with 37 entries. Synkro is next with 22, Lusine with 20, Tipper 15, Phaeleh 14, Tom Middleton and Skinny Puppy tied for 13, Swans and Global Communication tied for 11, and Wolfgang Press, Coil and Burial in a 3 way tie for 10.
Locals and pals Legion of Green Men have 11 and Watershell has 9.
4AD is a record label that gets more mention than NinjaTune or On-U-Sound. 53 to 24 to 11. 
There are 27 products I’ve designed and made with the “-----------’mups” designation.
Pick a colour: Al Green, Big Black, Blue Haze, Red House Painters, White Stripes or Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Zero One and Zero 7 vie for some of the last spots.

Lame product pictures

I probably have more pet peeves than it is healthy to have, but one in particular is the generic ¾ product photo.

It seems like so many manufacturers, and by turn retailers, rely on that one photo and almost seem to be telling their potential customers “Too bad.”

While it might give me an idea, it never gives me the whole picture.

I’ll give you a case in point. Bergans. Norwegian company, I’ve always read good things about them, but they seem to have only a Scandinavian/northern European market presence. (Scandinavian outdoor gear makers with great reputations and their stuff nowhere to be found here in Canada is another annoyance, but let’s stick to one thing at a time.) While looking around on Bergans’ site, I came across their Langevann Hip Pack. Looks interesting, and I’m trying to figure out some kind of hip pack that suits my needs. (Although, I suspect that making it myself is what I will end up having to do.)

So, there is a picture and a bit of a written description. 

Another similar, but made in a different material model as well.

I can tell something about it, but certainly not everything. What is that belt like, what can I attach to it, what are the pouches on that belt like, what does the inside of that bag look like, etc., etc., etc. So I run a search, hoping that maybe some retailer has gone to the trouble to take some photos. And no. All the companies, all of them in Europe of course, all use the same manufacturer provided photo. Really, not a single one of you can go to the trouble to take a half dozen extra shots, from all angles, insides, on a person to gauge size, etc.? It’s not like it’s a printed catalogue where more photos add up to more pages which adds up to more paper which adds up to more printing. It’s the interweb, where those concerns are largely moot.

Maybe a kind blogger has gone to the trouble to take photos and write a review. But, no. I know from my own stats that lots of people looking for info on products have come here because I did a little writeup on them. And I sincerely hope that I gave them some good information that allowed them to make a more informed choice. Everything I’ve discussed here has been purchased with my own money, and my reviews were entirely voluntary, and I received no compensation for them. If a manufacturer wanted to send me stuff or pay me for what I did, I wouldn’t say no. And maybe that’s what manufacturers should do. If they aren’t willing or able to give their potential customers more than the generic ¾ product photo, and a bland writeup, and no one has yet written up a review with some photos to accompany it, maybe they should approach a blogger to do just that. I know speaking for myself, an objective 3rd party review, or two, or three, is more likely to sway my opinion than an ad in a magazine. I just find it frankly weird that a lot of manufacturers still seem to think that old fashioned, non-interactive ads in magazines are the way to go. Or that a good reputation alone will sell their products. That picture on Bergans’ website alone isn’t enough to make me want to have it shipped from Europe to me, only to find out that it doesn’t suit my needs. And it also seems that a company that could potentially do very well in a market like North America, when they are an entity known only in certain geographic locales, like Scandinavia or Australia, could benefit from some non-professional, non-commercial endorsement.

So Bergans, or any other manufacturer or retailer reading this – and I may have singled them out, but there are many, many, many manufacturers like them – give your potential customers more info than the scant drips and drabs you give them now – especially more detailed photos. And if no bloggers are writing about your products, and filling in the scant photographic evidence, approach some that appear to be sympatico and offer to send them some products to review. Either as a give-away or a loaner. Or slip them a $100 bucks for their trouble. It is bound to be cheaper than ads in magazines. And if the traffic that comes to my site is any indication, people are hungry for a lot more info than you are providing them. The old ways of doing things are obsolete. A blogger may not take the greatest photos and may not always praise a product effusively if they find flaws with it, but I think the legions of people reading what they have to say appreciate a sincere and honest look at a product, and also appreciate not having smoke blown up their ass. The ability for a real world user to see what a real world user has to say about it, to see photos of the product from all angles, inside and out, filled with the things that would go into it, etc., etc. is the way that things are going. Giving a potential customer a way to ask questions about the product, either through a website, discussion forum or even of a blogger (like me - I’ll happily help a fellow enthusiast) is to my mind really important and very worth it. And pretty cheap in the long run.

Manufacturers and retailers need to adapt to that new paradigm of marketing or see their market share dry up.

Behance

Finally got my ass on to Behance. I needed an online portfolio and it seems to get good reviews from all my creative friends. There are several online portfolios and I’m thinking of getting on to a few of them.

Behance seems pretty straightforward, but I wonder if it isn’t a place where it becomes easy to get lost in the absolute deluge of stuff that gets posted there. I posted some stuff, and 20 hours later went back to post some more stuff and also to have a look at what else had been posted by others. Page after page of stuff. After a while I stopped actually looking at other peoples stuff and just out of curiosity started to see how much had been posted. 12 items per page. After just shy of 150 pages I found back the last thing I had put up. Wow that is a lot of people putting up a lot of material. I realize that quite a few disciplines are represented, but that is still a pretty staggering volume of work being shown. I suppose as a quick way to show a prospective employer or client some of what you’ve done it’s fine, but as a random showcase for your skills, I wonder how well it does.

Another thing I realize is that I need to take much better pictures of my stuff. I don’t have a great camera, and for the purposes of a blog, where I just want to quickly throw up what I've done to share, it’s fine. I tend to have a ton of ideas in the hopper that I’m working on and want to get to. I finish one thing off, snap some shots, process and edit them, throw them up here, and then it’s off to the next project. But that process of getting photos, downloading them on to my computer, sorting what is okay and what isn’t, rotating them, cropping them, editing them, saving a smaller version, putting a watermark on them, flattening that - I shudder to think how many hours I’ve spent on that in the time I’ve been doing this blog. Hundreds of hours. Weeks of time. Some of the steps I’ve created actions for and I can just batch them, saving me some time. Some things still require a human hand though. Selecting, cropping.

For the sake of an online portfolio, and looking at the high quality of photography others are using to showcase their work, I feel decidedly inadequate at some of my half assed photos. Time to devote some more time to taking some better photos. *sigh* But...lots of the product designs I’ve glanced at seem to be 3D renderings. Now I’m impressed by the ideas shown and the ability represented by the 3D renderings. But I feel somewhat more confident in the fact that I have actual products to show. A mockup is great and all, but to my mind it’s trumped by a physical object. Unpolished as some of my items may be, it’s considerably further along the process than a rendering is. I suppose that if I had gotten a proper education as an industrial designer, I would place more emphasis on the rendering part, but I’m merely an amateur tinkerer. I just want to get on to the actual making. To me the proof is in the pudding. I suppose also that it really depends on the item being created. For some things a detailed rendering to present to the client may be the only feasible way to go. For sewn goods, if someone wanted me to make a...messenger bag say, I could likely whip one together faster than I could do a rendering of it. And an actual object the client could hold in their hands might do more to sell it than a rendering could.

But hell, if I had access to the software, I would likely love it to bits and be teaching myself to use it and creating all sorts of nifty stuff with it.

All right. Enough writing. I have to get back to working on the logos and typefaces I have on the go right now, so that I have something more to feature on Behance. And here. And maybe Coroflot soon as well. And maybe Deviant Art. And....