Dear Blog: I Think I Love/Hate You

It’s with trepidation that I enter the ubiquitous world of “blogging”. Although there’s really no need for quotes anymore—it was eight years ago that Merriam-Webster claimed ‘blog’ the word of the year. The word itself is a combination of two words with separate meanings—called a portmanteau by word-savvy linguists. According to Wikipedia, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence as of February 2011. That’s a lot of cat stories.

For a long time, I harbored a negative resentment toward blogs. I considered donning a t-shirt with “I Hate Bloggers” emblazoned across the front. Well, I didn’t have a problem with blogs per se, I had a problem with the people writing them. Those people who, and you know who you are, are blatenly using them to spew otherwise personal information into the interwebs. In ye olden days, this was called a diary. And it was kept personal. Why does the public at large need to know about your relationship with your therapist? I’ve always been put off by cheeky horn blowers. This new medium has potential to be an agent of transformation, beehives of collaboration, sounding boards for opinion, and yet some of the most popular blogs are unquestionably some of the most low-brow.

Alas, I shouldn’t take things so seriously. CakeWrecks makes me laugh every time. Maybe the reason I hated bloggers so much was because regular joes were given the opportunity (encouraged, even!) to publish openly without needing any technical skill or qualifications, much like how graphic design has changed since the introduction of the Mac. The proliferation of web blogging tools to the masses coincided with the popularity of Photoshop and high-end digital cameras. Now anyone with two hands and access to a computer can be a journalist, a designer, a photographer or an agent of social change. While in some regard this has diluted the validity and quality of these professional creative fields (as in crowdsourcing), it has also provided a mouthpiece for the individual with a means to make a difference.

I wanted more. I wanted to justify spending my precious time reading them. I expected bloggers to be legit, to be experts in their given subject matter. I didn’t want stay-at-home moms waxing nostalgic about scrapbooking. But even that stuff is relevant to somebody. Designers reaching beyond their given aesthetic boundaries and digging into the social relevance of their projects—now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s nerd-out about typefaces, but let’s also elevate design to be the strategic, valuable thing that is essential in today’s rapidly changing world. Isn’t it great to have alternative information sources? Shouldn’t I be celebrating the diversity of the written word and the right to individual thought and creative endeavors? It’s basically an evolution of the newspaper column. Or is it more?

In future posts, I hope to make the best of the responsibility I have as a blogger (and as a designer) and use this space as a platform for thought-provoking ideas and insight about design for social change. I admit it’s also an experiment in self-exploration and in seeking out the changes I’d like to see. Following the advice of Brian Collins, Chief Creative Officer of COLLINS:, an innovation-led firm, “Don’t think of yourself as a problem solver, think of yourself as a problem seeker. Look for challenges to overcome.”