Respect for the President of the United States, what happened?

When I was a kid my grandfather used to say, " you don't have to agree with the President's policy but he's our elected President and deserves our respect and our help. If the President needs me to sweep his floor, then its my responsibility to sweep my ass off!"

These days I can't help but wonder what has happened to our ability to respect the President. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and I said we, as Americans, are such a nation of team players and if you don't play for our team then you're on the opposite team. Our mentality seems to be that, our team has to win and the other team has to lose no matter what.

Our elected politicians seem to forget, America is the team we are all playing for! Democracy elected our President, and just case everyone in Washington has forgotten, that means the majority of the country hired the President to run our country. It doesn't' matter if you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, he's the man hired to do the job and its your responsibility to help him accomplish the job he was hired to do.

As the saying goes, if you can't respect the man, respect the office.

I'm not sure when respect for the President started to go away. It could have been when Nixon lied to congress, it could have been the Clinton sex scandal or it could have been G.W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished".

Frankly I don't know and I don't care. The President of the United States of America deserves our RESPECT, SUPPORT AND OUR HELP to get his job done, whoever he is. If you don't like the way he does his job, fine, then elect someone different when his term is up. But until then give the man respect and help to accomplish what we hired him to do.

I've voted every since I was old enough,. I was told, if you don't vote, then you can't gripe. I take voting very seriously and its my responsibility as an American. Right now I have to say I'm pretty ashamed of the congress and politicians I helped elect to office.

Hopalong Cassidy said, " If you want to be respected, you must respect others. Show good manners in every way."

I think everyone in government would be better off following that rule!

Just my opinion...

© copyright 2011 Michael Burke 

Can Design be taught?

Wow can't believe its been a year since I updated. My apologies to everyone. Not only have I been running my business and teaching, I've been taking care of our now two year old son. Very rewarding, and very tiring! Anyway the blog has been one of the things that slipped through the cracks.

Okay, on to my subject!

Can anyone be a graphic designer?

I've noticed quite a few ads for design programs lately, schools I've never heard of, weekend seminars promising to teach you graphic design, offering to instruct you in how you can be a successful designer in a year (or a weekend). The question I've been hearing as long as I've been in this business is, can graphic design be taught?

I believe there are a several different kinds of graphic design students.

There are people out there with natural creative ability who want to learn the history and gain the technical ability to be a successful graphic designer, then there are the folks out there who's boss sent to a class on design so they can start designing the company newsletter. Finally their are those the company sent to learn graphic design so it can get design on the cheap.

Can design be taught?

As a teacher, my opinion is, design technique and mechanics can be taught to anyone. However, I believe that natural creative ability is 90% of what makes a successful designer. The artistic talent has to be there first in order to be a good designer.

I commend anyone for wanting to further their education, and I think that there is the right occupation for everyone. But, let's imagine graphic design as fine art for a minute, design is art that solves problems and communicates a products or services. Anyone can draw or paint, my two year old is coloring right now, but his drawing is likely not going to be in the Louver (at least not yet), not everyone is Andy Worhal or Charles Schultz.

Successful designers have talent and training to accomplish what they do. Not everyone can do it well.

So if you have talent and want to be a graphic designer, go for it I would love to see you in class. If you are doing the company newsletter and you need to learn basic design software, please do, it teaches you how to layout with the program and will get you by. But if your a business owner and you're trying to get cheap design by sending the janitor to a weekend design seminar, just remember you get what you pay for!

Great Graphic Designers are born not made!


© copyright 2011 Michael Burke