Dear colleagues, just to make sure you all know: the competition "Honour and Career" is not restricted to professionals. "Every private individual may participate." "No matter whether you are 18 or 18, student or established professional."

What every private individual may do to gain honour and a career is to film a commercial for the sponsors; they include such eminent companies as Edeka, Veltins, Fujicolor, the Hamburg Mannheimer, Sony and Rolf Benz. Filming a commercial is no problem these days; every other digital camera and every third mobile phone has an excellent video function, after all. And just to make it loads of fun, the "directors of their own ideas" should upload their films to Clipfish. That's the website which advertises in its browser line: Funny Videos - Free Fun videos - Your Funny Videos on Clipfish.

On the subject of "free" - what can you win, anyway? Apart from honour? Alongside amusing non-cash prizes like a Bacardi Razz Party and a Base 5 contract with E-Plus, the people whose "idea will be purchased by a company" are offered a copyright fee of €25,000. However, this fee will be completely independent of decision reached by the jury, which consists of visitors to Clipfish. That would certainly give the chosen film-maker something to laugh about.

But everyone else would appear to be left out. "Each participant transfers all utilisation and transmission rights relating to the submitted and/or uploaded contribution in all conceivable media, without restrictions as to time or territory and without payment, to the companies organising the competition in accordance with Section 1.1. The companies organising the competition are authorised to rework, shorten and store or archive the submitted film contribution."

These companies are: Serviceplan Gruppe für innovative Kommunikation GmbH & Co KG, which claims to be "Germany's biggest independent advertising agency"; Europafachpresseverlag GmbH, which publishes the trade journal W&V; and IP Deutschland GmbH, "one of the leading marketing organisations in Europe".
All absolute professionals, right? In our view that isn't funny, or honourable.

cs

Stöffel Park is located in the beautiful Westerwald mountain chain and provides a threefold delight for visitors to the area and tourists from further away: as a site where fossils can be found, as an industrial memorial and as a quarry landscape. A suitably complex logo, with three colours standing for the three types of experience on offer, was adopted when the Special Interest Project relating to the area was launched last year. But apparently this is now not enough; the Stöffel Regional Development Board would like a complete design range based on this logo. And it has contacted a member of the AGD about it.

That's fine. After all, they want "innovation, creativity and flexibility". And the idea is to "develop an appropriate total image, not only for printed matter" which will appeal to "tourists, local inhabitants and politicians" alike. For a job like that they really do need an absolute professional.

However, the Development Board goes on to ask the AGD designer to combine artistic endeavour and economic prudence. And to demonstrate his ability and enthusiasm by taking part in a "'little' competition": they need an informative flyer "in the form of a three-colour original (with CD)". The tantalising prospect of financial compensation amounting to €150 is mentioned.

Memo to the Regional Board: the purpose of a competition is not to exploit designers, and you don't design a flyer before the CD. Especially if it is supposed to be "appropriate and creative". The AGD will be happy to provide you with further information. cs

You can’t apply for the Official Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany; the Ministry of Economics "nominates" the candidates. But the nominees may only participate after having paid €210,- to the German Design Council. The Council's Website doesn’t say a word about it. It becomes a lot more expensive for the 25 winners, who have to pay €2,900 for each Gold or Silver Award. That amounts to roughly three times the average monthly income of artists insured with the Artists Social Security KSK.

There were about 800 nominees and 25 winners last year - designers paying a total of about a quarter of a million euros for the "Best of the Best Award". But people are now speaking up about all this.

The association FIDIUS has sent an open letter to the Minister responsible, Michael Glos, and another to AGD colleague Juli Gudehus. We recommend downloading them both.

And we suggest taking a look at (or in?) Ehrensenf. 

What we can say here is that the Internet television company Ehrensenf turned down the prize to avoid incurring debts. There are some prizes you really can’t afford.

In 2007 the city of Cuxhaven will hold the 27th state festival known as Lower Saxony Day - and is holding a competition to find a suitable logo for the event. The five winning contestants will share “a valuable prize in the form of goods worth a total of €2000” – only if they hand over exclusive rights to use their work, of course. Our colleagues in Cuxhaven, who deserve our thanks for drawing attention to this competition, are convinced that the prize will in fact take the form of tinned herrings. We are happy to trust their insider knowledge in this case and wish everyone involved a fine meal.

