When I saw this video via @ilovetypography on Twitter – it was such a treat :) I wanted to just abandon any work there and then and sit down to draw out some lettering. Alas, there was no time for play. I wanted to keep this easily accessible to share and pass on – so here it is. Do enjoy :)

The Art of Hermann Zapf from Johnny Dib on Vimeo.

A film on the purpose and techniques of calligraphy. Presented and produced by Hallmark. Filmed at Hallmark cards during a visit by Mr. Zapf. Production manager Noel Gordon. Script outline Peter Seymour. Script editor Richard Rhodes. Camera Direction Frank Robinson. Associate cameraman Heinz Burger. Idea and direction Harald Peter.

PS: in case you have not checked the “I love typography” site for a while – make sure to have a look, inspirational as always :)

So I just want to wish everyone happy holidays and all the very, very best for 2010 :)

my personal experience

Hoping to make our senior management aware of our worries and the contributing factors to this situation I sent the link to our new principal. I was asked to go see him about this – and at that point I was ready to be challenged on my decision of writing such a public statement, and to bear the consequences. And though the meeting did not bring much direct progress on the issues I raised – I found our new principal to be a very professional as well as understanding man. He took time to discuss the course and related issues as well as my apparent need to go public with my opinion.
In the past, my experience with senior managers overall had not been great (and I am talking about my teaching experience in other places, not THC, here). Usually, though you might be called in for a conversation – it is pretty clear that the meeting is merely a token gesture, so really just a waste of time, as the manager in question does not actually listen at all. I’m sure this is common in a lot of work places.

My meeting with our new principal at THC however was very different. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that he had carefully considered my email and blog post before our meeting and that he was making time to talk to me and really listened to what I had to say. So I left the meeting feeling that the change of leadership at THC was very positive and that our new principal would bring hope for the future. We were in good hands.

I was hopeful that things would change for the better if some of the issues affecting our recruitment were addressed. And towards the end of the year I actually had – for the first time in about 3 years – some interviews with potential students for the following academic year, a sign of improved marketing and better visibility of our courses, perhaps? — I was feeling a little more optimistic again.
And then the shit hit the fan (please excuse the harsh words).

changes through funding cuts

Announcements of cuts to ESOL, redundancies etc….

Before I carry on – I’d just like to say that I am not very political person and being only part-time at the college I have to admit that I am not really interested in understanding the college politics in depth or claim to know how the finances of any community college are done. I have always thought that the educational system in the UK is flawed and the funding cuts by the government to education have already caused damage to adult education specifically over the last few years – with this situation now getting worse in the current economic climate.
I don’t consider myself a teacher/tutor or whatever you’d like to call it. I’m a webdesigner who also teaches – so teaching is my second job and I love it. But my interest and focus is not with the college and its politics – it lies only with my students to ensure their education, their learning of new skills and ultimately their progression towards their personal goals. One of the reasons why I love working at THC has always been that I would have the chance to make a difference to people who might not be able to afford further training in other places – the community aspect is very important to me. I love sharing my knowledge and helping my student explore their talents and blossom into the creative professionals they want to be.

I am also a member of the UCU as I believe in a democratic process and feel the principle of ‘power to the people’ is vital, especially considering how management often loses touch with its workforce. So despite not being the most active of members I did consider the union to be important and overall an empowering organisation (though I am reconsidering my opinion at the moment).

So when the cuts were announced at the end of last year – the union called a strike to protest against these cuts and redundancies. In principle – I would agree. But then it became clear that the strike action called for was to be indefinite, announcing strike days already for september, at the very start of the new academic year… This worried me immensely – and it did not feel right to plan so far ahead without even allowing time for negotiations or considering that these issues might be addressed and resolved before the start of another academic year. I went into the summer worried and unsettled and carried on with my own freelance work, hoping once september came these issues might be resolved.
On the first day back at the end of August – I attended the union meeting to hear news and updates. I was impressed with the progress the union had made and felt that both senior management and the union had come far. The more the meeting went on however – the more personal the angle seemed to become. The union’s criticism seemed to become more and more narrow minded and focused on bringing down one man, our principal – rather than changing a situation for the better. As I mentioned, I don’t claim to understand the politics behind this and from my point of view I could not understand why this action seemed to be so specifically against the management at our college – where I would think we should rather be acting against government decisions on funding cuts.

