TSA’s Design Matters contest

18 comments

1. Yes, this came through my RSS the other day, and I was wondering when Spacing would mention it. The terms and conditions are unfavourable to creators, even to the first-place winner. I would advise not entering unless you think your work is worth no more than a grand. The rules list four places where your work will be exhibited, with no upper limit on other places.

   If they were serious, they’d hire real designers and pay real fees. If you’re serious, you won’t apply for a pig in a poke.

   I would add this to the ongoing list of Spacing’s copyright missteps.

2. The reason nobody takes you seriously, Joe, is that you are a serial asshole. Do you have anything constructive to contribute? If not, please confine your bitter rants to your own unread blog.

3. Let’s keep it civil folks.

4. Joe Clark, no matter what you might think of the tone of his comments, has the benefit of being correct almost all the time. You’d do well to listen to him.

5. The reason nobody takes you seriously, Joe, is that you are a serial asshole.

   One would rather hope that the reason he wouldn’t be taken seriously is if he’s wrong.

   If the nicest person in the world tells you that two and two is five, it still ain’t so. And if Joe Clark tells you that two plus two is four, it’s still gonna be four no matter how much he sneers at your insensitivity to red-green color-blindness.

   Anyway, the answer to Do you have anything constructive to contribute? is, uh, yes. An unequivocal yes. Unless you happen to be Dave Meslin posting under an alias, I think it’s safe to say he’s contributed a lot more than you have.

   Now, let me say up front that Joe has one of the biggest persecution complexes I’ve ever seen, especially with regard to the Spacing Wire folks. Hell, he’s got a whole category in his “blog personnel” about how, quote, Matt “Newsboy Cap” Blackett and his Spacers(tm), unquote, have done him wrong. I read his blog because it’s well-written, but it’s well-written bile punctuated by the occasional snipe at Arial.

   And yet, despite being such a meaniepants, Joe’s filed more requests for information and put more document dumps online and written transcriptions of boring committee meetings than anyone else I can think of, and the first people to get copies of that work are Spacing and the TPSC.

   Again, unless you’re Mez in disguise, I feel safe in saying Joe’s done more pro bono work than you. And he did it for people he’s so certain hold him in contempt that he doesn’t even think it’s worth bothering to conceal his distaste for them. How much free research have you done for your friends lately, let alone your enemies?

6. I think the beef with Clark is that there is never a positive word out of him — the only time he ever writes anything its in the negative. Never will you hear him say a good thing about Spacing or any other group that is like-minded.

   His personal attacks on Blackett et al is usually unwarranted. While there is room for disucssion about issues, it should never stoop to the level Clark often stoops to – personal attacks are useless and completely unnecessary. His rants often ring hollow and wreak of jealousy. In his hate-on analysis of Spacing and uTOpia, his writing is so rife with errors it is laughable. Even his post today is factually wrong — he claims he post was deleted, but when I followed the link he provides, the comment was here. It completely undermines his credibility.

   He may right on web accessiblity issues, but after that I think he sounds like a 14 year old with a insecurity complex.
   Right is right, no doubt, but an asshole is an asshole. You can still get the right information from people who treat others with respect.

7. Sadly, there is no space on Joe Clark’s blog to respond to his writing/raving, but the Wire should not become a surrogate home to rant about his correctness/idiocy.

   Let’s keep it on topic folks. Please talk about the TSA contest if possible.

8. Sorry, Matt, but I do think there’s a meta-issue here that y’all should take note of.

   he claims he post was deleted, but when I followed the link he provides, the comment was here

   Both Joe and Susan are right: the comment wasn’t there when Joe wrote his original post, but it was when Susan commented just now.

   There’s occasionally a time lag between when a comment is submitted to Spacing Wire and when it appears on the site for other people to read. Sometimes it even gets up to a few minutes. (Any accusation that I compulsively reload posts here to follow interesting threads is completely baseless and hey look out behind you no really.) It can be confusing, especially since most other blogs (even other WordPress blogs) add comments in realtime.

   Matt, do you have someone moderating the Wire, or is the time lag due to an innate delay in some WordPress component or your spam filtering solution?

9. We have two or three of us moderating comments. This is due to an onslaught of spam, which is almost rectified. If we’re away from the computer comments will sit for a bit. Just one of the things we live with since there is no money generated from the blog. You wanna talk about pro-bono work? This whole blog is pro bono.

