Why should designers blog? (article published in DESIGN Magazine issue 14)

Since blogging started becoming the next big thing, years ago, more and more designers from all aspects of the industry have started, phrase by phrase, paragraph by paragraph, post by post, becoming seduced by it. Sharing their thoughts, ideas, knowledge about their respective fields, they connect every day with people all over the world with whom otherwise there would be no contact whatsoever.

Should a designer blog then? How can it be possible for people that are so creative in their work, to step aside for a moment (or hours in many cases) and delve into a previously unknown world to them, the one of creative writing? Keeping a blog is no mean deal – if it is for serious, that is. It is not merely a personal diary, especially for a professional who will centre it on his métier. Is it worth all those hours spent in front of a screen, but instead of designing, say, the perfect chair, writing about designing one?

Holly Becker, the famous Decor8 blogger , who is a writer and interior design consultant, seems to think it does. “I think designers should blog because clients enjoy having access to them day and night - they are able to gain insight into your inspirations and ideas 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”, she says. ”It also helps them to learn more about your personality and to deepen their relationship with you. They can view links, shops and other things that you highlight so that they can learn more about the things that you find as a designer. Interior design should not be some mystery society in my opinion; I enjoy sharing what I find with all who visit my site. I believe everyone should have access to good design!” .

Increased exposure seems to be a major advantage of blogging for a designer. Making him stand out between his colleagues, a designer’s blog helps him reach out to an international audience, reach people from all kinds of professions and fields and make his ideas and work known to places that otherwise he could never reach, or have to spend a huge amount of money doing so. That of course leads to another bonus: name recognition. Decor8 had 16 readers when it opened, most of them Holly’s clients. Now she has over 25,000 daily readers and one of the most popular design blogs in the world.

The learning experience is another aspect of blogging. Writing about one’s designs and inspiration leads the designer to further solidify his/her personal style and tastes, find out what he/she likes or dislikes in a more precise way, and have the archive to shift through whenever one feels like it. It also helps the designer become more aware of his personal style.

The obvious reason to blog of course would be networking. Getting in touch with colleagues, possible collaborators and clients from all over the world is a tempting option for the designer/blogger. Richard Haines, illustrator for In Style magazine, J Crew and 5 star luxury hotels. is wondering why not most fashion designers don’t have their own blogs, especially the more famous ones. And having such an immediate and easy way of communicating between them, it makes realizing projects that much easier. It also provides an easy access to the designer for his clients, who can comment on their projects without spending time on time-consuming telephone calls from a city 500 km away. The instant feedback one gets on his work through the blog is as valuable a tool as any. Writing also improves the designer’s communication skills, in writing and otherwise, while at the same time providing a nice variety and distraction from a routine workload.

The blog also can be a pivotal component of an official website, which is the more traditional means of an online presence. It improves the site content for search engines, gets more indexed pages, provides fresh and updated content frequently and also feeds the internet with keywords and phrases that lead straight to the designer and his work when one looks for it on-line.
Writing about one’s respective field also demonstrates his knowledge about it, which of course is another way of promoting oneself. It also provides potential promotion opportunities, as the designers can post their upcoming projects or exhibitions or events and make them known to a wider audience. In combination with social networking sites, this can be a powerful advertising tool with minimum cost.

Is it worth then to steal some time from honing one’s talent, perfecting one’s work, to deal with the hassles and travails of blogging? The answer is yes and I am particularly surprised that more designers have not yet caught up with it: they would be pleasantly surprised with the results.

This article was written for and published in issue 14 of the South African DESIGN> Magazine.

My article in Design Magazine from South Africa!

Some of you might have read my post about Lhiangzhu Cultural Centre in China in 2Modern Design Talk. Now there is an article from me about it published in the on-line edition of Design Magazine from South Africa! You can subscribe for free and read the magazine issue on-line, even download it - or part of it - as a pdf file.

Photograph: Christian Richters

Mention in Nisha magazine!

Athanassios Babalis

Back in early July, an e-mail came from the reporter of an Israeli design magazine called Nisha. It is a magazine for interiors and product design. She was writing an article about Greek Design and found my blog online, so decided to contact me and ask for information - which of course I immediately gave, providing links, names, websites. The article was published in early September, with lots of photos, and my blog was promptly mentioned! Of course it was in perfect Hebrew, so I tried to translate it with on-line translators, with great difficulty. Then an Israeli friend came to the rescue (Yoav you're the best!), so I can now proudly present it to you, along with photos from the magazine.

Kim Katinis

From classic to modernism

The beginning of the "production design" field at Greece is related to the ancient Greek's, who made ceramics for daily use. Most of the houses had plenty of pottery, which were designed to store food, wine and oil. The pottery used to be decorated with drawings or illustrations. Most of the Greeke pottery, which survived the old days, has been made for beverage, such as mixing wine and water bowls, water jugs, goblets and ash urns. All of them are decorated and coloured.
With the progress of the pottery technique and the beginning of the aesthetic doctrines, the geometric decorating was replaced by human images, which represent, most of the times, the gods or the mythology and historical Greek heroes.