I don’t mean to sound like I am defending the management either – I truly do not know whether their decisions of implementing cuts etc are right or wrong and so far I had thought I could trust the union and their take on the politics involved. But talking to our union reps and people actively involved in the strike action later on – I was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable with their proceedings…
The angle of blaming one person for everything that has been going wrong at the college over the years – and for cuts put in place by a government that clearly does not give education the importance it deserves – seems very distorted and wrong to me.

So when the strike was announced to be carried on – throughout the days of enrolment – my heart sank. Not knowing what to think or do – I feel myself now very upset by this. Completely torn – I remained at home during the first 2 days of the strike, hoping for a resolution by the start of open enrolment the following week. I did not feel I could cross the picketline but could also not support the action by actively participating as I did not agree with the decision of the union.
Considering the importance of enrolment however – and the fact that it was left to only a very limited number of people to do the work of many – I could not bring myself to stay away and not go into college. I really struggled to come to this decision – not being sure what to do. I do believe in the principle of the union – but I do not believe that a strike which will cause such disruption at the very beginning of the academic year is justified. For me, this action is like a boycott of our student’s education, our own jobs – rather than a positive action to bring on change. So the following week with the start of open enrolment I finally decided to go to work as normal.

enrolment week

I write this as the enrolment week is over and the strike action continues. And I have to admit that I have never felt so disheartened and depressed about my courses. It was without doubt the worst week I ever experienced at THC. Having to go through the line of my colleagues on strike was very hard as well as upsetting and made me feel like a traitor. Though at the same time I really could not change my mind about going in to do my job as I completely disagree with the union’s attitude.
Inside the college – only a limited number of people were there – with line / senior managers all working hard to keep the enrolment running as smoothly as possible despite the strike. There is no way to tell how much the strike outside the college really affected numbers on enrolment – but I have no doubt that especially our adult courses in Creative Arts have been affected quite substantially.

As the week went on – it became harder and harder … only very few adults came in, reports of how union strikers had approached people outside, trying to stop students from enrolling (saying things like “if you go in now to enrol – people will lose their jobs” etc) became more frequent, worrying us a great deal… Though I would like to point out that the overall consensus within the union had been not to be this pushy or disruptive to the potential students themselves so it is likely that this was done by only a few of the strikers. Police and security were also there to ensure that people were not physically stopped from entering the college.
For me, going outside for a quick fag break would end up in a conversation with the union guys – being challenged on my position as union member not supporting the strike action and this also became more and more intense. A few snippets from what I was told by various people on the picketline who tried to convince me to join the strike and my responses:

• “the letters from the principle saying thanks to people who are in to work during enrolment are just a manipulative gesture to undermine the union”
  really…? have you seen how stressful it is in there? Trying to make sure that we do enrol students for our courses and  that there are actually jobs left once the strike is over has been hard work, especially for our line managers and admin staff… so the letter was actually an acknowledgement of this, in my view.
• “he (principal) just wants to squash the union – he’s testing us”
  feels to me like the other way around, considering the progress made over the summer.
• “they’ve put a businessman in charge who wants to run the college as a business and make profit – a ridiculous concept and he has to be stopped”
  again, why is the strike not against government decisions? Seems to me that everything is changing with funding and education so how do you know that it is not necessary for our college to survive by making a profit now to secure our future?
• “only weak people are going in – as they feel bullied by management”
  ??? WHAT?!? didn’t realise I was being weak or being bullied, sorry… I actually feel it cost me more strength to go in than simply stay at home and avoid all conflict…
• “it is unbelievable how much abuse staff have to take at this college”
  ??? W-H-A-T !!!??? Now we’re being abused? How?
• “people are being bullied by management”
  really? well, I feel quite bullied by you, actually….

Apparently now – the focus is shifting, the union has a lot of support from other unions and seems determined to strike however long it will take. The support from other unions to me just highlights the fact that this strike should be against the government and its funding cuts – rather than be a strike for one single college, focusing on one man and his team. I may be naive and ill-informed about these sort of issues but I cannot support an action that becomes so petty and seems more like a power struggle than a drive for change.
So the strike continues – causing chaos for weeks to come, or worse: without enough students – we will lose our courses and our jobs.

