Graphic Designers Quotes

I want you back here now. I want you next to me now. I cannot believe that my family, your brother, all our friends, and an entire police force can't keep tabs on one twenty-six year old graphic designer who thinks he's fuckin' Batman. --Detective Sam Kage in A Matter Of Time (vol 2 or part 4)

I've seen so many versions of you. With me. Without me. Artist. Teacher. Graphic designer. But it's all, in the end, just life. We see it macro, like one big story, but when you're in it, it's all just day-to-day, right? And isn't that what you have to make your peace with?

I cannot believe that my family, your brother, all our friends, and an entire police force can’t keep tabs on one twenty-six-year-old graphic designer who thinks he’s fuckin’ Batman.

I love to be a graphic designer, but could we get rid of clients somehow please?

Graphic designers judge a cover by its book.

My own style grew out of my work as a graphic designer. I try to express the essence of my stories and ideals very clearly, using simple shapes, often in bright colors against a white background. You might almost think of my illustrations, and especially the cover art, as little posters.

Commercial Art tries to make you buy things. Graphic Design gives you ideas.

Art is nothing more than creating an emotion in your own form.

Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.

Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.

Graphic Design for its own sake will never happen, because the concept cancels itself out — a poster about nothing other than itself is not Graphic Design, it's … makin' ART.

the great thing about graphic design is that it is almost always about something else.

Never mistake legibility for communication.

If you can't make it good, make it big.

If You believe in yourself you can reach everything you want.

Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take.

You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work.

Kiddies, Graphic Design, if you wield it effectively, is Power. Power to transmit ideas that change everything. Power that can destroy an entire race or save a nation from despair. In this century, Germany chose to do the former with the swastika, and America opted for the latter with Mickey Mouse and Superman.

I'm trained as an architect; writing is like architecture. In buildings, there are design motifs that occur again and again, that repeat -- patterns, curves. These motifs help us feel comfortable in a physical space. And the same works in writing, I've found. For me, the way words, punctuation and paragraphs fall on the page is important as well -- the graphic design of the language. That was why the words and thoughts of Estha and Rahel, the twins, were so playful on the page ... I was being creative with their design. Words were broken apart, and then sometimes fused together. "Later" became "Lay. Ter." "An owl" became "A Nowl." "Sour metal smell" became "sourmetal smell." Repetition I love, and used because it made me feel safe. Repeated words and phrases have a rocking feeling, like a lullaby. They help take away the shock of the plot -- death, lives destroyed or the horror of the settings -- a crazy, chaotic, emotional house, the sinister movie theater.

Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.

Typefaces are to the written word what different dialects are to different languages.

I had a few good professors in my painting and drawing classes, but all my graphic design classes tried to teach us how to use Photoshop and Illistrator by showing the class demonstration video clips. You know, exactly like the kind you can watch for free on Youtube, except these video clips cost me thousands of dollars to watch. I felt like I paid a lot of money to learn martial arts, only to show up to find the instructor is fat, sluggish, and cowardly, and he tries to overcome that by trying to teach us how to fight by showing us Chuck Norris movies. (Fact: Chuck Norris could teach me how to fight without even bothering to show up to class).

I wanted to study graphic design, because I wanted to work in an office with designer desks, ergonomic chairs, pool tables, and walls so colorful it looks like a flock of flamingoes exploded and splattered evenly from floor to ceiling.

Working within the constraints of a problem is part of the fun and challenge of design.

Visual communication of any kind, whether persuasive or informative, from billboards to birth announcements, should be seen as the embodiment of form and function; the integration of the beautiful and useful." – Paul Rand

Because the eye has seen, thoughts are structured upon images and not upon ideas.

Design is one of the few disciplines that is a science as well as an art. Effective, meaningful design requires intellectual, rational rigor along with the ability to elicit emotions and beliefs. Thus, designers must balance both the logic and lyricism of humanity every time they design something, a task that requires a singularly mysterious skill.

the method is still the same: appeal to weakness, bolster myth, and massage fantasy.