   Joe’s comment was made at 12:24am and was approved in the late late morning. If Joe was that concerned with it being deleted he could have inquired with us what was going on (which is what other commenters have done in the past). Instead he wrote a post that, as Susan points out, is wrong. He’s fine to complain about the TSA stuff but he likes to make things personal for unknown reasons.

   Anyway, I want readers to read about the TSA. I was not critical of his comment, just the ensuing conversation re: his online social grace.

   We’re VERY aware of the meta-issues as Clark has ragged on us for some time now. Its nothing new and this thread is only beating the issue to death.
   Joe has done tremendous research on the street furniture program and deserves credit for that. But like Susan writes, there are people out there who treat us with respect that we can garner much of the same information from.

10. Just one of the things we live with since there is no money generated from the blog.

    Not true.

    I started buying the paper magazine because of the blog. And I feel it is my duty to generalize wildly based on my personal experiences. Therefore, there are lots of people who buy the magazine because of the blog, and all of them love chalk drawings on sidewalks.

    In fact, this is one way that the TSA contest could offer value to the entrants beyond its prize money. I don’t know the answers to these things, so I’d like to ask the one person here who’s in a position to know: Matt Blackett, how good are things like this at converting social awareness into paying work? 🙂

    And speaking as an interested observer…. I’m not a designer, but I am curious what sort of files you expect people to submit, and if you think you’re going to have any problems with them. Inkscape, for example, uses SVG as its native format. Will that guy who’s the intersection of “great Toronto-based graphic designer” and “Linux fanatic” give you a lot of headaches?

    And by the way, the meta-issue I was referring to was just the time lag between submit and appear, not anything related to Joe Clark. I was actually curious for my own sake! If there’s going to be a delay, it’s nice to say so with a short “Comments may be delayed for moderation”. It manages expectations and makes people smile to know that you’re on top of things.

11. The contest is run by the TSA, not us. We are sponsors.

    You are correct to assume that the blog drives people to buy the magazine. Certainly, we use it as a marketing tool. But, in real terms, there is nothing on the blog (ads, for example) that specifically that generates money for us.

    To answer your question: I do not make a full-time living off of Spacing, but I do get a number of freelance gigs becuz I’m the publisher of Spacing. I did convert my career from a day job at a corporate HQ into a freelance designer career by focusing on enviro groups, arts & culture groups, and other social ventures. Spacing came out of that. When you take a passion/hobby/interest and turn it into paying work, the lines between personal life and career blur dramatically. But it means you can sleep in until 10 and begin to approve over-night comments. 🙂

    I’d be happy to have an email exchange with you and try, as I might, to keep this post focused on the TSA.

12. He made an entire post about his comment being deleted, and it wasn’t even true? And people like thickslab who can’t say a positive thing about anything himself, tells us to listen to him? There is not enough time in the day, thickslab.

    This space wire seems to tolerate a lot of discussion that other blogs wouldn’t tolerate — “meta criticism” if you will, and it takes it good naturedly — letting these things go off topic like this. I’m a regular reader, but I don’t comment very much — but I’ve read a few times here the lag is because of spam filtering and approval (and it’s funny that this guy’s blog doesn’t allow comments itself, as somebody pointed out). The tolerance this place shows to people looking for anything to pick on is deep — so Canadian.

13. And people like thickslab who can’t say a positive thing about anything himself, tells us to listen to him? There is not enough time in the day, thickslab.

    Tell you what, Jenny Choi: when there’s something positive to say, I’ll say it.

    This space wire seems to tolerate a lot of discussion that other blogs wouldn’t tolerate — “meta criticism” if you will, and it takes it good naturedly — letting these things go off topic like this.

    Don’t blog much, do you? Plenty of blogs allow this kind of discussion.

14. The point is, how can the rules say with a straight face that the artist/designer retains copyright in their entry, yet must “agree to have all or part of any entry displayed, published and/or used, with no further permission or payment by the competition organizers, at the sole discretion of the competition organizers, as supervised by the Toronto Society of Architects.”

    There’s no way in hell that would stand up to an intellectual-property lawyer, unless perhaps his name is Lionel Hutz. The winning entry will be a thousand-dollar work-for-hire, and why not just call it one?

15. Hi there,
    I seem to be unable to reach tsa by e-mail or their website. Are there issues?
    Thanks.

16. Wondering if this contest is still on?
    Thanks again.

17. How embarrassing…

18. Hi Darcie, there are more contests like this at contestcreative.com