Though I started the week feeling very torn whether I had made the right decision to go to work – the more time went on the more obvious it became to me that this action had turned into a quite vindictive and almost personal campaign against the principal, a very unsettling attitude in my eyes. Though I think my time at THC is now coming to an end – I feel the management has dealt with this situation very well. Senior managers and the principal himself were around throughout enrolment, working alongside everyone else, talking to us, trying to keep up morale – we were brought lunch and cups of tea and generally the proceedings went very well – the students who did come in were looked after as best as we could manage and will hopefully not feel too intimidated or affected by the strike action. It was great to see how everyone was pulling together to get the work done.
I started my post with telling you about my experience with the new principal as I wanted to let you know how he dealt with me and my blog post. I personally feel that he is very good for the college. It was about time for strong leadership – and a more direct approach to dealing with issues. The new principal actually communicates directly with us – informing us about decisions made – rather than us either receiving a letter ‘on behalf of…’ or being informed by our heads of department – we actually hear from him directly. So I am quite sad that it might be the end for me here when the college finally has a strong principal who might bring a brighter future.

our courses

However – for myself, my teaching team and my courses – the situation looks worse than ever. Student numbers are at an all-time low at the end of enrolment week. We still have time to recruit more students but I do not trust a hope and fear we will lose our courses this year. With enrolment having been bad over the last years already – I would usually spend all my spare time with emailing former students asking them to spread the word, finding free online listings, producing promotional flyers etc (with my team as well as former students offering to go around to drop these off in various places)… etc… this year however with a lot of client work on, I literally do not have the time to spend on all this extra promotion and so I fear this will now bring on the end for my courses, affecting 8 people who teach with me.
My worry is that though the union are trying to save a certain number of jobs (already reduced from 40 to about 12-13, from what I understand) — they will actually cost even more people their jobs as we will not have enough students enrolled to run all our courses.

At the end of this week I had a strong urge to simply give up, hand in my resignation right there and then… as I simply cannot do this any more… But my urge of not deserting the small team left now during such hard times won and I will wait and see, helping out as much as I can to get everyone else’s classes taken care of ~ still hoping mine might survive as well.

But maybe it really is time for me to leave THC — the politics of such a large college which after all is mainly focused on 6th form are doing my head in. I am very passionate about teaching and can usually ignore all this as soon as I am in the room with my students. This is what I’m there for – to teach. And I could go somewhere else – but having spent so much time on improving my courses and building up such a great team – I feel reluctant to do so and start again from scratch.
But now, with this strike which seems ever so vindictive and misdirected and the low numbers… I feel very down and unsure about the future. Sad as it might be – I would miss teaching terribly – maybe this proves once again that as a practicing professional working within education the politics are simply too much to handle.

Recently it seems Carsonified are being criticised for no particular reason I can understand. This competition is to create a slide for the FOWD – to be shown, projected onto the presentation screen inbetween sessions. One design would be chosen and win, later on a free ticket was added as prize as well. Paul Boag posted a flippant remark – teasing: “hmm… this feels a lot like speculative design to me! ;-) ” (quoted from the blog post, comment #1) — note the smilie face at the end of his comment.

What followed was an outburst of criticism ad nastiness against Carsonified and this competition – claiming this indeed was spec work and therefore out of order and even disgusting. I really could not quite believe what I was reading… Whatever happened to designing for fun? To simply take some time to play? Do something without strict brief and only loose requirements? — how liberating and fun that might actually be :-)
Paul was quite take back by the reaction he had unintentionally triggered off and responded in a videoclip – to clarify: What is speculative design work?
(if you want to read more about spec work from Paul: check out his “Why speculative design is wrong” post as well).

So after all that – I just wanted to enter this competition, to make a point. I don’t feel too good for it (like some of the posters on the blog seem to feel) — and I appreciate all the comments pointing out the freedom of a little bit of creative time.  Today was also the deadline for another contest  – see below. Again, the winner will gain – the rest will have spent some free creative time and nothing else, fine by me :)
So here are the 2 competitions I recently entered – it’s not too late for for you to enter yet, by the way :)

• I Heart Blogging design contest by WordPress and Infectious
  and if you can spare a minute – would appreciate your vote on my submission :)
  UPDATE :: please don’t worry about voting here – I have just just realised that you will need to register in order to rate any design. I am really against sites forcing users to register in order to vote or leave comments. So I am not asking anyone to do this unless you want to. You could just have a look if you fancy it ;)
• New Competition: Design the FOWD 2009 Holding Slide by Carsonified
  would love to hear your thoughts on either or both of my slide submissions: design #1 & design #2 :)

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.