Recently I described a visit on a small scale, and today the subject is rather more open-ended.

"Leaders and gentlemen, in order to create your ... the ... requires a layout. Stipulations: A4 size, portrait, with the logo and the text ... on it. We require a proposal for three modern structural varieties. Please submit your proposal by the...".
Another recent request had the heading "Development of Joint Promotion" and contained stipulations which included "search for cooperation partners" and "development of submitted ideas".

What to these clients think designers do?

Is any one of us a Wunderkind, we are designers. And as such we are the active ingredients in the "process of conscious creation of real or virtual objects, services or trademarks". And that is the way it should stay.

Now I want to talk about a genuine Wunderkind: celery!

For several thousand years it has been cultivated as a vegetable or spice and for its healing properties. It has lost none of its fascination throughout all that time, and can be an elevating spice or a fine winter vegetable*. (I shall ignore the "aphrodisiac effects" for the moment.)

Take a small celery, peel and grate it, mix it with one or two eggs, season it with lemon, salt, pepper and oregano, and it provides the basis for a whole range of celery medallions.

The pastry can also contain diced mushrooms, onion, roasted sesame seeds, small chopped walnuts, tomato purée - but be careful; the more extras you add, the greater the danger that the fine celery flavour may be lost. Then the mixture is shaped into small balls and pressed into the form of small medallions in breadcrumbs. They should be fried with a little oil in a pan until they are golden brown. Serve along with a sour cream and dill dip. And don't worry; it really is filling.

Euer Christhard "Otto" Landgraf >>

* Always buy locally and depending on season.
Photo: Michelle Wie, Wunderkind in the category of Golf /Source: Pak Un-1

Brands are images in the head. These brands manipulate the needs and the conduct of the individual. The real is transformed by means of the media image machine into hyper-reality. The images take the place of the real, so that the real no longer exists. (In memory of Jean Baudrillard, 20. July 1929 – 7. March 2007, read more) And we, the designers, are decisively involved in the simulation of reality; we are crucial to this process. Let us use our power.
And which simulations do we believe in ourselves? What does the spring mean to us? In the television cookery programme "Hello Spring" the ingredients used include radicchio, frisee and romana salad, and field mushrooms. This shows clearly that spring is associated with vegetables. But in fact these vegetables belong to summer or autumn (radicchio is a member of the chicory family). So much for the images in our heads. How much longer will it be before we expect strawberries in a winter salad?
So it might be best for us to adopt a sceptical attitude towards the images presented to us (especially since we know how they are created), pull on a warm jacket and have a look at spring for ourselves (reality, not simulation).

The wild garlic shows us its wonderful leaves. In March 2003 I presented you with a fine soup made from this plant: "Why Putbus?"

Next to it a less attractive plant reveals its new leaves - the stinging nettle.
Pick the fresh stalks, using gloves, and take them home. When they have been crumpled up, washed and blanched the hairs of the nettles are no longer harmful. Brown some onions in a little oil, add a dash of white wine and then a litre of vegetable stock. Three or four peeled and chopped potatoes are added, and when they are almost soft the nettle leaves (about 300 to 400 grams) and a clove of garlic are placed in the pan, and everything is cooked for a further five minutes or so. Then the mixture is pureed and spiced with salt, pepper and nutmeg. You don't really need sour cream on top, but some people like it. Roasted cubes of whole grain bread are a wonderful accompaniment to this meal.
That's what spring looks like for us, and this is enough for four realists!
All the best. Christhard "Otto" Landgraf

Incidentally: if you eat nettles on Maundy Thursday you will be spared financial difficulties for the year ahead. (Wikipedia)

Foto/Montage: www.pixelquelle.de / zappo

Cooking is in vogue, why bother with bread and butter? There are recipes all over the place. Lavish and opulent, exotic and erotic, whatever you fancy. The range on offer is enormous, confusing, beyond human comprehension, enough to make you dizzy. Faced with all this, can you still remember one single inexpensive dish, or the typical taste of mother’s Sunday roast? It’s pretty hard. Isn’t it similar with design? Sophisticated technical equipment lets you do almost anything you can possibly imagine. The second dimension has been overtaken by the third. Transparencies have defeated gradients. Multi-colored is cheaper than monochrome. Typography isn’t done these days. That typical design, that distinctive taste - what happened to it? So - bread and butter! [read more...]