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We are, or we can be, extraordinary individuals, but surely not without recognizing and utilizing everything we?re blessed with. If we live true to our nature, true to our purpose, and if we acknowledge and cultivate that connection to the greater part of us, we can realize and manifest that quality of immortality.

Design constraints are a precious commodity in our work. We should cherish them, as they enable us to focus our efforts. This episode explains how to find important constraints and then how to use them.

Too many designers have a victim mentality and shirk their professional responsibilities as related to, among other things, deadlines. This week I reexamine a current discussion going on in our community and describe a more responsible approach to deadlines.

While I am known to deride the inadequate and antiquated Web design instruction offered by so many colleges and universities, this week I am encouraged! Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending my first advisory board meeting for the Texas State Technical College Web Design and Development Department in Waco, Texas. It would seem that not all collegiate Web design programs are worthless. Far from it, in this case...

This second episode is about design education. Design education should be centered around design, but these fundamentals are seldom taught in Web design programs and are hard to find reference to on the Web. This episode examines design education and addresses what the vast majority of listeners have asked about.

The Design View Show is now up and running. The first episode examines how some commonly employed processes and practices work against our being able to deliver our best work to clients. I’ll also argue that often the way our clients and sometimes even our own agencies conduct projects has allowed our profession to be stolen from us, in some measure. But we can take it back.

I'm starting something new and I hope you’ll enjoy it. Starting soon, I’ll begin a weekly podcast called The Design View Show. It'll be a show that is largely concerned with design practice, culture, fundamentals and professionalism, though I may certainly stray (within the realm of design) on occasion.

The Wall Street Journal online edition has nearly 990,000 paying subscribers. So I can safely say it is something of a Web giant. But while the print edition is a well designed and smartly laid-out publication, the main page of the online edition lacks most of the design soundness and all of the panache of the print version. In fact, it’s a visual train wreck. But not for the big picture elements; this page fails badly because of simple details.

…No client ever caused a designer to miss a deadline. If you believe otherwise, you’re laboring under a grave misapprehension (not to mention that you’ve got a victim-mentality). Such an unhealthy attitude makes it difficult for responsible deadline management to occur. Deadlines do not exist in a vacuum.

…Communication Arts magazine is, by their published words and behavior, not interested in the whole of the visual communications world. They’re content to pay only fractional attention to the world outside of their strongly liberal, technophobic, old guard, print-centric, myopic cocoon. And that’s fine, too. But they should change the name of their publication to something else. Maybe Luddite Arts or Design Clique magazine.