If you look at the history of posts on this site, you’ll notice some gaps in the timeline early on (well, elsewhere too, but the early ones are explainable differently). The thing is, when I launched into this blogging venture I spent an absurd amount of time fiddling with design. And I’m nowhere near done in that regard. But it’s not my fault.
For several years, I was a graphic designer. My father is a graphic designer. My wife is a graphic designer. My brother is a motion graphics artist. There is no escape.
When I think about design in my life, outside of the family bloodlines, I think I have an origin story. It began like this:
The greatest little beginner's design book ever.
Montreal. 1997. I’m working at a bookstore and one day bring home a copy of The Non-Designer’s Design Book, by Robin Williams (no, not the one who’s usually a man trying to be a housekeeper or an android trying to be a man, this one’s different). Later that night, curled up on the orange velveteen sofa, I devour it. In maybe a half hour. It’s straightforward, direct and incredibly empowering. When leave my apartment, walking up the steep hill past the bars, restaurants, cafes and head shops, I realize I’ve acquired a new power. A kind of graphic criticism. I’d always looked at certain things and thought they looked like crap, but now I could say why.
Suddenly, bad signs were everywhere. Born Under A Bad Sign Albert King © by Nesster on flickr
Suddenly I could look at all of these signs: road signs, shop signs, billboards, t-shirts and not only shudder, I could also complain about the use of fonts, contrasts, alignment, proximity and repetition and repetition! My graphic indignation could be righteous. Probably not such a thrill for those at dinner that night, but for me, it was a new lens on the world.
You may recognize this boy in a turban. Or you may not.
Unless you’re my father (who took the picture) or someone I’ve introduced it to as being my two-year old self, you’d be hard pressed to be sure that it’s me. But I’m told it’s the truth.
You may however associate it with me, because I do tend to use it as my little avatar just about everywhere. But, until you read this, you probably weren’t totally sure that those were my baby blues peeking out from between the folds.
I’ve been thinking a fair bit about personal branding over the last while, and some of the questions that have stuck with me are about this little turbaned boy. Why have I chosen this image to represent me? What am I trying to convey? What do people perceive when they see it? What does this add to my personal representation, as it zips about the digital world?
In the case of this little image, I’ve never thought much about these questions. It’s me. It’s cute. It’s playful. A little mysterious maybe… I think that was all that crossed my mind when I first used it. But avatars, like many other signatures, have a way of multiplying themselves. I’d used it once, and the next time something called for an avatar, there it was again…
I suppose I accept that whether I like the connotations or not, an avatar is a logo that represents me. Having a design background, the concept of a logo is a more loaded one for me than that of an avatar. And I do resent this connection, because I don’t really want a logo for myself. It seems like a pretty silly conceit, and overly corporate as a concept. But if I accept that an avatar is a logo, then I’m basically forced to have one through online interactions. If that’s the case, maybe I’ve gotta step it up a bit.
My concern about the turbaned image lies in the ease with which it could be misconstrued. So, what if I were to reinvent my avatar? How could a square centimeter of screen best represent me?
This is where I start thinking about personal branding again. There really are some wonderful logos out there, that manage to perfectly catch the flavour of their brand. This is something for me to think more about. I’d actually really like your suggestions.
Should my avatar remain the little turban image?
Should it be more literally connected to me?
Should it be more evocatively connected to me?
Other thoughts?
What choices have you made and why?
More thoughts about personal branding to come soon!
At first I felt pretty unenthusiastic about this project. I loved that my students were so fired up on research that they would power through online content in pursuit of the perfect image to suit their inquiry. I dreaded the thought of telling them, “Sorry, but all those images you’re been doing awesome things with, forget about them. You’re not allowed to use them anymore”. My heart told me, “c’mon. This is a school. These kids are seven. Anything they do should be considered fair use. The most important thing is that they’re able to purposefully search out research content, and effectively use it to share their ideas.” I still believe this is true. I do think that this is the most important thing. And I believe that at a second grade level we have a degree of fair use latitude that does and should diminish later in education.