A distinctive appearance and a simple set of characteristics lead to an extremely flexible brand. (pg. 38)

Less is not necessarily more. Just enough is more. –Milton Glaser

In order to design for understanding, we need to understand design.” — Erik Spiekermann, graphic designer When

The Superiority has a lot of graphic designers and animators,” Morriumur said. “It’s one of the most common professions chosen by those who wish to work beyond basic subsistence.

We’ve all been in positions where we felt out of place or not accepted for whatever reason. For me, that’s been my life. I’ve always been that person that stood out. And what makes you an outcast is what makes you unique, and you should harness that. Being a black sheep gives you creative license to do sh*t differently.

Amazing, life-altering anonymous picture quotes on FaceBook: Are they created by graphic designers who steal quotes or don't bother to research the author, or are they original and just have exceptionally less ego than I do? Cos if I ever write something that brilliant it's gonna have flashing headlights.

I have little interest in illustration, which lacks a kind of transcendental quality. It is too literal. I find typography more straightforward, conceptual, and appealing, with its strict geometric vocabulary. There is a bridge between typographic design and fine art, especially since typography possesses a complex subtlety. The idea, the method, and the honesty in expression are central to a designer who works with type.

Disney reconceptualized the amusement park as a full imaginative experience, a theme park, rather than a series of diversions, and just as his animation revised graphic design, his park eventually revised urban design.

My mother's going to love you, you know. Although," I paused, "I'm not sure the feeling will be mutual." "You make her sound like such an ogre." "Harpy." "What?" "Ogres are male. Harpies are female. At least, I think so. Shit, I don't know. I'm a graphic designer. Mythology wasn't on the curriculum." Cat worked at a local bank as an IT consultant, and I doubted she knew much more about mythic creatures than I did. "Anyway, I think she's too short to be an ogre.

A plain circular bullet is widely disdained for its banality.

The true ENTREPRENEUR is a risk taker, not an excuse maker.

Simple is complicated.

if you perceive the universe as being a universe of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be.

It’s the feeling of being an eternal student that keeps this profession interesting.

Design is the ultimate influencer.

Art is too important a term to be used just for painters. And sculptors. And playwrights. And actors. And architects of a certain type. No, I think we need to broaden it to graphic designers and salespeople and bosses. To lay preachers, to gifted politicians and occasionally, to the guy who sweeps the floor. Art is a human act, something that’s done with the right sort of intent. Art is when we do work that matters, in a creative way, in a way that touches them and changes them for the better.[1] Seth Godin, Graceful

I’ve seen so many versions of you. With me. Without me. Artist. Teacher. Graphic designer. But it’s all, in the end, just life. We see it macro, like one big story, but when you’re in it, it’s all just day-to-day, right? And isn’t that what you have to make your peace with?

There’s a concept in graphic design called negative space. It’s all the spaces where you haven’t put something. If I draw a figure eight, for example, the negative space would be the two holes and the space around the outside of the lines. A good designer can use that to advantage. If you’ve ever looked at the FedEx logo, the negative space between the E and the x forms an arrow pointing forward. It isn’t always your friend. I once did a design where the negative space… well, let’s just say it had a certain male anatomical quality to it. Sometimes when you’ve stared at something for too long, you miss the really obvious.

People are often asking me if the things in my short stories really happened to me. I always think this is the same question to ask of a life - did this really happen to me? The body doesn’t lie. But when we bring language to the body, isn’t it always already an act of fiction? With its delightfully designed composition and color saturations and graphic patterns? Its style and vantage point? Its insistence on the mind’s powerful force of recollection in the face of the raw and brutal fact that the only witness was the body?

Building a lasting brand takes work. No Brand is cast in Concrete. As you grow, you may need to rebrand repeatedly.

Attention is your brand’s most valuable asset. In a world where people’s attention is in short supply, with so many distractions per second, your brand must be a disruptor.

Former design studios that now do nothing more than curate their blogs showing other people's work and sell ad space to make a living. It all feels very strange to me.

