Most designers, and most design firms, have an eclectic little collection of animal shelter logos, after-school center business card sets, and community gardens promotion posters. We call this pro-bono work--donated time and expertise to causes (or sometimes just people) we believe in. Is it valuable? Of course. Is it a good thing to do? Certainly. But it's pretty solidly on the "handing out fish" end of that classic analogy.

From a capacity-building "fishing instructor" perspective, better than a killer logo is a simple style guide. Better than the meticulously-kerned name on a business card is the business card template the girl at the front desk can update and print. Better than a file full of printing quotes is a 15-minute training on the factors that influence those prices. In short, better than great design (even great free design) from an outside source are the basic skills and resources to produce passable or even mediocre design internally.

There are notable exceptions to this value proposition. If the piece in question is the branding for a once-a-decade gala, I would say by all means do it and do it right. But for the postcards, the newsletters, the funding reports, even the annual reports, I'd argue that a capacity building approach, with all its potential for tortured aesthetics, is the better long-term contribution.

So let's sum up. All in favor of slower, messier, more demanding capacity building over simple pro bono work?

Aye.

I've made a decision.

While the current reality of my life is a beautiful fragmented mess with projects ranging from re-branding a talented wedding photojournalist to designing curriculum for a self-sustaining school in Mali, new media technology means none of you have to know that unless you want to. I can maintain a crisp, professional [if still somewhat eclectic] web presence as a designer and still gallivant off to Paraguay or South Africa without most of the world being the wiser.

The months before this latest venture, my posts here got a little schizophrenic--the part of my brain that can't stop thinking about international development and cultural literacy just couldn't keep quiet. The move down to Paraguay galvanized my need for an outlet for those thoughts and theories and I created venturesarajoy.wordpress.com--a quick and dirty [read: still pretty ugly] improvisation in the hopes of not completely confusing anyone who came to my site looking for SaraJoy the graphic designer. The start of the new semester this week has lead me to the conclusion that this dual network personality should be permanent.

So, just to clarify:

• This blog [right here, the one we're both admiring] is about design...probably some tangential meanderings and an occasional burst of complete randomness, but mostly design.


• And this blog is about, well, everything else: school, work, adventures, quests etc.

A blog post by Clint Rogers [alumni of the BYU IP&T program determined to change the world] reminded me of an insight--question really--that I hadn't recorded. It ended up too long to be a reasonable comment to his post...so I'm just posting it here.

I, too, enjoyed Mr. Rusesabagina's address at the BYU forum. Perhaps the most interesting part of the experience for me, however, occurred on the walk back to class afterward: Engulfed in a crowd of milling students crossing the street, I found myself puzzling over half a dozen remarkably similar conversations hanging in the frigid air. They all went something like this: