Speak Up is run with Six Apart’s 
Some of our contributors and friends offer some final words on Speak Up. These were requested not just to make us feel good but to be able to share what Speak Up may have meant to others. We will also take this opportunity to express our gratitude for all the wonderful parting comments you’ve left in the last couple of days. It was very reaffirming to know that all of our efforts were put to good use. This concludes the end of our broadcast.
It is hard to speak about Speak Up in the past tense, please excuse me if I trip along the way here in case I momentarily forget we are placing our beloved under 6-feet of code. I find myself mourning with relief as we accompany Speak Up in its final days, simply holding hands, quietly sitting by its bedside, focused on its slowing heartbeat.
This is not easy. Not as I write this. Not as I made the decision with Bryony. Not as I made the realization. It is not easy to say goodbye to Speak Up, but this is what this post is meant to do. We are closing Speak Up for good. This is our third-to-last post. Tomorrow we will post a goodbye from Bryony and the day after that a series of goodbyes from some of our contributors and friends. And by this time next week, comments will be shut down and a new façade will overtake the Speak Up you have come to know.
In less than fifteen days, Bryony, Maya (our daughter) and I will leave Brooklyn, NY for Austin, TX. Moving away from, arguably, the Design Capital of the World to the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World. About six months ago I raised the question here about the need to live and work in New York in contrast to smaller markets. Now I can admit that the question was driven by our decision at that time to move to one of the latter. Much of my career, and the growth of UnderConsideration, has been chronicled on Speak Up so here is one more entry into this wacky life and career path we have taken that hopefully illustrates the integral balance that lifestyle and work play when you are running your own business, in charge of your own destiny.
The top 15 out of a 42-quip week.
Fellow blogger and conference organizer, Justin Cone of the fabulous Motionographer, is offering two free registrations for the Speak Up audience to their upcoming conference F5. If you are in New York on April 16 and 17 and are 100% certain that you can attend (please do not take someone’s chance if you will flake at the last minute), enter the promotion code speak up at this registration site. Only the first two will get it. Even if you are not one of the lucky two, $280 for this kind of conference is a steal.
As we embarked on the process of researching all the material for our Graphic Design, Referenced book we secretly hoped that we could uncover something that neither Phil Meggs, Richard Hollis or Steve Heller had. Surely there was something or someone they could have missed. On the surface it seemed we wouldn’t have our Indiana Jones moment, and it was only after writing a few of the profiles that we were able to piece together the story of one designer who was briefly referenced by some of the most prolific designers of this time, among them Joseph Muller-Brockmann, Alexey Brodovitch and Lester Beall. It wasn’t until we went back to the RIT Design Archives, remembering that the Lester Beall collection had a significant amount of client correspondence, that we were able to confirm this unsung design hero: Ingrid Berthold.
The top 15 out of a 27-quip week.
After all the international bookmarks I thought I would bring it home this time around and take a peek around our own backyard. With all the design press, be it in magazines or blogs, there is plenty of real estate to see the work of American designers and for the most part it would seem as if we know everyone. The bookmarks of U.S.-based designers I did in the past sixteen months are mostly of independent or freelance designers and less from the medium to big sized firms. Having put together a few of these Bookmarks posts, it’s funny to see how American the work below looks. Neither a good nor a bad thing, but nice to see that globalism hasn’t stripped away the personality and sensibility of each country. As with all these posts, the selected do not represent the final say on American design, nor is this by any means an exhaustive survey.
The top 15 out of a 36-quip week.