Graphic design is of no interest to me. I’m a finance clerk. I could be issuing invoices for anything, really: armaments, Rohypnol, coconuts.

graphic design has a cultural and aesthetic value beyond the mere trumpeting of commercial messages.

Almost all the great American graphic designers have used white space as the significant silence to better hear their message loud and clear.

classes, dance classes, sports training, graphic design, tech repair and auto mechanics.

graphic design has only one thing left to do, which is posting itself on the internet?

Penguin Classic, with the orange bands at the top and bottom; and the Gill Sans thirty-sixpoint title, all caps, centered and medium weight, in black on the white band in the middle. One of the designer Tschichold's prouder moments, when he finally woke the hell up and joined the twentieth century.

We tried to make the prosaic attractive without using the tired clichés of false glamour. You might say we tried to convey the attractiveness of reality, as opposed to the glitter of a never-never land. —Cipe Pineles

Rodchenko’s intention was to challenge the belief system that Malevich had instigated around his non-objective art. The Suprematist told the viewer that there was more to his triangles and squares than simply being pleasing pieces of graphic design; that his art contained hidden meaning and universal truths.

Marketing and graphic-design experts alike will tell you that corporate image is a huge filter through which consumers process buying information—they must know who you are, what you stand for, and when they’re investing large sums of money, they usually want to buy from a company that exemplifies their product.

IRVING: Flowery prose. Verbosity. Some folks think they’re Neil Gaiman, and have ambitions of their scripts being reprinted for their adoring fans to pore over, when in reality, scripts are working documents designed to provide the narrative framework for their collaborators to decorate and embellish with imagery.

Extremist material of any kind always looks gaudy and cheap, like a bad pizza menu. Not because they can't afford decent computers - these days you can knock up a professional CD cover on a pay-as-you-go mobile - but because anyone who's good at graphic design is likely to be a thoughtful, inquisitive sort by nature. And thoughtful, inquisitive sorts tend to think fascism is a bit shit, to be honest. If the BNP really were the greatest British party, they'd have the greatest British designer working for them - Jonathan Ive, perhaps, the man who designed the iPod. But they don't. They've got someone who tries to stab your eyes out with primary colours.

While photographs certainly attest to Nazi crimes, the magnitude of Nazi genocide demands that every trace of the regime be forever remembered. The various symbols devised by the Nazi image-makers for the most sophisticated visual identity of any nation are a vivid reminder of the systematic torture and murder engaged in by this totalitarian state. These pictures, signs, and emblems are not merely clip art for contemporary designers to toy with as they please, but evidence of crimes against humanity.

Less i snot necessarily more. Just enough is more." –Milton Glaser

Design is a human ritual of understanding.

Malcom Chakery with his experienced and some young team of web designers provide affordable and unique concept of web designing, logos and graphics to fulfill the client's needs.

Directive design gives an either/or choice, similar to a traffic sign. Interpretive design allows for personal choice, in the same way symbolism allows for individual meaning.

Effective problem solving in design requires a balance of strategy and spontaneity, intelligence and creativity.

IS GOD THE NEGATIVE SPACE IN THE UNIVERSE? THE DESIGN OF THE UNIVERSE USED A LOT OF NEGATIVE SPACE

Paradoxically, minimalism is the maximum use of space.

Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and imagination, and guided by rules and readability.

Repeated elements encourage comparison of like objects and force our eye to follow from one element to the next, even when those elements only share slight similarities.

Dissimilarity is central to creating variety.

Are you writing a book about him?” he asked, and I swear I almost rolled my eyes. The sign behind me with my name on it clearly said I did graphic design. Plus, we were at a romance convention. I didn’t know I wrote biographies. “No,” the familiar, deep voice answered unexpectedly, right before he dropped a metal chair into place right next to me. “She’s mine.

Some time around 1932, Adolf Loos, the noted Viennese architect, said, “There is a great difference between an urn and a chamber pot, and in this difference there is leeway for culture.

Brand legend and American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) medalist Walter Landor puts it this way on the AIGA website: “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.

