LittleLion Studio » Random Thoughts

Parenting Is A Virtue

LittleLion — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:30:12 +0000

I took these pictures four or so years ago of some unknown father and son having a philosophical discussion about what seemed to be what the correct way to cross the street is. As you can tell, I kept my distance, but even so, their bodies moved to a tune which I could clearly listen so I took the liberty to add the lyrics…

If father and son ever gets to see this, please understand I mean no disrespect by posting your pictures without proper authorization. Simply, I was moved by the whole scene and just couldn’t resist it. :)

[Click on the image to enlarge]

Microstock Awkwardness

LittleLion — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:34:04 +0000

If you have the stomach, I have the joke! Or the daily misadventures of the microstock world…

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Three months after making the "Peacock Vanity" seamless pattern available for personal projects for free on Vecteezy.com, I have accumulated over 27 thousand downloads. From this contingent, 5 people took the trouble to leave a "thank you" note. [More about that later...]

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Over time I started to figure out each agency’s style and their alleged reasons to rejecting a submission. Inconsistencies in image reviewing among agencies is normal, but it shouldn’t be the norm within a single agency… unfortunately, it is. Classic example: I submitted a print to Agency A, which got rejected for not being "microstock material". A week later I resubmitted the same file to the same Agency only this time around it got approved and was categorized at the highest price level!

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Opening up a design magazine and seeing a 2 page article praising some graphic artist for the originality of her art when it so happens that her "original" work is 80% based on rearrangements of my prints…

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Realizing, after watching 10 licenses worth of credit vanish from my account at Agency B that they have a hilarious refund policy which allows clients to have their money back in case they have "mistakenly" purchased (and received!) my images, based on the promise that they will delete such files from their computers. One day later, it was brought to my attention that those 10 images ended up in a vector piracy pack. What a coincidence, uh?!?

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Receiving emails from small shop startups offering me the incredible opportunity of promoting their websites by donating my work.

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Being offered an irrefutable documented proof that a US$12 million children’s apparel manufacturer pays their employees to copycat my work just so they can claim the originality of their designs.

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Receiving emails from people asking me how much money I make with microstock. Yep, just like that! "Hi! I’m (fill in the girl next door’s name) and I love your work. How much money do make with this?? I was thinking about doing it myself but I’m not sure it’s worth my time…"

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Being contacted by some clueless company asking me to copycat my own work.

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Being threatened by Agency C to having my keywording rights restricted, reason being Agency C offers anyone US$0.02 per "inappropriate" keyword found and some amazingly bright person did not see a small circus tent in one of my patterns and decided to accuse me of keyword misuse for choosing "tent" as one of my keywords, just so he could make US$0.02 out of me. Two days later, the PR person from agency C unknowingly contacts me saying they would be "honored to feature my work in their front page".

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Oh… and by the way, I figured out why at least one of those 27 thousand people didn’t leave a note: Last night (perfect timing for this post!) I received an e-mail from a fan pointing me to yet another usurpation of my "Peacock Vanity". One which I *have* to share with you since it is the cherry on top of the ice cream, translating perfectly the now common awkwardness of daily microstocking. Just look at "Mr. Cavity" (on the right) and you will understand that if I don’t tell you this he will kill me!!

A so called student of Fine Arts from Chicago, sells banners and collages of the "Peacock Vanity" seamless pattern at her Etsy store and she warns customers about "her" artwork:

"These are the real-deal, designed by a design student getting her BFA in Visual Communications [...] You may not sell, trade, or give away unaltered images in either print or digital form. I work hard on each sheet, so please no sharing. Thanks!"

No kiddo, THANK YOU!
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If you haven’t yet gotten your free copy of the "Peacock Vanity" for personal projects, go grab it now! :)

—– Update —–

A LittleLion fan contacted me yesterday to let me know that she was terribly upset about what she had read above, specifically about the Etsy misuse, and that she had filed a complaint with Etsy which, in turn, pulled the mentioned pages from their website. So I guess I am left with a feeling of appreciation for the gesture and hope that LittleLion Studio’s fans will continue to be vigilant and pro-active.

