Level Orange

Earlier today, I happened across this post at dannychoo.org where Len-Vesper goes on about his “internet battle” with PiQ and how the magazine is closing its doors. Well, while I don’t remember hearing about or witnessing any “battle” and the magazine actually closed down two months ago, that’s hardly the focus of his tirade.

Like many others, Len-Vesper is actually more upset about the messy transition from Newtype USA to PiQ and how subscriptions were handled.

As I read on, I considered leaving a comment on his blog post here, but since I’ve never written at length about it and I got kinda wordy, I just thought I’d post it here on my own site.

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One of the biggest concerns a graphic designer can ever be confronted with is cribbing from someone else’s work. Sometimes it happens unknowingly, sometimes it’s completely intentional, and whether or not a viewer makes that distinction usually doesn’t matter. It’s the responsibility of the designer to make sure he’s keeping his vision and work original and fresh.

Most people would say that technically nothing is original or new anymore, and in some ways, that’s absolutely true, but that doesn’t give a designer the freedom to knowingly copy another’s work. Aside from outright plagiarism, there’s nothing necessarily illegal about doing it, but it’s one of those unwritten moral codes that artists (or any creative person, for that matter) must live by.

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I have to admit, one of the things I had in mind when I signed on at my job was getting in on some web design action. It wasn’t exactly obvious how I’d be able to do that, but because I had experience in web design for several years, it was something I was interested in. When I found out that there was a separate team working on web development, I was a little disappointed, but figured that was all for the best. Good, let them handle it, I said. At least, that was my initial reaction.

Like most companies who operate under a parent entity, the site was being managed under an umbrella structure, meaning that one team handled design, development and maintenance of ALL corporate sites. Unfortunately for us, there was a time when priorities had shifted and the magazine dropped in both relevance and status within that structure. In turn (at least this is what I was told) each division was given back control of their respective web presence, in order to free up man-hours for other projects. As a result, the magazine’s site quickly grew stagnant. Because it relied on a database-like back end, it became a chore just to update content and almost impossible to get quirks and bugs stamped out.

That’s when, after several months of nudging, I just couldn’t help it anymore. One day, I simply asked, “why don’t we just do this ourselves?” and surprisingly, I didn’t meet with much resistance. Instead, I got the go-ahead to work up some ideas.

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I woke up this morning with my stomach in knots. Not because of something I’d eaten, but because of a dream I had. One of those dreams that just envelopes you with a sense of impending doom.

In this dream, I was out of work again. Not only me, but the entire office. We were shut down. In the same way that happened last time. Not necessarily the whole company, just our division. There were mentions of being integrated into other departments as an alternative, but that did little to comfort anyone. Just the idea that we’d all be suddenly left to our own devices was overwhelming to me.

At my last job, I joined the team and was there until the end. After seeing so many people come and go, it gets to you. I miss the people that I used to work with every day. Even though the occassional phone call or e-mail is a comfort, it’ll never be like it was. You have to pick up the pieces and move on. I think I’ve done a good job of that so far. I’m just not looking to do it again.

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In just the last seven days, the staff at NTUSA has undergone some drastic changes. Well…drastic in that no one saw them coming, but still in keeping with the overall wierdness factor that hovers over the joint.

First, last Friday, the Lead Designer is let go. It came as a shock to almost everyone, with the exception of a few that had to make the decision. In a way, it was a relief that an obvious bottleneck was now being cleared. On the other hand, it’s hard to see someone lose their job, especially after only three weeks.

Next up was the sudden, but highly-anticipated promotion of yours truly to the now-vacant position of Lead Designer. It was my target when I started less than two months ago, and even though I didn’t suspect it would happen this soon, I’m glad it did. Now that I’ve seen the effects of the first issue on the nation, I’ve discovered that this is going to be more responsibility than I’ve ever had before. My newest personal and professional challenge has begun.

Newtype USA readers out there… I design. That’s it. I really have no control over editorial content, but I’ll do my best to keep the bad-assed-ness of this mag cranked to 11.

And if that doesn’t make for a twist in your noggin, our Editor-in-Chief just resigned this morning, citing whatever personal or professional reasons. And again, after only a few weeks. So, at this point, we’re back to the original staff that created Issue #1.