This has been an interesting weekend.  I spent saturday rejuvinating my mojo (read: perving), and spent the night, getting knowledge, from Dukes, he explained to me his concept of 'organic', naturally, it made sense.

Before I get into the nitty gritties of the 'conversion', I need to point out that, I have about three/four articles in draft, that I really, really need to publish, but this, 'organic' matter is more, important, naturally.

So, the Duke, says to me, our business relationship or ideas that we have must be organic.  So, I ask him, what is 'organic'?

He replies, (loosely translated, we were drinking at the time), "... you see the idea, or your concept on 'growing a lemon tree', look at in the same way, you have an idea, you start working on it, as time allows and as resources become available to you... you grow the idea as you grow.  See Imagine a seed being planted, that would eventually be a tree.  As the rain falls, the plant will grow, as the sun shines the tree will grow.  The opposite is true.  At the end of it, you end up with an idea that is manageable and most importantly, it adapts, then you idea becomes living  entitity, it becomes organic."

So, I drank more beer, thought about this 'concept' of organic.  I think, it is b-e-a-u-tiful, it ties is in, with my 'grow' concept.  The 'grow' concept is simply, the platform for my company, 2LMN (two lemons), to grow the lemon tree, from which we too can grow. I love it.

With that, I have a concept, I have launched, nothing new really, called 'osiris', which is part of the 'grow' idea.  It too, shall be an idea, that will be organic.  I will later explain what 'osiris' is, in short, it's an organic system, it is organic, literally.

You can wait, right?

Oh, whilst we are on the 'topic' of 'concepts', Dukes said something about user interfaces, which I summerised to HCI, I am not talking about Human Computer Interaction (this is too mechanical), but (drum roll), 'Human Comfortable Interfaces', this is more natural, organic.

Will explain that, some time.

So my mother calls me to 'have' a talk, which normaly I hate doing, but I settle down, sit on the couch and wait for her to lower the television volume and start, talking. Well these talks are normally, her talking and me nodding my heard, but this time, it wasn't about 'life' it was about a 'crime syndicate' operating in Alexandra.

Normaly, when somebody talks about crime in Alexandra Township, it always appears as 'tautology'. Most people believe crime in Alexandra is inherent in the existance of this township, synonymous. Honestly, the rumour is well founded, but not always true.

You know that common phrase, 'don't shit where you eat.' It is true, not because you would want a second meal, but if you were to commit a crime in Alexandra, especially theft, who the hell are you going to sell it too, because everybody would know it belongs to that guy and not you? Plus after you have 'stolen' the goods, you will need to market them so as to sell 'em, then you get caught, because word on the street would be, a certain car, tv, radio was stolen.

This of course is not always true, my car, got broken into a while back, whilst I living in Alexandra, so I moved to Killarney (uptown), irony is, my car got stolen in Killarney.

Anyway, so mother tells me of this crew of boys, she assumes they are not South African nor are they from Alexandra Township. Which sorta makes sense, because these boys, nobody knows, even the 'known' thugs in the hood don't know them. In fact they had a gun battle, about four streets away from my house, I remember I heard guns shot a few nights ago.

So these boys' modus operandi, is 'houza-houza' (house break-ins), but they do thier crime at the crack of dawn, say like 4-5 am in the morning. There is a band of old men that patrol the 'neighbourhood' every night, problem is, when the partrol goes east, the band of boys goes west, by the time they come back, damage done.

So, the local ANC group has come up with a strategy, to setup a 'localised' security company, composed of those old-men that patrol. They are not keen on hiring an outside security company, why? Because most security companies employ a lot of foreigners, and in my mothers words, 'Makwere-kwere batla go utswetsa swikiri' (foreigners of african decent, will even steal your 'sugar').

So, I am on the look out. I have to sleep early so I can be awake/sleep during the 'prime time affirmative shopping'.

Aluta.

What is design? What is design to you? Is there such a thing as African design? Moreso is there such a thing as South African design? Is there a need for it?  Should we worry about it?  Are we, Africans, using design? 

I was watching television yesterday, thank god, and I saw this campaign for the 'national construction week (ncw)'.  The running of the advert was good, until the end of it where they throw in logos and the identities of the companies or organisations involved, they looked bad, really bad.

So, it got me thinking again, do we design, at all, or do we just create images that are thrown in just, nje? Should this be something to be concerned about.  I personally, and professionally think so.  I remember I was reading up on design a while back, and how design has been used through the ages.  It turns out Hitler and his crew used design to make thier 'campaign' more believable and sell-able to the masses.  Would you say it worked?  I think it did.

Quite recently, actually the Bush Adminstration used design to sell the Iraq war.  They hired an advertising agency to promote the need for war. Do you think it worked? Is it moral? Close to home, the ANC hired O&M (i could never spell thier name) for the election campaign, did it work? Is it moral?

The morality of it you can decide, but I do think that design can also be used by those, who want to achieve greater things, peace, humanity, harmony, eleviate porverty, hunger, wars and the likes.  Why do they fail?  To some extend I do believe it comes back to how thier message is 'visually' consumed.  We all know that the Apple Ipod is successfull not because they brought us an innovative product, hell mp3 players have been around for quite a bit, but it is how they sold it, how they told thier story, how design was used in 'selling' the product.

Now imagine if the Anti-Woman abuse campaigners started relying on 'good design' rather than just the message itself.

I don't know, maybe I am pissed of, that everytime we, Africans, produce something that is not designed, it will appear as sub-standard, regardless. I believe design works.  I suppose too it has to do with the perception that what is beautiful is trusted, but ugly is not trusted.

But, how far from the truth is it?

I have been a web designer for a very long time, since that day I typed 'http://www.cnn.com' after I saw the url on tv whilst doing vocational work at Eskom  Simmerpan.  I loved the medium, still do, but I have lost the passion for it. 

I spent like 9 years or so in this medium creating artworks for public consumption, manupilating the pixel to create illusions of existance.

It was an interesting journey, as I type this, on my left is a 'design' I am working on for a client, that needs the site running by tuesday morning, it can be done, it will be done, it will be my last commercial design work; everything else from now on will be design for the passion.

I no longer find it interesting to spend 4 weeks trying to map out what clients want in thier own heads to visuall mediums that their customers can understand what the client is all about.  I can't do it; Sure the money is good; but it is a waste of my time.

A friend of mine spoke of me, lacking the ability to seperate what I am and what I have to do.  In order to run a profitable business one has to be able to do just that. Satisfy the client, make the client happy.  I can't do that, design is personal, it is an expression of all I know, think, feel, hate, love.  So, it is best not to get personal with clients, and thus not design for clients.

I rest.