But the more I developed this lesson, the more I thought it just might be a catalyst for some really interesting discussions and reflection. Moreover, when I started to consider what practices of fair attribution might look like developmentally I let go of the idea of exclusively pushing for standard practices, or shooting for a very clear, high-level of attribution product for all student uses of online content. Attribution at a second grade level could be a very different thing. It might be anything from learning to paraphrase rather than copy, to writing the name of a book you read at the end of your work, and mentioning a website where you found your material. Slowly, I reflected that promoting attribution at a first steps level could be totally valid and constructive learning process for my students.
My idea went like this. First, I sat down as though to read a story to my class, just as I often do, except in this case I’d covered the author’s name on the sleeve with a bit of bright green masking tape and written “By: Jamie Raskin” on it instead.
Erika-San, originally by author Allen Say
I knew that my students would instantly cry foul. And they did. Immediately I heard calls of “What?!” “You didn’t write that!”and “Who really wrote the story?”. I played dumb. I asked the students what was wrong. After a few shared their reasons for dissent, I asked them to turn to each other and discuss why they thought it might be wrong to have covered the author’s name with my own. After a minute, I asked them to share their thoughts with everyone and recorded their ideas on the white board.
Their thoughts were fascinating. Some said they thought it was alright to put my name on it, because I was, after all, the one reading the story. Another said if I just took off the word “by” from my label, that would be acceptable. Others thought my name should be nowhere on the book, but others contended as long as I didn’t cover the original author’s name, it was okay for mine to be there too. When one student said something akin to “It’s not fair to pretend something that you didn’t make is by you”, I knew we were in business.
What is Attribution? Who creates a book?
I asked the class if they thought they may have ever used someone else’s work without saying who had created it. Talking through some thinking time, I watched the majority of the class’ hands creep upwards. Sharing examples we eventually hit on using Google Image Search to track down graphics for our research. Some students proclaimed that they had to use this sort of content. If someone didn’t want us to use it, why did they put it on the internet? Our conversation came around to another point. “How can we use people’s work, but do it fairly?”
So that was the next question I put to them, “How could we use people’s work fairly?”
What was amazing was how quickly they hit on the basic premises of attribution. Two ideas. When you use something, say who made it, and also, say where you got it from. At this I introduced the term attribution, and shortly thereafter, mentioned that I knew of a website where we could search for material that the owners said it was okay for others to use in their work. It was time to move to the computers.
I’d introduced attribution as “giving credit” to the author, and this supported the video I now showed them, a great little one-minute animated song about “giving credit where credit is due”. I’d found the clip on YouTube, but it was created by the people behind the site QuestionCopyright.org, as part of their series of “Minute Memes“, short videos which they claim “reframe copyright one idea at a time”.
Next it was time to introduce Creative Commons Search, and how it would enable us to find images that we were allowed to reuse. We did it as a narrative. First, I showed them the Comic Book template that told the story of a mini-research project. We read through the story, right up until the point where we needed to find an image to complete the narrative. Back to Creative Commons Search and we tried a few examples… What if this story were about a squirrel? A mountain? Clogs? In the final box of the template I pointed out where I’d written attributions for the first two images, and we worked together to include appropriate credit for our various examples.
By then, they were ready to bite into it. In cooperative pairs (I nearly always have students work cooperatively on computers when we’re introducing new tools or resources), they came up with what they wanted to research, made their own copies of the template, and got into it. Their examples are gorgeous, take a look (apparently the class is into wolves!):
I’m really happy with how this lesson went in the end. Since this introduction of attribution around a week ago, I’ve seen students repeatedly using Creative Commons to search and supporting each other to credit work appropriately. It’s the tip of the iceberg for fair use practices, but I feel that at a second grade level, it was a small success, and set the ball rolling for that type of thought.
The full lesson plan is available as a Google Doc here.