Andreas Varotsos

Furthermore, the battles and the hunt scenes were very popular, especially the Centaur which was much admired by the ancient Greeks and appears in their scenes. The background behind the characters was usually bright and the characters were painted on it with black color. After a while , the background became black with red-like color. The ceramics preparation was considered as handicrafts, and the richly decorated pottery of ancient Greece, provides an abundance of information about the eating and drinking habits, war, games, sports and much more of the habits of the citizen at those times.

Konstantinos Rizopoulos

The ancient Greeks also left their own impression on the furniture field, at the fourth and the fifth century B.C. We have information on the first designs of the Greek furniture, from the paints which decorated their famous ceramics. One of the original and initial designs was a chair, which was called "klismos". It was a light-weight chair with a back rest. Also, the chair had four curved legs and the back rest was curved too, and appears in many drawings on the ancient ceramics. Together with the chairs they built little host tables with rectangular surface and three legs. Those were sometimes decorated with animal figures, and they remained light-weight which allowed for them to be transferred from place to place during symposiums.

Damianos Iatridis

More than that, the chest of drawers was also a popular product in ancient Greece. They were made in a multitude of sizes and with varied materials such as wood, bronze, ivory and were developed in time . Most of the consumer products in ancient Greece were produced by women or slaves in their own houses, but not in the workshops. Only cloth painting, metal work, pottery, and leather products, were produced by artists in specialty workshops, and always by men.

Constantinos Hoursoglou

It is possible to say that ancient Greece was a powerful country. However, it seems that Greece has a difficulty to keep this degree at the modern period. The tension between tradition and modernism has played a big part in the Greek history. The international identity discussion and the intent to keep and represent classic Greece was a major theme between artists and designers in Greece. However, design and art critics believe that actually the will to keep the classic Greek design and turn it into an international identity symbol, is the one which made the design world stay in prescribed formal limits. The researcher of Greek culture, Artemis Yaggo, believes that Greece still hasn't decided what she wants to be when she grows up.

Sotiris Lazou

In every part of Greece's historical periods, together with the desire to stay on the same line with the other Western European countries, there is a side anxious to keep and lean on the ancient culture. According to Yaggo, the first marks of adoption of an international identity, in which there was a bond to design, appeared as early as the middle of the nineteenth century, when the young country was struggling to survive and to keep her place within the progress of the Western European countries.

Panos Dramitinos

This issue was highlighted especially in 1851, when Greece participated in the global exhibition of London. At that time Greece was considered a young country, only 20 years old, late with its industrial progress, with most of its population living in rural areas, and an economy based on agriculture. Historical memories in the nineteen century were supportive in the continuation of the ancient civilization of Greece. The tendency of relying on the past and continue the ancient Greek culture came to fruition in the educational programs, in the institutes and the wider public. Already at the end of the nineteenth century the French writer Théophile Gautier, who used to travel a lot in Greece, mentioned that the past is so alive in the classic areas so much that there was no place left for the present.

Valentino Marengo

The latter half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were important in the penetration of capitalism to the country, during a systematic destruction of the conditional lifestyle. And it started again with a new beginning of art and design organizations, which called for a move back to the roots. The members of the organizations saw the industrial products as
of lesser quality against the ancient arts, and the gap between the Greek tradition and the Western European progress was very acute, especially among the intellectual and artistic classes.

Yiannis Ghikas

According to this tendency, a new group was created in 1931 called "Company for protection of Greece products". Its president called the public to confiscate all the products which were not produced in Greece. Also, he announced that preferring the Greek products is a national act of the first degree. All of that took place while the Europe countries were dealing with developments in industrial design. That caused a process in which, even if the young country's aim was to take advantage of its resources and become a modern capitalist country, the attitude for the design field was still harking back to idealist pre- capitalists. These differences haunted the industrial development of Greece and in fact were the cause of essential distancing between the industry world and the worlds of art and culture.

Alexis Georgacopoulos

Historical sources prove that despite the establishment of many industries and a great number of products taken into production, the design issue was left unresolved. The 50's and the 60's were years of rebuilding the country after the Second World War, and in those times the first Design Centre was established in Athens, but did not manage to stay alive for long. At the last decade of the 20th century, many efforts were made for strengthening the Greek industry and directing her again into design. Also, a new centre was established, which was called "the Hellenic Centre for Production Design", but the general orientation of the country was anti – industrial, which made it to be considered as the weakest country among its European counterparts on that aspect. All of that caused by the fact that these institutions couldn’t last and closed at the end.

Greece Is For Lovers

A new generation of young designers in Greece is still grappling with the identity question and trying to create their own paths, whether adopting classic symbols, but in a humorous way (at least initially), like "Greece is for Lovers" , who are using classic motives from ancient art and culture, and give them a new twist, or whether attempting to build a unique independent course, which tend to be accepted as equals between West European countries.

Andreas Aggelidakis

Vassilis Mylonadis

Aris Stathis

Above you can see the page of Nisha that mentions my blog (list of links on top left)