Clicking on "send" has its limitations as a system of subtle communication. Which is why, of course, people use so many dashes and italics and capitals ("I AM joking!") to compensate. That's why they came up with the emoticon, too—the emoticon being the greatest (or most desperate, depending how you look at it) advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of Charlemagne. You will know all about emoticons. Emoticons are the proper name for smileys. And a smiley is, famously, this: :—) Forget the idea of selecting the right words in the right order and channelling the reader's attention by means of artful pointing. Just add the right emoticon to your email and everyone will know what self-expressive effect you thought you kind-of had in mind. Anyone interested in punctuation has a dual reason to feel aggrieved about smileys, because not only are they a paltry substitute for expressing oneself properly; they are also designed by people who evidently thought the punctuation marks on the standard keyboard cried out for an ornamental function. What's this dot-on-top-of-a-dot thing for? What earthly good is it? Well, if you look at it sideways, it could be a pair of eyes. What's this curvy thing for? It's a mouth, look! Hey, I think we're on to something. :—( Now it's sad! ;—) It looks like it's winking! :—r It looks like it's sticking its tongue out! The permutations may be endless: :~/ mixed up! <:—) dunce! :—[ pouting! :—O surprise! Well, that's enough. I've just spotted a third reason to loathe emoticons, which is that when they pass from fashion (and I do hope they already have), future generations will associate punctuation marks with an outmoded and rather primitive graphic pastime and despise them all the more. "Why do they still have all these keys with things like dots and spots and eyes and mouths and things?" they will grumble. "Nobody does smileys any more.

We are the Western World. We read, see, think. Left. To. Right. We can't help it. ..The problem with Top to Bottom is that it's unAmerican. We want to begin in the depths and climb our way upward. But our typographic system argues against this and wins, and images follow suit. ..What you have to be careful to remember about Big and Small, is that they can extend to infinity in either direction. Consider: Big can always be bigger and Small smaller. The atom is the Universe and vice versa. And they're both identical. ..Left to Right, Top to Bottom, Big and Small; on a two-dimensional plane, all of these tools rely on a relative truth. Now we come to In Front Of and In Back of, which for us are big, fat lies. Very useful though, and the first of many at your disposal.

I was born in the Year of the Smiley Face: 1963. That’s when a graphic designer from Worcester, Massachusetts, named Harvey Ball invented the now-ubiquitous grinning yellow graphic. Originally, Ball’s creation was designed to cheer up people who worked at, of all places, an insurance company, but it has since become synonymous with the frothy, quintessentially American brand of happiness.

Lexicon was created specifically for dictionaries. As such, it is optimized for maximum readability in a minimum of space. It achieves this using methods that have become identified with Dutch type design:

God gave us imaginations because he wants us to see the photos of our destinies respectively and make proper graphical designs of them. You owe it to yourself to enlarge that image you carry into bigger sizes.

Interruptions are especially destructive to people who need to concentrate – knowledge workers like hardware engineers, graphic designers, lawyers, writers, architects, accountants, and so on. Research by Gloria Mark and her colleagues shows that it takes people an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from an interruption and return to the task they had been working on – which happens because interruptions destroy their train of thought and divert attention to other tasks. A related study shows that although employees who experience interruptions compensate by working faster when they return to what they were doing, this speed comes at a cost, including feeling frustrated, stressed, and harried. Some interruptions are unavoidable and are part of the work – but as a boss, the more trivial and unnecessary intrusions you can absorb, the more work your people will do and the less their mental health will suffer.

Twenty-six letters: Marjorie Morningstar or Ulysses. The man-made world means exactly that. There isn't an inch of it that doesn't have to be dealt with, figured out, executed. And it's waiting for you to decide what it's going to look like.

In the 1970s, when Norman Sunshine won an Emmy for the graphics and title design he had created for one of Alan Shayne’s television productions, “Alan and I agreed it was not a good idea for us to be seen together at an industry event,” he remembers. “Alan, after all, was one of the very few homosexuals who had such a powerful, high profile job, and who lived openly with a man. Homophobia had its adherents and some ruthless climber up the executive ladder would certainly love an opportunity to use it… 'Better to be seen with a woman,’ we were advised by a very trusted friend, ‘Makes everyone more comfortable.

