There comes a time in all work where you reach a point of exhaustion and apathy -- the "ho-hums" if you will. The once thriving motivation to achieve, develop, challenge and grow dwindles under restrictive timelines, small budgets, nit-picky design tweaks and overall spent creative "equity", and motivation beings to go no further than a paycheck while inspiration collects dust on a forgotten shelf.

Conceptual design is all but dead. Thoughtful concepts have been replaced by elaborate style -- mistaking graphic elements and trend for a design concept. And by "conceptual", I mean "conceptual" in terms of a heavy visualized, thorough image saturated project -- but a project that has a visual goal with consistent execution, regardless of trend, utilizing style to enhance the message. Not all work has the potential for sophisticated concepts, but all work should strive to display meaning and message through visual elements, not just apply a style that "looks good". Typography, color palette and even grid systems help reinforce a concept.

The market for conceptual thought in design has vanished. Conceptual design is regulated to the world of art, leaving the mass market rotting under the spoils of style in the disguise of design. The designers greatest asset, one usually gotten through education, is the ability to know where design was, in order to create where it is going. But with the increase of "your cousin who can design stuff" and the ease of learning the tools of the trade, "designers" only know the immediate, lack the knowledge or appreciate for the past, and thus lack the ability to create meaningful design. Design with teeth. There is no understanding of the great masters of typography, or the basic forms of a letter; there is no understanding of the evolution of information design, of aesthetic or girds, of color application or theory. There is only imitation of what is now, what is current.

I don't want to leave anyone without something they can take action on (myself included -- as I all to easily fall for the easy solution, using style over a concept, just to finish a job). Read. Read. Read. Go the library, find books on graphic design history, study the works of the Swiss and German designers of the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's; look at Soviet posters from the Cold War, learn how typography is formed, the old typesetters, the typographers of the past. Knowing where we've been enhances where we are going.