If there’s one thing the past decade or so of digital evolution should have taught us, it’s that micromanaging modes of sharing and interaction, like the take-down of Napster or the one-time dismantling of Pirate Bay, does little or nothing to curb the behaviours it intends to outlaw. While Napster’s role was quickly filled by Limewire, eDonkey and any number of other file-sharing platforms, users of Pirate Bay just spread out laterally across a bevy of bit-torrent options. In cutting off a Medusa’s head, we’ve seen the growth of a mass of new serpents. It doesn’t work. And while fewer people may be using applications like these now to acquire music and videos, that fact has likely much more to do with the success and rise of the iTunes store, Netflix and YouTube than the beheading of their forefathers.
To gain ground in the battle on modes of interaction and file sharing, it’s the unleashing of better, faster and more convenient tools that shows notable success.
Madonna: We're concerned about your paycheck.
I remember the first time I downloaded an album only to find out it was a purposeful imposter, posted by its producers, to combat the file-sharing they saw decimating their record-sales profits. Quotes from Madonna, Metallica and the like were all over the place for a time, condemning the theft of their art.
The problem was that these comments seemed to come exclusively from Madonna, Metallica and the like, and the authenticity of their cries of foul play never rang true. They pitched their case as a righteous indignation over the sharing that was robbing them of their income, but I always heard it and thought… Am I supposed to feel badly about Madonna’s paycheck?
Radiohead's In Rainbows: My first "pay-what-you-can" album.
Conversely, I remember when I downloaded my copy of Radiohead’s In Rainbows album, directly from their website, after making my voluntary donation. There was a novelty to it at the time, as it was I think an unprecedented way for a band to sell directly to their listeners on such a scale, in a pay-what-you-can manner. I recall reading that around 2 out of 5 downloaders chose to pay for the album, and that the average donation was around the six dollar mark, as opposed to the mere 15% cut that they would have made of each previous conventional album’s sale.
Since that time I’ve continued to pay-what-I-can for direct downloads of albums, straight from the musicians’ sites, and each time I’ve done so with pleasure. This form of purchasing carries with it the added emotional bonus of making the purchaser feel as though they’re part of an authentic musical community, interacting directly with the artist, as well as being a consumer.
I read an article today, an anecdote and discussion about banning the use of some means of digital communications from youth. When Dad Banned Text Messaging, an article from the New York Times, explored the case of one family where Dad has decided that his children do not use text messaging responsibly, and so banishes the send button from their mobile services. The author, mom, seems to be letting dad direct the traffic on this one, but is sitting in the background quietly hoping that he’ll relent and let the kids send messages again.
There seems to be a corollary point here. How do we see decisions like Dad’s developing in the long run? Is it more likely that his kids will come up with other means of communicating with their friends, or that they will simply stop this inappropriate communication as Dad desires? My guess, is that they’ll find a way around it. But in the process of doing so, they’ll resent and normalize the deception of their father for making and enforcing this decision. How might it play forward if they get in the habit of deceiving their father? It’s all speculation.
On the other hand, what is the potential in this situation for curbing this undesirable behavior throughout the promotion and growth of a better, faster, more convenient way of doing it? What is the potential for control of inappropriate text messaging through an iTunes-like solution?
As educators, we know that our successes come through empowering our students to reflect on and modify their behaviours based on observable benefits, and understood rights and responsibilities. Might the father in this case, like the industry in the case of music-sharing, find more success in promoting different means of communication, or music purchasing, than in trying to stamp out undesirable behaviours one by one. The next such behaviour will always follow close behind.
Image credits: Madonna photo used under Creative Commons license from Karen Blue. In Rainbows photo used under Creative Commons license from J. Rangel.In 2003 I moved to Taiwan and went out looking for somewhere to dance. The problem was, everyplace I walked into was blowing out the most horrific Asian techno (which really was a genre at that point), and I would be perpetually frustrated by my attempts. So, I became a DJ… One clear way to ensure that someone would be playing music I’d want to dance to.
