Sweet Jesus

I guess I hadn’t thought much about folks who ask designers to work for free. But I must say I agree wholeheartedly that it’s a foolish notion. For example:

In this country, there are almost twice as many neurosurgeons as there are professional illustrators. There are eleven times as many certified mechanics. There are SEVENTY times as many people in the IT field.

Who knew? The author, and it’s not known who that was, makes six very good points against free design work. I can’t refute a single one of them.

Trevor pointed out an amusing story about a life-size anatomically correct chocolate Jesus. Really. Now it’s an amusing (and controversial) story on its own, but Esquire took it a step further with a nutrition chart. Now that is great journalism!

Mark suddenly has an extra ticket to the Mat Kearney concert. I really want to go …

ODDS & ENDS
• A graphic design rap!
• The New York Post is looking for a news/features designer.
• Toys “R” Us is looking for a design intern. Why couldn’t I find things like this when I was an intern?
• Google’s SketchUp looks like the perfect tool to reconfigure my mother’s house. And there’s got to be a journalistic benefit or two as well.
• I’ve started using Google Reader to keep track of the blogs I frequent, too. Is there anything Google can’t, won’t or hasn’t done?
• The San Antonio Express-News has introduced zippers. I kinda like the zippers … but this doesn’t seem to leave much flexibility for design. (And I want to learn how to create Flash presentations!)
• I love NewsRanker. I even added it to my MySpace profile, with the intention of changing the default searches to relevant news items. This little gadget is awesome!
• Wendy’s has introduced a Frosty float. Sounds great right now.