Graphic designer, Ava Dennis, gave a dead-eyed stare to her computer screen and contemplated chucking it out the window of her second-floor apartment. Twenty-seven was the number of rounds of edits she’d done for a personalized Valentine’s Day card. Four was the number of times her client, Kathy, had typed the phrase we want this card to resemble our love in emails to Ava. Zero was the number of Valentine’s Day dates Ava had been on, which was probably the reason for her questionable attitude around this time of year. You see, Ava Dennis was a victim of the Valentine’s Day Curse. Three times, she’d had a serious boyfriend

Disney and Apple/Microsoft are in the same business: short-circuiting laborious, explicit verbal communication with expensively designed interfaces. Disney is a sort of user interface unto itself—and more than just graphical. Let’s call it a Sensorial Interface. It can be applied to anything in the world, real or imagined, albeit at staggering expense.

Sylvia would have taken it seriously- so strong was her devotion to the innate intelligence of form. Those pretty tools like glue and pens, pasting together look-books – for Sylvia it would have been like toy making or arranging jewels. Unfortunately, Sylvia’s flair for design and graphics went unnoticed by the Mademoiselle staff, who had already pigeonholed her as a “writer”.

Ever since its release at the height of the DTP age, Adobe Caslon has been the “default” serif for many designers. In fact, the original metal type was also a printer’s standby for many years, as evidenced by the expression “when in doubt, use Caslon.” The typeface is now so familiar, it simply feels right most of the time — though it could seem slightly antique for some settings.

I wanted the distance so I could figure it all out.” “Your sexuality,” he guesses. “That,” I agree. “And my career, too. I need a better graphic-design job, and some more coursework. I don’t want to hear Dad’s opinions all the time. Not about that, and not about…” “Steamy-hot man-loving?” Roderick offers, and I almost choke on my sandwich. “Sorry,” he says with a grin. “I was born with no filter.

The ability to explain graphic design is fundamentally different from the ability to create graphic design, and it relies on different faculties. In the explanation process, the designer must deconstruct his or her work and place it in a logical sequence so one can understand its components and see how they collectively create an entity that has a specific idea, spirit, and look. The act of designing is more ephemeral; it is an intuitive process informed by external forces that direct the intuition. Whereas a solution can be explained, the process that created it can never adequately be understood. That’s why the process is so mistrusted, misunderstood, even resented. It is not scientific or democratic, cannot be learned by following an appropriate course of study, and cannot even be equally understood or appreciated by people of similar intellects and levels of education.

FF DIN Designer: Albert-Jan Pool // Foundry: FontFont // Country of origin: Germany Release year: 1995 // Classification: Geometric Sans DIN is essentially the national typeface of Germany. Developed over many years by the German Institute for Standardization (Deutsches Institut für Normung) for traffic signs and other official applications, DIN is an unusually successful design by committee. Its spare, geometric construction effectively communicates

Non è un caso, infatti, che la grafica globalizzata tenda spesso a somigliarsi un po' tutta. Non si tratta di mera influenza culturale, ma di modo di procedere. Tutti i designer compiono gli stessi movimenti, maneggiano pixel: un po' più a destra; ruotato; di nuovo a destra; abbassato; poi sopra; e taglia; e incolla. Così all'infinito. Il design dovrebbe essere un modo di ragionare, di impostare problemi, di raccontare storie, non può ridursi a maneggiare box o spostare pixel.

Most people will likely encounter Ingeborg’s showy Display variants: the decorative fill and shadow of Block, and the buxom swashes of Fat Italic. These are indeed finely crafted crowd-pleasers, but the typeface’s more important contribution to typography is in the text weights. Michael Hochleitner managed to comfortably combine the neoclassical glamour of Didones, the readability of other Rational typefaces like the Scotch Romans, and the sturdiness of a slab serif. The result is a very original design that is both beautiful and practical. Good for: Books. Magazines. Substance and style.

