{"id":214,"date":"2015-03-31T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vrdesignz.wordpress.com\/?p=191"},"modified":"2017-06-08T20:10:27","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T20:10:27","slug":"technology-and-the-artist-has-it-made-life-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/technology-and-the-artist-has-it-made-life-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology and the Artist; Has it made Life Better?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an artist in the 21st century, technology has become a necessary evil. \u00a0I wrote in a previous article<\/a> how artists in the past embraced new tools to help them in making better art. \u00a0This can also work in reverse; technology can eliminate positions and hurt us as artists.<\/p>\n

\"xactocut\"<\/a>I don’t know when things changed but now that I am over the “double-nickle” mark in my life, technology is actually more difficult to grasp and understand let alone adopt its use somehow in my art. \u00a0As with most artists, we all work in two careers or jobs. \u00a0Our day job supplements our income while our true job as artists fullfill our passion. \u00a0This worked for me until as a web designer, my contract ran out last year. \u00a0I found myself facing a world that I did not understand. \u00a0Designers were somehow programmers as well as user experience professionals and expert interface and information designers in all things mobile, desktop, tv set and any new technology that\u00a0was introduced. \u00a0Everyone was looking for the most senior and experienced personnel in all things. \u00a0When did\u00a0a creative designer have to become a left-brained analytical programmer? \u00a0The days of trying to please all browsers on a desktop now includes tablets whether android or apple as well as all types of phones and tv connected devices and screens. \u00a0Most recently a term was dropped that I heard, “CE Device” which I only assume is a catch all phrase that also includes internet watches.<\/p>\n

How does one contain all that knowledge and where is this genius senior level individual that employers\u00a0are looking for? \u00a0It was hard enough just dealing with different browsers that did not want to cooperate on a desktop, let alone everything else that exists today. \u00a0So with about 17 years of experience designing for the internet, I have been pushed out as an old dinosaur. \u00a0Technology has passed me by and now I have my art to pursue on a full-time basis. \u00a0The saving grace is that my canvas and my oil paints along with my painting skills will never be left in the dust of technology nor change and morph into something alltogether different every six months.<\/p>\n

Back in the dark ages of Graphic Design<\/a>\u00a0(good read for those old enough to remember), I was taught lithography and lettering by hand. \u00a0I used rubylith and paste up 4-color (CMYK) on sheets on cold-press board with\u00a0blueline pencil marks. \u00a0I was a typesetter that developed the type in rolls for newsletters and brochures that I designed. \u00a0I cut the type out of these rolls that I developed (much like developing photography film) with my xacto and using my wax rollup machine, pasted it down on the cold-press board. \u00a0This was supplanted by the word processing machines and finally the macintosh. \u00a0I adapted to these changes and moved on in the industry. \u00a0When the internet seemed to be taking off, I got caught up in the fever and used photoshop to design varies graphics for the internet. \u00a0I learned HTML, which reminded me of the codes that I used when I used to be a typesetter. \u00a0So it was familiar to me. \u00a0I adapted to this new technology and moved along with it.<\/p>\n

I shifted into various positions within the internet agency world and found myself in consulting roles for defined projects. \u00a0I took on the positions that I understood and did very well until one day, the world somehow, someway, passed me by. \u00a0Oh, I did hear about mobile and responsive design techniques but they were always handled by other departments. \u00a0This was not my role that I was contracted nor my concern. \u00a0In the evenings I always had my art. Now technology has taken over again and this time, run me over. \u00a0Now much older, I no longer adapt and move on as quickly. \u00a0A blessing in disguise, I am now able to focus more clearly on the one thing I know technology can never take from me, my art.<\/p>\n

In my long design career, jobs have been eliminated and changed and people have had to adapt. \u00a0Flourishing industries like print and graphics have been decimated by technology. Now the web design industry for creatives is slowly dying and being taken over by AI technology sites designing themselves (The Grid) or overly complicated CMS sites that you do need a programmer to design the site. \u00a0Small sites are easily accomplished without the aid of a designer using Wix or Weebly. \u00a0There doesn’t seem to be room for true designers in this new technological age we are entering.<\/p>\n

Where does this leave us? \u00a0As Robert Reich points out<\/a>, there will be fewer people in jobs able to make money as technology eliminates positions or requires less people to do what many people were required to do previously. \u00a0If this doesn’t scare you about technology, it should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As an artist in the 21st century, technology has become a necessary evil. \u00a0I wrote in a previous article how artists in the past embraced new tools to help them in making better art. \u00a0This can also work in reverse; technology can eliminate positions and hurt us as artists. I don’t know when things changed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-news","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vicritchey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}