NO MO’ BORING
WARNING: This site contains graphic content. Viewer indiscretion advised.
Palm Springs is like crack for a graphic designer. Modernist architecture and mid-century colors (more about that later). Peacocking hipsters from LA and monotone macho Marines from the high desert. Palm tree exclamation points inverted against conveniently triangular mountains. Above it all, that hot comic book nuclear furnace blazing in an impossibly blue sky or a floodlight-moon whitewashing eeries arroyos .
So then, why the hell is most local graphic design so dull? I spend a lot of time looking at Palm Springs print and online media, tourism brochures and event programs, menus and real estate guides. Few of the graphics seem to synch with the unique vibrancy of our physical environment, the growing diversity of residents and visitors or the increasing wit and energy infusing our art scene.
So I am setting out to change that with fitzclick.com and I have but one mission: NO MO’ BORING.
CASE IN POINT
For example, take Palm Spring’s eponymous monocot. A zillion varieties of palms march gaily across our horizon like a chorus line of headresses from Mardi Gras. But when represented in print advertising (and how can you avoid it when every business seem to have palm, canyon, mountain, or sand lurking about in their name or tagline), our beloved icon is too often flattened into silhouette images against a silhouette mountain- a cartoon version of a tired Southwestern visual trope when the reality of it – the living and looming Mt. San Jacinto and ragged and silent canyons above the soaring canopies – deserves a lot more.
Returning to the boring-palm-puzzle, what would happen if you take took ubiquitous image and give it some visual oomph and energy, like one of those purple sunsets when the wind blasts down the mountainside and sheers the fronds off the palm trees, leaving downtown a foot deep in detritus?? Maybe, something like this.
Or this graphic of the palm trees during a summer heat wave.
SAVING ORANGE FROM ITSELF
The current craze for all things mid-century is making me crazy, literally making me a Mad Man. Oh sure, the design of the period can be fun and even brilliant, but when every other shop window on Palm Canyon bursts with orange, lime green, and turquoise tschotchkes, the thrill is definitely gone and you end up with the visual equivalent of the It’s a Small World theme song. Optical earwigs, to really mix my metaphors.
No doubt, the prevailing candy-colored palette is a big step up from the deadly beige, blue and rose of 1970’s desert chic but enough with the orange, already!
I am not advocating wholesale abandonment of the midcentury color canon since Palm Springs is its aesthetic epicenter, But, what about a visual “downshifting?” Just the addition of a little gray softens the color and make them less cliched. Take a look at some of the Homage to the Square paintings of 20th century color theorist Josef Albers. The same mid-century palette found here, but tonally deeper and more visually soothing and sophisticated. Putting my mouse where my mouth is (I know, another mixed metaphor), here is my example of downshifting.
WHAT MADE FITZ FINALLY CLICK?
Backstory: I spent an eternity in the world of corporate risk and finance, pretty much a creative wasteland. Even though I was affiliated with our marketing and communications team, there wasn’t much latitude to stray from the proscriptive confines of the corporate style guidelines and woe betide any apostacy. If you didn’t get the sharp rap on the knuckles from Herr Marketing Direktor, you got a salvo up the backside from the Kommandant of Kompliance.
After the ninth reorganization in as many years, I had had it. The day I hung up on my last conference call, I swore I was going to start my own graphic design practice. So, you could say that fitzclick began as a sort of prison break.
Like many career-switchers, I started small, creating graphics for friends and local non-profits in Sonoma County, 90 miles north of San Francisco. Full disclosure here: I did not go to school for graphic design. I am entirely self-taught although I have an art history background and certainly know communications well.
NATURE OR NUTURE
My love affair with graphic design started early. I vividly recall clandestinely cutting up my parents’ cherished National Geographic magazines. There was something about pasting a photo of Mad Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein on top of an Indian elephant’s back that made irresistible design sense to me. By eleven, I had created my first corporate logo using colored tape and affixing it to the side of my brother’s beater car to advertise his auto repair business. (My brother retired very comfortably at 50, but I hesitate to take full credit for his success.)
A brief and painful year in art school on a painting scholarship exposed my utter lack of talent and discipline as a painter. So, I did the next best thing and studied art history, specializing in the medieval and Renaissance period. That excellent education got me exactly where such training often does: sitting in a cubicle processing insurance claims. Fast forward through a dizzying career in insurance and then in risk consulting and we are back to the prison break.
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?
I love to work hard and I like to listen more than I like to talk, though you may not surmise that after you read my admittedly chatterbox blogs. I offer straightforward advice AFTER I listen and ask questions. Lastly, I love to have fun with my work since the world seems to forget that joy can exist in the most trivial endeavor or the tiniest moment. So, when I do work for a client, they can expect close listening, hard work, and honest and enjoyable collaboration. And exciting graphic design, of course.
My work is not for every organization or client. I focus primarily on non-profits since they are always cash-strapped and frequently struggle to design and execute an effective marketing plan. So, my rates are laughably cheap, but provide solid and professional results. Graphic design allows me to give back in a world that seems obsessed with taking.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
About my business’s name. Fitz because that is my nickname. Click because that is the sound my camera shutter and my computer mouse makes. And maybe, because I hope I will click with reader of this blog.
I post blogs regularly so make sure to come on back.