While we sit back and wait for Tropicana to remove all of it’s packaging from the shelves (I seriously sat back and watched a bewildered old couple at the supermarket on Sunday trying to figure out which container had pulp for a good solid five minutes – ugh!) I thought I might touch on some positives from the past few weeks.

My very favorite German, Stefan Bucher of 344 Design in Pasadena, visited DC for a lecture at the Navy Memorial courtesy of the Art Director’s Club of Metropolitan Washington. I have had the pleasure of not only knowing Stefan for quite some time but also performing our Abbott and Costello act on design audiences as we spoke in tandem to 1,600 believers at the 2008 HOW Conference in Boston. (Reviews began – Stefan Bucher is tall, much taller than I expected. John Foster, not so much.) With this in my back pocket I felt as if I knew all of Stefan’s tricks and tales. While I wanted to say hello and catch up during his visit, I contemplated catching the meet and greet and then skipping the talk and looping back for a late dinner. Some gentle prodding later I found myself sitting right down front at rapt attention. Boy was I glad I stayed!

Stefan talks a lot about his Daily Monsters project (if you haven’t seen it yet you truly are missing out – here you go late-bloomer!) I always love watching him draw in his little videos and his ability to take a project to its furthest point is always commendable. However, I already knew all the nitty gritty about that project and if I didn’t I could just buy the book later – haha. What was really inspiring was his discussion on “Greed Control.” Now more than ever his philosophy hits home and it hits hard. Stefan pulled no punches in his assessment of our current economic state and what it means for creatives, but he did so in staking out the opportunities that holds.

I am oversimplifying (maybe not – it’s a crystal clear idea actually) in saying that it is a simple axis of the creative potential for your work directly related to the money you take for it. In essence – it quantifies the cost of selling out. Stefan undertook this analysis of his own output a few years back and whittled his life down to the bare essentials. What he found was that he didn’t actually need all that much and once he had that number in his head he could conduct his business without “needing” certain clients. Once he was of that mindset he realized he could talk with clients as an equal and not sitting back praying that the work gets done so he can get paid no matter what compromises that holds. Just think of any job you’ve ever held and knowing each conversation had the possible end result that you could walk away no worse for the wear. It’s a beautiful thing.

I also recently sorted through my print collection and couldn’t take my eyes off a new one from Jeff Kleinsmith for Alamo Drafthouse’s showing of Cool Hand Luke. It’s a big ol’ dark joy of classic poster design with cut shapes and type. Given the current Paul Newman filmfest going on I couldn’t resist dropping it in. Get ‘em while you still can. People just don’t make posters like this anymore. Well, other than Jeff – haha.

Come back next week for more fun with design (and maybe some music packaging – oh yeah!)

John Foster is the Principal and Superintendant and assorted other big words at his very own design firm: www.badpeoplegoodthings.com