It’s as if the act itself, a Robin Hood-esque gesture, takes the guilt of the criminal and replaces it with the valor of a hero. It’s common water-cooler talk to overhear how the latest HBO show was torrented, or of someone using a cracked copy of Adobe’s latest Creative Suite. If these overheard crimes were truly criminal, then why aren’t they reported? Who would even dream of reporting the crime of copyright violation? I know I wouldn’t. It bugs me, but it bugs me the same was as someone’s running a of red light, or driving drunk – acts far more serious that could lead to loss of life, yet whose penalties are oddly similar to the 5 years, and up to $500,000 a copyright violator might face.

The reason behind this murky area of criminality and justified taking-from-the-Man, could be, that regardless of our social codes of conduct, as humans, our morality is instinctive, and while we understand the illegality of an activity, if it appears to not cause harm, then no harm done. I’m not a social anthropologist, nor a historian of legalese, so I’m going to avoid going down the path of tracing where along the evolution of man we moved from enjoying all our entertainment for free, to paying for entertainment, and now returning to taking our entertainment for free again. However, my guess is this isn’t a long enough history to be engrained in our DNA quite yet.

Instead, my reason for calling to task piracy, is it’s impact on creativity, and the stuff creative individuals produce that makes this life more enjoyable – those songs that define a period in our lives, the movie that changed us, made us cry, or feel better about being human, or the software that opened up new worlds of expression and expertise and gave artists unimagined ways to create.

I wouldn’t go to the point of saying that piracy is killing creativity. It’s not. It’s just making it a lot more expensive and difficult to be creative in a period of expansive creative options. It’s not a coincidence that the golden age of the original pirate came during a period of technological innovation and exploration. The world was no longer round and the high seas, with their galleys of gold, were ripe for picking. And in the end, what was a monarchy with a few less heavy bars to clog their coffers. Today, as media companies appear to make millions, who’s to care that a few songs get swiped for free, or few less DVDs aren’t sold because someone already watched the show for free on YouTube.

In times of creative surplus, bring in the surplus of crime.

However piracy is making creativity more expensive. Piracy is stripping away the reward for being creative. And it’s forcing copyright laws to be even more ludicrous (can’t forget SOPA) and invasive. If you stop and look at the financial impact, there’s no difference between the hijacked truckload of DVDs destined for Walmart, and the person that posts the latest  HBO show for millions to download. But what would you say to Joe over coffee when he told you about the Freightliner he commandeered last night, full of the latest releases from Lady Gaga. You probably wouldn’t smile and look away. Even if he claimed he was planning on giving all the CDs away for free.

There are those that will counter this argument with examples of creative work, made for free, given away without expectation of profit, that bring satisfaction, and recognition to the artist(s) involved. However, for anyone that’s tried to dine on recognition it’s not that satisfying. If there aren’t methods to take away the option of piracy, slowly, creativity will dry up. The shows we truly enjoy, for their ability to expertly take us to Mordor with the carefuly crafted scene, will be replaced by YouTube cats and corporate banter against the backdrop of green-screen halos. The great photography of Helmut Newton will be replaced by a plethora of stock photos and Facebook Instagrams, and the writing of Hemingway will be typed by robots injecting blogs with SEO keywords.

And posts like this.

The only and way to truly stop SOPA, piracy and bad cat videos and make sure we continue to enjoy the fruits of creativity, is to frown at our friends that hijack Freightliners, and think twice before hitting download on the link that no one will likely every call you on, but will slowly bring to an end the type of shows you wanted to watch in the first place.

Yes, that’s me, and for over seven years I’ve worked in a variety of media, pushing around pixels for clients. While I’ve focused primarily on web and interactive design, my specialty is not the media. Design is foremost about communication, and all effective business communication is grounded on solid strategy and effective, engaging storytelling.

What I hope to achieve though this digital workshop, is to share what I’ve learned, hopefully inspire, and foremost, to continue the practiced activity of being creative.

Aside from this website, you can follow another project I’m currently working on, an Anime-inspired short film, Lil’ Red Kap, based loosely on the Grimm’s fairy tale, Little Red Cap.

Thanks for stopping by.

- Nate

There are numerous reason crowdsourcing is bad – in fact I’d actually say it’s unethical, that those participating in it are participating in the sincerest form of thievery. Here are my top five reasons.

1. Crowdsourcing gives ownership to the Crowdsourcer

Many of my comparisons of what’s wrong with crowdsourcing are compared to opensourcing. They are distinct. Don’t be confused. Participating in a crowdsourcing community is like playing the lottery, hoping for a chance at fame with little or no benefit in return. Participating in an opensource project may not provide the fame, but you’re reap rewards in the fact that it’s open, you own it – just like I own a part of WordPress as a user of WordPress. Read the definition of crowdsourcing. Think of the examples of crowdsourced projects. Participants in crowdsourcing are gambling on being chosen, with the successful project delivered free (believe me, do the math – it’s always free) to the sourcer without any consideration.

2. Participants Are Asked to Gamble

A crowdsourced project is offered to a community as a chance to gain monetary exchange, to obtain recognition, or to participate in a fun adventure. The proponents of this practice claim no one feels taken advantage of by, so it’s therefore right. Nothing is further from the truth. The ignorant participate. Those that see crowdsource for what it is, shake their heads and stand on the sidelines. That doesn’t mean the ignorant aren’t being scammed. Believe me, if any of these participants knew that a corporation would likely pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to change their brand, would they hand over a logo for free? Participants don’t understand the true value of what they’re being asked to deliver, so they deliver in hopes of false promise. This is the same argument that is made against gambling and lotteries – the less fortunate are the most significantly taken advantage of, not because they are stupid, but because the promise of false payoff is most appealing.

3. Benefits go to the Most Fortunate

One of the biggest ethical issues with crowdsourcing is who benefits. Opensource benefits those that do not have money. Think of Linux – and how it allows third-world countries access to technology because they don’t have to pay Microsoft. Crowdsourcing benefits only the big name corporations, celebrities and providers of fame, because, let’s be honest, the real motivation is face-fame and the chance for your fifteen minutes. But the truth is, you’re not going to be famous – any more than your going to be famous for buying a PowerBall ticket. In fact, by participating in a crowdsource, you’re basically proclaiming, “hey, what is do has no value, so I’ll give it away for free.” We have a problem giving a hand out to panhandlers – why would we want to give value against odds akin to lottery winning, just for the pat on the back, and maybe a small monetary payment?

4. Devalues the Worth of the Product or Services

This follows number 3 and continues an examination of service or product value. Designers carry a large share of the blame for this. By equating what appears to be easy with worth, they’ll often use the response, “Oh, that’s easy” to answer a request. Easy translates as cheap, but it disguises the fact that for it to be easy for you, a designer, it was hard getting to that point. If it were truly easy, they wouldn’t be asking you for the service. But now you’ve revealed the term easy to the customer, and you’re stuck with a product perceived as both easy and cheap.

Imagine asking Picasso to draw you a sketch. It would be very easy. He could draw in less than 30 seconds a drawing that would warrant being in a museum. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. If he were still around, it’d be easy to understand it took the decades of practice as an artist to make it seem effortless. And I’d be surprised if you convince him to give that drawing to you because it was easy.

The problem with crowdsourcing is that it disguises the value of the product in the mass. Yes, coming up with a basic idea is somewhat easy – especially for a logo. You might spend two to three hours as an experienced designer putting together an idea. Two hours at a respectable studio rate of $100 hour means your only out $200-$300 for a chance to get, say, The Gap’s business. From The Gap’s perspective, they get say, 1000 ideas from similar designers, and they chose which one to go with. They’ve now received 3000 potential hours of human labor for free, for the chance to hopefully pick their best-perceived option. Are they going to pay back to the community the $300,000 for the ideas generated? I highly doubt it. They might pay a fraction of this cost – say the $300 that it cost the one individual that won. But what about the 999 that didn’t win, the $299,700 that they didn’t have to spend for the equivalent output.