Even though in the field of webdesign and development women still seem to be in the minority – there are now lots of us. As you know by now – I’m not a writer so I will merely name three here ;)

Molly Holzschlag

Happy to be in the Desert
Originally uploaded by mollyeh11

Molly has been one of the first people I started following online via blogs and articles when I was learning handcoding and looking into webstandards and accessibility. Her drive for a better web for us all and her open nature have taught me a lot and she continues to inspire.
Thank you, Molly x
→ visit molly.com

Pixeldiva Ann McMeekin

psf-08august2007_7641
Originally uploaded by patrick h. lauke

I first saw Ann speak at an open lecture on accessibility — and just loved her attitude. Apart from her lovely Scottish accent – which I love anyway – she was speaking in such a direct and to-the-point manner that it really got me on board of the accessibility issues which at the time I was still learning. Often speakers beat around the bush, fuzz issues and leave you with a lot of ‘non-information’ – Ann however goes straight to the point and makes you sit up and listen.
Thank you, Ann x
→ visit pixeldiva.co.uk

Veerle Pieters

A moment of concentration
Originally uploaded by Veerle Pieters

Veerle’s gorgeous blog remains one of my favourite sites for inspiration. I love how she gives insight into her workflow and shows us all those neat little tricks to create the perfect visuals. The tutorials and ideas she shares on her site are amazing – and I find this spirit of sharing knowledge one of my favourite aspects of the web.
Thank you, Veerle x
→ visit veerle.duoh.com

On a closing note – I can only say that I feel lucky to be working with my lovely eyedea team — so, of course,  I’m also inspired by my group of wonderful and talented girls :)

NOTE: all photos above are embedded here via Flickr and remain © of the original photographer.

→ a doodle for 2009
… just to wish everyone all the very, very best for the new year.

2008 ended with such busy weeks – with college and design work – that I literally did not find the time to send cards for the holidays which I feel really bad about. So I had to at least put something up for the new year,  a graphic instead of animation; also this time – for the first time in years – I did not create my usual Flash card but enjoyed going back to doodling with my lovely fountain pen.

Although I am feeling pretty ill at the moment I have to say that I am really looking forward to this year — the eyedea team is kicking off properly. There are a few things on the horizon and a few projects in development and we will try to make 2009 a good year despite all the doom and gloom being talked about.

Last year the teamwork really started taking shape — and I am really chuffed to have such lovely as well as talented people working with me :-) I feel very lucky —  I can’t wait to see what this year will bring :)

For more detailed information about the W3C validator services and the current situation, or to become involved, please visit the W3C Validator Donation Program page.

On a more positive note – the new accessibility guidelines are out – and will hopefully be a step forward. It’s been 2 years since Joe Clarke wrote his critical “To hell with WCAG 2” article on ALA – so this has been a long time coming. I have not had the time to read yet but I am hoping that these guidelines will be a major improvement over the existing ones and be written in a more concise and legible format.

→ Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
→ The Web Standards Project – WCAG 2.0 resources

Asked for permission to show his photos here – Tom wrote:

“We tend to think of poverty in the sense of the major areas of deprivation … but personal poverty exists adjacent to great wealth, as the images that I have sent you are of people whose poverty does not define them, it is their present state and that state is so easily changeable with only a little effort from those around them, I have come to know these chaps, Sean and Mike and I tried to make portraits that depicted them and not their condition. Sean sits on the floor and looks at the camera and says this is me Sean, a person not an object.

Sean and his mates are the responsibility of us all, we ignore the poor at our peril … please use these images in anyway that you see fit, write what you feel is appropriate, I’m not interested in the credit for these images only in the chance that in seeing them it may spark some acts to release them from their condition.”

(14/10/08, Tom Hurley)

The fact that we live in a world where materialism rules and the funds are so unevenly spread is a very sad reality – this idea is depressing. It gets me in the deepest part of my being – mankind is still at war, still allows its own to starve – while the rich get richer and the despair of those in need grows. The injustice is just too much. Why is it not possible to solve this issue once and for all and establish a just balance?

[source photo © Diane Ehrhart, via morguefile.com]