Olive Et Gourmando

LittleLion — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:23:12 +0000

Although extremely cold, especially for a South American type like myself, last weekend I summoned the courage and went for a long walk in Montreal’s Old Port area.
The Old Port (or Port Vieux) is one

of several scenic locations in the city, largely sought by visitors but also a place for the locals, sparkled with art galleries, restaurants and cafés. The architecture, cut by small streets,

brings a charming European scent to the place. There you will find a small but traditional restaurant called olive+gourmando which, in my humble opinion, is not to be missed if you ever come to Montreal.

Good company, good food, good wine… is there much more a man can ask? And if you know your carrots, my bunnies, make sure to ask for the veggie soup!

I leave you with a picture of olive+gourmando from summers past and a reminder that the best meal ever is the one you have. :)

Aggregator Or Content Creator?

LittleLion — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:51:13 +0000

Not too long ago we used to think about "aggregators" in the world wide web context as RSS feeds, a tool to make it easier to stay current on what’s going on at our preferred websites. In a certain way, that is what the term is still known for. With time, the "Citizen Journalism" phenomenon emerged bringing with it all sorts of great content as well as a boat load of crap. To rescue us, natural selection quickly engaged its cogs and the engine filtered out (and still is) all the hot air self-proclaimed journalists.

Design, be it fashion, graphics, architectural, industrial or any kind, really, due to its intrinsic innovative characteristic coupled with so many creative minds spread all over the world, made the internet, and more specifically online journalism (both, formal and citizen’s) a vital tool to the dissemination of great ideas.

When we cross the statements above we end up with some sort of "citizen journalism aggregator blogs for all things design". Yes, it’s a mouth full, I know. Probably people have already come up with a category name for this type of blog (since we are masters at labeling) that I am not aware of (enlighten me, if you will), but I am referring to blogs which basically do not generate any kind of content, instead they simply inform you about other people’s content creations. Do not get me wrong though! There is a clear and real value to the service this kind of blog offers, after all in modern society one of the most valuable commodities is time and "aggregator blogs" help you save just that, besides, isn’t it convenient to find all the stuff we are interested

in visiting a few web addresses? Therein lies the problem…

Let’s make a quick comparison: News outlets have become extremely powerful over the years (it is not without a reason that all walks of religious institutions try to acquire TV and radio stations, magazines and newspapers, but that is a whole other story…) and we are forever slaves *and* supporters of that structure. Don’t you think I would love LittleLion Studio to be featured in The New York Times? Of course I would and that makes me a slave and a supporter. On the Internet it’s another story altogether (or at least that’s how it was supposed to be).

One of the basic and still valid arguments for the Internet is that it would give a voice to anyone who wanted to be heard. The little guy could build a website (especially in the old times when http really meant hyper text transfer protocol, not fancy and complicated flash, javascript, mySQL and PHP) and compete shoulder to shoulder against the big guys in any field! Nowadays we see an opposite trend gaining strength, that of the middleman, that of the distributor. They are coming back because in giving everybody the chance to be heard, we never fully realized that most everybody would indeed want to speak their minds. The result is that practically nobody’s voice can be discerned from the online background noise and so the middlemen, the distributors, the aggregators are coming back to channel us, to tune us to the voices that [they think] "truly deserves" to be heard.

Slowly but surely we are bringing to the digital world the same enslaving structure we got so comfortable with and addicted to in the mechanical world. I need to say this one more time: I am not against aggregator blogs, I actually follow or at least check some of them on a regular basis myself. If you care for the fact that a certain someone thinks a particular product, design or service to be cool, trendy, fashionable… by all means, that is great! The two of you (and all hundreds of thousands of

followers) probably have a similar taste or at least convergent styles, but don’t forget that the Internet gives you the power to research, select and judge on your own as well, without guidance, without supervision, without bounds. Entertain the possibility that someone whose opinion you care so much about might be missing something which would make all the difference to you and truly rock your world.

I guess all I am saying is let’s not repeat ourselves. As functional and valuable as a piece of paper may be, let’s not make it more important than the message written on it.