Now The Gap has the impression that to create a logo is really a cost of say, a few hundred bucks, versus even $50,000 they might pay a design agency.

Even as I write this, the numbers are disgusting.

5. Cheats the Crowdsourcer

After all my positioning of the Crowdsourcer as the bad guy – the truth is this practice probably harms them the most. Because they’re often multi-million dollar corporations, or celebrities, they have a brand reputation that doesn’t necessarily benefit from the easily exposed anti-ethical behavior crowdsourcing justifies. Just look at the backlash against The Gap. Consider the damage suffered by Nike when claims of sweat shops and child labor surface. There’s nothing that says a crowdsourced project isn’t being done by under aged kids looking for a chance to make it big. They have the least to lose – or so they think. But it’s exploitation. Don’t argue otherwise.

And unfortunately the client doesn’t even get what they want  – which is truly a powerful brand that resonates with customers and translates to a strong bottom line. Or in the case of celebrity – a fan base that continues to support their career.

Are there cases where Crowdsourcing is good?

This is a closing question – and my answer is, possibly.

I think on a small scale, one that’s compensated, the chance to leverage the ideas and inspiration of a crowd has merits. For example, opening up a logo design contest within a company, where all employees are already being paid, and asking for ideas could be a way to increase moral. The key here is that all are compensated. Employees opening this up to their own kid starts create an ethical leak that unless it’s compensated, makes this argument lose weight. And for most companies, the number of employees participating would hardly warrant a crowd.

Some would argue that non-profits would benefit, however non-profits already benefit from well-meaning, pro-bono work by professional design practitioners. And pro-bono work really should only be done by those with the means to donate their time, not as exploitation disguised as experience gaining opportunities.

Another perspective on the potential benefits of crowdsourcing are on the participants and the community. I think I’ve already addressed how 99% of the community is often without any compensation. And unlike an open source software project, where the community benefits as a whole by being able to use a product, participants of crowdsourcing do not get the benefit of the product – other than recognition. And believe me, if you’re being compensated only by the promise of recognition, it often means your going to get ripped off.

I’m sure there are those that will defend crowdsourcing as a great development from social media. It does not compare to the power of open-source. The community is ripped. The crowdsourcer owns the property, perceives what they own as less value than it truly is, and doesn’t really understand the exposure and risk they face by participating in unethical practices.

There are times as a photographer that it’s helps to take the camera away from your eye and really look at what is going on around you. When I take photos in a foreign city, or I’m documenting an event, I like to take a good selection of candid shots without holding the camera to my eye – instead shooting from the hip.

There are several benefits to this approach. First, you appear more causal, inconspicuous, and this means you’re able to capture moments you’d likely miss for fear of being rude. Second, your subject, being oblivious to your camera, don’t do the typical camera response, and look away. There’s also the benefit of instantly getting a better perspective. It’s surprising how much better photographs can appear when you change from eye level. And finally, it reintroduces some of the surprise lost with digital photography by not being sure exactly how the image will turn out. Just take lots of photos and look for scenes you can leverage into creative work. (And of course it doesn’t hurt to study the work of masters like Henri Cartier-Bresson).

The above photograph was taken while traveling in Prague several years ago. I shot the image by setting the f-stop at a safe 8, the shutter at 200, and a high ISO (800). I also used a 50mm fixed focal lens. I also used a wireless cable release. All of these settings allowed me to be more casual in how I moved, and clicking anytime I saw something interesting.

I’m guessing (although I can remember for certain) that I saw this couple walking and anticipated the point at which they’d pass in front of the large column. The rest of the composition was by accident (resulting in a cut off foot).

