DDC Ethos

It’s a little weird reading and rereading the collection of half-ass tenets below. But I have to wonder: How’d I pull all this stuff off? Was it simply through hard work, grit and determination? Or just dumb luck? There had to be some guiding principles along the way, even if they didn’t reveal themselves to me at the time. And like EVERYTHING on this site, take these halfwit axioms with a single grain of pink Himalayan salt some dog dick packaged up in a cute tin and sold for 27 bucks.

Work Hard, and
Love This Stuff

I know what it’s like to work a shit job. To be under the thumb of someone you wouldn’t share a meal with, yet spend day after day with. Each time I sit down in the cockpit to work another shift in graphic design, I remind myself of just how cool a life in this stuff is.

Do Good Work,
For Good People

Luckily, all the folks who’ve trusted us with their projects have been “good people” in our books. Sure, there’s been a couple chumps along the way, but for the most part, we’ve been fortunate enough to work for interesting, creative, progressive people who we consider close friends.

Exhibit Good Craft
in Your Work

Take the extra time to keep that file tight. It’s so easy to phone it in, but time and time again, whatever element I was a little lazy with came back to bite me in the end. From file to final, make good decisions that’ll set you up for success the next time you crack it open a couple months later.

Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude

Be thankful we get to do this shit. It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture, mired down by persnickety client changes, waffling, hemming and hawing. But that’s just noise. I’m forever thankful for the opportunity to make a hell of a living doing something we love.

Savor The Time We’re
So Lucky To Have

I have a hard time hearing the age old, “And just like that, twenty years whipped by.” No it didn’t. Have a little respect for Father Time and the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years that we flow through. Don’t cut all that time off at the knees. I try to savor each day, and how much I was able to pack into it, or, how little I did in a day and what I could do better. In the grand scheme of things, we’re here just for a blip! But in humankind terms, the fifty odd years I’ve been able to make it…it’s been a long time. Thankful for each day.

Treat Folks Who Deliver Yer Stuff Like Gold

Your USPS, UPS or FEdEx person who just lugged your box up to your door. Be good to these people. Help out when you can. Meet them at the curb and lighten their load. Those little moments add up. I’ve become buddies with each delivery person in each phase of my life. Dad did the same. I say thank you each time I see them!

Bigger Isn’t
Always Better

I’ve had my heart broken too many times with “big” clients. Holding patterns, meetings about meetings, emails about emails, hemming, hawing and then you don’t hear a damn thing from the seven people in the bloated email chain. And there’s always SOMETHING they could’ve told you along the way, but didn’t, and then you realize how much time you wasted because.

Buy What You
Can Afford

One of the biggest pitfalls in the American landscape is debt, and the siren call that’s dragging you down into it, and how little we know about actually managing it, and ultimately, how to dig the fuck out of it. I got out of the hole the plain and simple way: I worked hard, saved the bulk of it and painfully, methodically paid thing after thing off by 2012. First it was the car, then school loans and then my house paid off. I’ve been debt-free ever since, and fuck if I am going back.

A Weird Pursuit of the Elusive “Zero Inbox”

We don’t fuck around with our email. We write everyone back (the occasional mistakenly filed-away message that gets overlooked, withstanding) and then file EVERY message away in a series of articulate folders. This is how we keep track of our shit. And we’re forever locked in the pursuit of the elusive “Zero Inbox” moment. When we get there, we die. As these words go to print, I’ve been in the high thirties. When I had my appendix out in 2011? Was down low teens. My very lowest! Hmmm.

Make Time For Each
and Every Person

Be nice to each person who stops you in the airport, at the gig, at the merch table, okay? Okay. One of the creepiest things I’ve witnessed in this mess is someone not making time for someone who was a fan, wanted an autograph or wanted a reply to an email. What a privelege to have people interested in you, in the first place. Remember, all this shit can go away, and I’d rather be left with this in the end: I did my damnedest to make time for each person interested in the DDC. And I did.

It’s in the Details,
Baby, the Details…

Little moments of good craft add up over time. Same goes for cutting corners. And hey, I know what it’s like to be at the start of project, in the mid-section of a projects and in and buttcrack at the end…and how those overlooked details can mean one thing and one thing only: MORE TIME shot to shit. My advice is to make the time for that shit at all costs. I’ve gotten jobs simply because of little moments that were “out of scope” but added up big time in the end. Come one, now. Do it.

The Oxford comma sucks, stinks and nope.

We stay away from the Oxford comma. It was controversial when I made that call for the DDC book, and I can already feel a couple of you squirming about the decision for this half-assed web site. If you find one in here, punch me in the face. Or punch me in the face, break my mouse finger and give me a little smooch to make me feel better. See how that works? Told you so.

That Weird, Seductive Pull of Social Media

This is a tough one. We’ve had the stuff about twenty years now? I was a fully-formed human being (debatable) when the shit hit us in 2004-ish. Social media made it easier for me to share my mess. But there was a limit to it. Some show their work all over social media, and some keep shit under wraps and a bit mysterious. Both paths are fine. But be realistic about what it really means. When was the last time you paid your rent with a screengrab of all those followers you racked up with your smooth moves, predictable content and abuse of the word “literally” in your insufferable 47 reels you posted last week?

On Trolls, Turds and Other Little Weenie Balls

I guess there’s just always gonna be ‘that guy’ who’s gonna piss in the punch bowl. Big whoop, right? Don’t read the comments, right?! It’s not built like that. The shit just SHOWS UP in your face. And it hurts to be mischaracterized. Your digital footprint means something and so does your good name. I might be a little old-fashioned, but I don’t go littering shitty sentiment on the web, fired off-the-cuff without so much of thought how it affects the folks it’s targeted at. Pound sand, you insipid litterbug!

A Couple Pointy Words
on Influencers

On the fence with the latest yahoo pointing at shit, offering up cartoonish skits and offering up schlocky coaching services? Go and check their portfolio. Ask them about their last job. Are they actually doing the work or just talking about it and selling goopy bottles of the finest word salad snake oil? Tread lightly in this realm, friends. I get emails from kids who feel like they were taken, betrayed and misled by the guru shit out there. I always tell them this: “Work hard, be a good person and over-exceed on every job.” That’s it.

Dancing/Shipping
with the Devil

We use ULINE products. And of course we AREN NOT down with their shitty owners shitty political leanings. We’ve gamed out the other scenarios time and time again, and don’t want to raise our prices. So we do what we have to do to keep costs down. You’ve heard that one before. And I hate typing that out, but that’s where we are at. So spare us the righteous diatribes. Who made the shoes you are wearing, asshole? Who made that limited edition collab sweatshirt? Do you know EXACTLY how your phone was made? Right.