In this newly adopted role I began to devote a large amount of time to researching music, and came across the mash-up pioneers of the era, like DJ Z-trip, and 2 Many DJs. I’ve always loved hearing musicians cover each others songs, paying tribute to the creators while embracing the freedom to make the music their own. These mash-up artists approached it with different tools, but it was the same ethic. Producers were doing things like taking instrumental tracks from one song and vocals from another, then marrying them in exciting and surprising new ways. There were these incredible synergistic moments where two pieces I loved previously came together in a way I’d never imagined, and eye-opening creations where things I may not have been so keen on were elevated by their re-contextualization. Take this example of a mash-up of Missy Elliot (who I’d enjoyed for a while) and George Michael (who I’d never had much time for). After listening to them together, I came to feel that maybe there was more to George than I’d given him credit for previously.
Recently, watching Lawrence Lessig’s TED talk “Re-examing the remix” I reflected on his insights on this media phenomenon. Towards the end of the talk Lessig poses the question: “How do we build an ecology of freedom?” by which he means an artistic media culture in which the values of freedom, community, limited regulation and respect for creators are nurtured, and legislation and copyright stringency do not smother creative freedom.
I’ve long since stopped DJing parties, but my personal connections to these questions have been born again in the form of an album released last year by my brother Josh under the pseudonym Kids & Explosions. I’m pretty sure there isn’t an “original” note of music on the album, in the sense that I believe every sound is sampled from previous recordings. My brother and I have very similar taste in music, and putting the album on for the first time made me feel like this was a record that had been made just for me. An album of a thousand samples, 900 of which I could just about identify, re-imagined as a series of gorgeously fun, complex and oddly catchy tunes. First and foremost, I think this album is one of creative musical inspiration, but it is clearly also a tribute to the musicians sampled throughout.
Album art - Kids & Explosions
Hands down, this was my favorite album last year and consequently, I played it a lot. When people first heard the album, right after either professing their love of it, or looking oddly pained, they would often ask me how he got away with using other people’s music.
In this interview on CBC Radio, at about the 3 minute mark, Josh talks for a bit about his remixing the sounds of other musicians, and how he understands that process as fitting into a sort of history of musical production. Basically, he explains that the reason he gets questioned about his use of existing music all the time is not because what he does is unique. His reworking of material is not a rare thing. He believes he is questioned about it primarily because so much of the music he reworks is well known. There’s a long history, he explains, of hip hop musicians, among others, digging through record crates to come up with amazing old Soul samples and the like, but when they’re used, very few people recognize the sources. What he goes on to say is that the reason he uses such well known material is that he wants to make music from music he loves. That’s what makes it meaningful to him.
I think that is probably the key consideration when we think about the ethics of remixing. The enormous majority of remixes come with a deep dose of tribute and affection. To be sure there are satirical remixes out there, but they’re a whole other discussion. Most of the remixes that flood YouTube and other channels are without any doubt deeply respectful of the creators they borrow from.
While searching for an old interview clip for this post, I came across something that made me smile. This remix album of my brother’s has now been remixed, and remixed, and remixed, and remixed. I quickly came across several examples of this including raps over his music and an animated sequence of some Biggie Smalls lyrics, from my brother’s track: There is a Burning Ball of Fire in Outer Space.
Biggie Smalls lyrics, in a Kids & Explosions song, re-mixed as animated typography.
Scrolling down, after watching the animated typography remix, I came across something amazing. What followed on the page was a discussion amongst the poster and commenters about the exact copyright issues that Lawrence Lessig was discussing in his TED talk, clear examples of how muddy the roads of copyright and remixing have become. But something else stood out for me too. The very first post by the typographic animator included a direct tribute to Kids & Explosions, along with a link and a suggestion that viewers purchase the original album. If we needed a crystal clear example of the respect held for creators by remixers, this must be it.
My sense is that remix culture has profoundly deep roots of the type Lessig discusses. It is very much about freedom to use artistic material, a community that shares and inspires, limited regulation or restriction of creativity, and profound respect for the creators at every stage and manifestation of the game. The challenge it faces, I suppose, is that the same fear and response which media producers have applied to the worlds of file-sharing, the direct re-distribution of copy written materials, has also been applied at times to the world of remixes, which are clearly another beast altogether.
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