The photograph has turned out to be one of my more enjoyable pictures from the trip, not because of it’s beauty and color, but what it communicates across languages about relationships, especially when a couple reaches the later years of life.

Give it a try sometime. Shoot candid. Shoot from the hip.

Every year I’m lured by awesome features to upgrade Adobe Creative Suite. And as a true sucker for the latest and coolest, I usually bite. This year I decided to put these expectations to the test and put each product I’m familiar with through a gut check gadget – is it cool, will it inspire me to do better work? and will I work better?

The review series will focus on the stuff Adobe promotes as great new features. I’ll be doing a post each week, focusing on a different product, working my way, first through ones I’m most familiar with (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, InDesign, AfterEffects, Premiere) and then moving to those products that are new (Flash Catalyst) or abandoned (Dreamweaver, Fireworks).

This week it’s Adobe Flash CS5…

1. New Code Editor with Code Snippets

Anyone who’s ever worked in the Flash IDE (Integrated Development Environment) has hated the Flash code editor. And while technically, the new code editor isn’t a “new” feature, it should be considered new.

Finally, you get custom code hinting and…best of all curly brace completion. In addition, it looks like they fixed an annoying bug with code between Flash CS4 and Flash Builder – you can now copy and paste text from Flash Builder into Flash…wow. The editor has truly been brought into the 21st century.

2. SWF Compile File Size and History

This is really a time saver. Anyone who’s had experience developing SWF files in the Flash IDE for specific file size specifications, has always struggled to know exactly what the current file size was, not to mention what recent change caused the increase in size. You could use the size report function in the publish settings, but that was tedious to read. Now, on the properties panel, you get a SWF file size and history for each compile.

3. Flash CS5 and Flash Builder Integration

Anyone who’s worked on a large Flash project immediately understands the benefits of working in a dedicated development environment like Flash Builder for coding. But no one should ever suggest creating graphics by code – which is why Flash CS5 is still a key element for developing graphics for Flash applications.

To make it easier to work in the best of both worlds, you can now link your Flash CS5 project to Flash Builder, code in Flash Builder and create and publish from Flash. This is really nice for designers who code. Is it worth it to get Flash Builder if you’re coding is not that complex? Probably not. With CS4 my response would have been different but the Flash CS5 code editor truly is improved.

4. XML-Based Flash Resource Files

This is actually more impressive than it might first seem. I’ve not a had chance to really put it to the test, but the very fact that you can edit outside of the Flash IDE – things like color, text, etc – is really powerful. No longer can die-hard developers complain about Flash  locked down. Just provide them with an uncompressed .xfl file and they can edit and recompile with the Flex SDK.

5. Inverse Kinematic Effects

There are times when it’s good to use Flash for what it was originally intended – a timeline based animation tool for  “rich” visual animations on the web (ok, so what I’m saying is banner ad development). This feature is a great addition for those that use Flash for animation. You can add cool animation parameters, such as decay, to simulate real-life effects.

There are other new animation features such as a particle system, that also are quite interesting, and I can see situations where these might be fun in games. I will say, I’ve never been impressed with tools that I cannot customize – such as the “new” building draw tool – who cares? The buildings are ugly. Now if I could create my own buildings and draw with those….yeah, not impressed with the Building Deco feature.

I’m also not that impressed with the new video features. Yes, this is nice for quick fast cue point creation and video player development, but for professional work and production, it’s just not that feasible to hard code videos into a player with the components. The cue points can be added just as easily with code, or in Adobe Premiere, or Adobe Media Encoder – so I’m not really hyped by this new feature.

And of course – the biggest feature – exporting to Apple’s iPhone platform – turned out to be a bust. Adobe’s at fault for chasing this in the first place. Did they really think Jobs would give it up? Now I guess they’re rushing to push out a similar feature for Android, and that should be more promising.