Even when you do nothing, you are doing something. Be aware of your decisions and what they mean for the book you are designing. You can make books better or worse. The content is the engine that leads to ideas, personal ideas, crazy ideas. Be clear about who you are, what you believe in and do not try to be someone else. Stick to your ideas. Embrace them. However impulsive or intuitive they might be, they are your treasures. Rely on the inner feeling that what you look for will work, that it will be right. Use your imagination to make the book that does not exist yet. It could be your best book ever.

p.cm. Includes indexes.ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-6278-7 (soft cover) ISBN-10: 0-7360-6278-5 (soft cover) 1. Hatha yoga.2. Human anatomy.I.Title.RA781.7. K356 2007 613.7’046--dc22 2007010050 ISBN-10: 0-7360-6278-5 (print) ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-6278-7 (print) ISBN-10: 0-7360-8218-2 (Adobe PDF) ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-8218-1 (Adobe PDF) Copyright © 2007 by The Breathe Trust All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, and in any information storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Acquisitions Editor: Martin Barnard Developmental Editor: Leigh Keylock Assistant Editor: Christine Horger Copyeditor: Patsy Fortney Proofreader: Kathy Bennett Graphic Designer: Fred Starbird Graphic Artist: Tara Welsch Original Cover Designer: Lydia Mann Cover Revisions: Keith Blomberg Art Manager: Kelly Hendren Project Photographer: Lydia Mann Illustrator (cover and interior): Sharon Ellis Printer: United Graphics Human Kinetics books are available at special discounts for bulk purchase. Special editions or book excerpts

What went through the mind of Christ between the sunset hour when the Roman soldier drove the first nail through his flesh, and the hour when he died? For these thoughts would determine not only how he accepted his fate, but also the position of his body on the cross. Donatello’s Christ accepted in serenity, and thought nothing. Brunelleschi’s Christ was so ethereal that he died at the first touch of the nail, and had no time to think. He returned to his workbench, began exploring his mind with charcoal and ink. On Christ’s face appeared the expression, “I am in agony, not from the iron nails, but form the rust of doubt.” He could not bring himself to convey Christ’s divinity by anything so obvious as a halo; it had to be portrayed through an inner force, strong enough to conquer his misgivings at this hour of severest trial. It was inevitable that his Christ would be closer to man than to God. He did not know that he was to be crucified. He neither wanted it nor liked it. And as a result his body was twisted in conflict, torn, like all men, by inner questioning. When he was ready to begin carving he had before him a new concept: he turned Christ’s head and knees in opposite directions, establishing through his contrapuntal design a graphic tension, the intense physical and spiritual inner conflict of a man who is being pulled two ways.

Never forget that all these people are primarily a visual people. They are designers, window dressers, models, photographers, graphic artists. They design the windows at Saks. Do you understand? They are a visual people, and they value the eye, and their sins, as Saint Augustine said, are the sins of the eye. And being people who live on the surface of the eye, they cannot be expected to have minds or hearts. It sounds absurd but it’s that simple. Everything is beautiful here, and that is all it is: beautiful. Do not expect anything else, do not expect nourishment for anything but your eye—and you will handle it all beautifully. You will know exactly what you are dealing with.

From an innovative trio of Dutch, Finnish, and German designers comes a unique concept: a typeface with not one, but three italics. First, the roman: a sprightly, monolinear Humanist. Where Cronos feels like careful calligraphy, Auto is quick writing — the clear but energetic marks of a lively pen. The italics — labeled as Auto 1, 2, and 3 — offer increasingly expressive forms. The progression is like the growth of a plant, starting with basic stems that grow from buds into long vines that visibly overlap where they change direction, and that then extend to long swashes. The three options let users choose the level of embellishment while retaining the type’s basic weight and constitution. This is the same character playing

