Exhibition: The Body in Indian Art

Some photos I took at “The Body in Indian Art,” (14 March – 7 June, 2014, National Museum, Delhi), an exhibition curated by Naman Ahuja and designed by Siddhartha Chatterjee. I will update the captions as soon as I get my hands on the catalogue.

How do I typeset legal documents correctly? (Do I care?)

Punch-you-ation

Back in law school one of my friends nearly had his job application rejected because of a missing period (full stop) in his resume. The senior partner reviewing the application was so irate he decided to blast my friend over the phone:

   “There is a missing period on line 12!”

    “I can see it on my copy...”

    “Young man, are you insinuating… That it escaped in transit?”

I believe this argument was resolved with the help of a magnifying glass. Still, the nice thing about being a lawyer is that you are allowed (and often paid) to make a fuss about punctuation. If it were up to me I'd make a fuss about white space and kerning too...

Anyhow, take a look at Matthew Butterick’s  Typography for Lawyers, as well as his Practical Typography. (The foreword is written by the editor of Black's Law Dictionary. So there.) I’ll be investigating these in depth. See the Resources page of this blog for more.

How do I edit a document properly?

They must teach this in editing school. Or on law review. In any case, I never learned it properly. Indeed, when I first started out I used to think that “Stet!” was an epithet you yelled at interns. (I was an atrocious typist.)

But it's about time I figured it out. Here, on a single page, is everything I need to know (for the moment) about editing documents, both in hard copy and soft copy.

Ellen Lupton's excellent site is a companion resource for her book, Thinking with Type. See the Resources page of this blog for related materials.

How do I get my freelancing career going? - “Don't bet on being discovered by a tasteful millionaire patron.”

Beautiful, unique snowflake of creative talent awaits discovery by millionaire patron.

“There's one mistake a lot of us make when we start out.” says Anitha, an independent illustrator and animator. “We truly believe that we just need to do great work, and before long someone - maybe a boss, maybe a client, maybe some millionaire with incredibly good taste and foresight - will ‘discover’ us, and one morning we'll receive an e-mail containing an offer of unlimited patronage, and we will be catapulted into a world of freedom and joy and coolness.”

Anitha agrees that it is important to believe in yourself, and to be confident. But many young design graduates do have a sneaking suspicion that they are, in fact, “The One,” and that it's only a matter of time before that big break.

Don't bet on it, she says.

If you do, you may find yourself following a sad and well-trodden path into frustration and obscurity:
“You'll join a firm and get ghisso-ed until you are sick of it. Eventually you'll quit in a dramatic gesture of self-respect, and say I'll do my own thing! and try to hack it as an artist. But then you'll find out that it's really tough, and you won't be making any money, and then you'll move back in with your parents and eventually maybe try to get hired again somewhere. But that's hard too, if you haven't built up a track record of work.”

So how do you avoid this? “Don't procrastinate! Develop two tracks of professional development: artistic and commercial.”

Artistic:

• DO Have some continuity in your output. Take time out and produce at least one piece of independent work a year.
• DO Develop a personal narrative about your growth as a creative professional, and be able to talk and write well about yourself and your work. Remember that your grant applications will get read by administrators, not fellow artists or creatives.
• DON'T forget to connect your work to some amount of relevant theory.

• DO Make sure you are building a portfolio of work that can be identified as YOURS.
• DON'T rely on collaborative work. Collaborating is cool, but it is tough for award committees to figure out how much of a collaborative project is actually yours. It's not easy to get grants off the back of collaborative work.

• DO take advantage of the fact that many grants are meant for creatives under 35.
• DON'T wait for the big grants to come your way. Be willing to apply for small grants to do small projects

Commercial:

• DO Collaborate; find a big fish and swim along with them. Leverage other peoples' wisdom, experience and connections.
• DON'T assume that bidding processes are always going to be fair and transparent, or that the "best" submission will win.

• DO make sure you are doing commercial work on a regular basis, and building up a professional narrative about your evolving skills and interests.
• DON'T rely on your artistic output to get your foot in the door with commercial work (and vice versa).

“Everyone wants to be hyped and rich by age 35, but there's no guarantee that this will happen.” But if you make sure you are building a portfolio and building a profile, you will at least have a bankable track record.

And good things may follow. As we speak, Anitha opens her e-mail and discovers an offer of an all-expenses paid jaunt to a book fair in Europe.

How to join a small social media and marketing company - “It's a conversation - not an interview.”

Some invitations to converse are more oblique than others...

“I tend not to ask too many questions about an applicant’s skills and aspirations - at least not at first.” says Deepak Goel, CEO of Drizzlin, a boutique media firm. “I like to let people tell their own stories. I ask them about their lives, their childhood, the choices they’ve made. I’m most interested in people’s character, what they are really about.”

Deepak has been eager to hire bright young people. “We’ve always been very close as a group, and my general philosophy has been to look for people who like us, who like the work, and have a general outlook on life that sits well with what we are trying to do as a firm.”

Is it tough to maintain that philosophy, when you have a bunch of new clients beating down the door and a ton of work that needs to get done right away? “The fundamental notion is still that, for anyone who joins Drizzlin, we will give them room to rise as fast and as far as they can.” Deepak says that Drizzlin will consider anyone who is willing to roll up their sleeves and learn the business from the inside out. “Whether it’s someone with just a few years work experience who wants to help put systems in place, or a more senior finance professional who’s looking to move into this industry and exercise some leadership in a growing company, we’re happy to have a conversation with them.”

Deepak mentions the notion of “fit” and “fitness” described in The Corner Office , a collection of interviews with CEOs of large companies: “Of course it’s important that you have some skills, and that you are good at something. But we want to know who you are, and whether you’ll be happy with us. We want to know that you are willing to invest time in growing with the firm, and in exchange we are happy to give you time to find your feet.”

Advice for applicants?

• Be clear about what you can commit, in terms of time and energy. Some applicants are in the middle of exams or have other pending commitments. “We often tell them to apply again once they have some clarity. We can make hiring decisions very quickly, and the nature of our work is such that, if someone is right for the firm, we want them on board ASAP.”
• Don’t be afraid to bring your values, your life philosophy and your personality to the conversation. “It’s a small team and we are very close, but there is room for all kinds of people.” Don’t assume that you need to be exactly like the person who is interviewing you. Be yourself, and give the interviewer a fair chance to figure out whether you’re a good fit.
• Don’t get hung up on the specific role that was advertised. “Of course, you need to be able to contribute. But we are interested in building a team of people who are willing to learn and grow.”
• A little preparation can be very helpful, especially for applicants who don’t have a social media or marketing background. “Show us that you understand the space, and the basics of the industry. If you can demonstrate some brand awareness, it tells us that you’ve been paying attention to what’s going on around you, and are more likely to hit the ground running.”

Drizzlin is currently hiring. You can check out the firms’s website at www.drizzlin.com.

The Corner Office and other books are listed on the Resources page of this blog.