Lisa Flowers Ross nominated me for the above, Kreativ Blogger award. I love Lisa's blog and I appreciate her recognition. Thank you, Lisa. But this got me wondering, not for the first time, where these things come from. Obviously someone, sometime, somewhere just made this thing up and started nominating people and directing them to nominate other people and on and on. I googled "Kreativ Blogger award" and, of course, found scads of blogs displaying the award graphic and nominating others, but nothing that indicated where it began. Not surprised.
And while the sentiment is great—I'm all for celebrating creativity and passing on the love to other bloggers—I've got to just say it. This is the ugliest darn graphic I've ever seen. I kind of wonder if it wasn't some graphic designer's idea of a joke, what with the creative spelling, the extreme font abuse and the gaggishly sweet combination of print and pattern.
I think the graphic has to die. So though I am flattered, I am not nominating any of the many wonderful, creative blogs that I so love to read. Sorry.
O Terry! What a riot. It is truly a dull and boring design. I too am so in pain over that font abuse, which is a soapbox issue for me. What is it with blogs that have tiny faint text that makes it seem like "don't read this" for anyone who wanders by?
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Terry. Would that I were so brave.
ReplyDeleteI'm in agreement with you about that award. It was given to me as well. If I were to pass it on, you would be at the top of my list.
ReplyDeleteAbout your exquisite trees, I've found that cutting shapes is easier and more expressive than drawing them. The drawing process allows more room for reworking and overworking an image.
I do love your honesty!
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing many awards on many blogs I've come to the conclusion one could spend all of one's time just answering memes. I remember when I first began doing web pages in the early 90's awards began to be given and it blossomed into many, many useless icons to display on a webpage until there was nothing down one side save meaningless junk.
ReplyDeleteI applaud you. Someone, and I'm sorry I can't remember who, has declared her blog a non award zone and does not answer these things. You might consider that, I'd read your blog whether it received awards or not!
susan in spokane
I've gotten this one too (and am guilty of posting it on my blog though it pained the designer in me a bit to do so), and seen it around the web for at least a year now. I agree that the design leaves a lot to be desired -- as does the design of pretty much every meme award I've seen and a LOT of sidebar buttons. Hey, we can't ALL be graphic designers. Blogs are pretty do-it-yourself and that leaves a lot of room for font abuse and dated graphics. Personally, I click past ugly or cluttered blogs even though that probably means I'm missing out on some cool stuff.
ReplyDeleteThat said, us native English writers should be wary of anglicizing everything. The first place I saw this award was on German language blogs where Kreativ is spelled absolutely correctly. If anything is to be accused of "creative spelling," it's the word blogger since that doesn't exist in the German language and has been borrowed from the English. Sorry for my little rant here, but you're not the first English language blog to comment on the "incorrect" spelling and though I agree the logo has got to die, I would also like to see the assumption that everyone should speak English die too.
Excellent point, Kristin. Mea culpa. I am not familiar with German, but did assume that "kreativ" might be "creative" in another language. I think pairing it with the word "blogger" was what lead me to assume it was a case of creative (kreativ?) license.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with you about the design and feel a little guilty about passing these things on. But I also feel anyone has a right not to. But I did want people to know that I enjoy your blog very much.
ReplyDeleteyou crack me up. I got one of these too, and posted it on my blog for one night, and then deleted it. I wish the award could match the nomination for having a creative blog.
ReplyDelete