And the sound of my own washer and dryer interfered with my sleep. So I just threw away my dirty underpants. All the old pairs reminded me of Trevor, anyway. For a while, tacky lingerie from Victoria’s Secret kept showing up in the mail—frilly fuchsia and lime green thongs and teddies and baby-doll nightgowns, each sealed in a clear plastic Baggie. I stuffed the little Baggies into the closet and went commando. An occasional package from Barneys or Saks provided me with men’s pajamas and other things I couldn’t remember ordering—cashmere socks, graphic T-shirts, designer jeans. I took a shower once a week at most. I stopped tweezing, stopped bleaching, stopped waxing, stopped brushing my hair. No moisturizing or exfoliating. No shaving. I left the apartment infrequently. I had all my bills on automatic payment plans. I’d already paid a year of property taxes on my apartment and on my dead parents’ old house upstate. Rent money from the tenants in that house showed up in my checking account by direct deposit every month. Unemployment was rolling in as long as I made the weekly call into the automated service and pressed “1” for “yes” when the robot asked if I’d made a sincere effort to find a job.

THE SK8 MAKER VS. GLOBAL INDUSTRIALIZATION This new era of global industrialization is where my personal analogy with the history of the skateboard maker diverges. It’s no longer cost-effective to run a small skateboard company in the U.S., and the handful of startups that pull it off are few and far between. The mega manufacturers who can churn out millions of decks at low cost and record speed each year in Chinese factories employ proprietary equipment and techniques that you and I can barely imagine. Drills that can cut all eight truck holes in a stack of skateboard decks in a single pull. CNC machinery to create CAD-perfect molds used by giant two-sided hydraulic presses that can press dozens of boards in a few hours. Computer-operated cutting bits that can stamp out a deck to within 1⁄64 in. of its specified shape. And industrial grade machines that apply multicolored heat-transfer graphics in minutes. In a way, this factory automation has propelled skateboarding to become a multinational, multi-billion dollar industry. The best skateboarders require this level of precision in each deck. Otherwise, they could end up on their tails after a failed trick. Or much worse. As the commercial deck relies more and more on a process that is out of reach for mere mortals, there is great value in the handmade and one of a kind. Making things from scratch is a dying art on the brink of extinction. It was pushed to the edge when public schools dismissed woodworking classes and turned the school woodshop into a computer lab. And when you separate society from how things are made—even a skateboard—you lose touch with the labor and the materials and processes that contributed to its existence in the first place. It’s not long before you take for granted the value of an object. The result is a world where cheap labor produces cheap goods consumed by careless customers who don’t even value the things they own.

It was 1996, and the word “appropriation” never occurred to either of them. They were drawn to these references because they loved them, and they found them inspiring. They weren’t trying to steal from another culture, though that is probably what they did. Consider Mazer in a 2017 interview with Kotaku, celebrating the twentieth-anniversary Nintendo Switch port of the original Ichigo: kotaku: It is said that the original Ichigo is one of the most graphically beautiful low-budget games ever made, but its critics also accuse it of appropriation. How do you respond to that? mazer: I do not respond to that. kotaku: Okay…But would you make the same game if you were making it now? mazer: No, because I am a different person than I was then. kotaku: In terms of its obvious Japanese references, I mean. Ichigo looks like a character Yoshitomo Nara could have painted. The world design looks like Hokusai, except for the Undead level, which looks like Murakami. The soundtrack sounds like Toshiro Mayuzumi… mazer: I won’t apologize for the game Sadie and I made. [Long pause.] We had many references—Dickens, Shakespeare, Homer, the Bible, Philip Glass, Chuck Close, Escher. [Another long pause.] And what is the alternative to appropriation? kotaku: I don’t know. mazer: The alternative to appropriation is a world in which artists only reference their own cultures. kotaku: That’s an oversimplification of the issue. mazer: The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people, with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that world, don’t you? I’m terrified of that world, and I don’t want to live in that world, and as a mixed-race person, I literally don’t exist in it. My dad, who I barely knew, was Jewish. My mom was an American-born Korean. I was raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Koreatown, Los Angeles. And as any mixed-race person will tell you—to be half of two things is to be whole of nothing. And, by the way, I don’t own or have a particularly rich understanding of the references of Jewishness or Koreanness because I happen to be those things. But if Ichigo had been fucking Korean, it wouldn’t be a problem for you, I guess?