the departure of the mase, my technical concepting team mate

So the mason has departed for pastures fresh and green, thus the chances of coming up with wonderous tech ideas and bending his ear about every stupid idea I have is gone (well until the usual time spent in the white horse). Also the chance of being mased is significantly decreased (again until time spent in the white horse).

I think there should be space in this industry (especially digital) for a new type of creative team. The tech and the creative (I don't agreee with those terms as discussed further down, but they get the idea across for now). One with a more technical knowledge but creative in outlook and use of technologies and executions as well as big ideas and the other with a more generalised knowledge of technology but  a more visual eye and approach to problems. I think this is why I enjoyed concepting and proofing stuf with the mase. I'd come up with left field ideas, he'd suggest a better use of that idea and then we'd try it out. That's the same reason I enjoy doing the hack days with dhrubo and kenneth, working with them and their expertise makes me a better art director/creative/designer, and gives me a deeper knowledge of our medium.

I'm still horrified by how much more designers and art directors could learn about digital. If this was print, we would understand paper weights, established grid systems, typography and all sorts of craft knowledge to make us the best creatives/designers, but in digital do many creatives know the difference between HTML and ruby on rails? API details? The list of stuff I guess is endless, but I don't understand why more of us aren't striving to find out and learn about this medium we are concepting/designing for. It makes us better in our field and makes our ideas sharper and better suited to our medium, without having some poor long suffering coder having to redo our work. (and then worse we come over and art direct and complain when all our drop shadows and layer effects are misisng- ok not in html 5 but you get the point).

Ok so that ended up as a bit of a rant, but fuck it, it's my blog
anyway adios mase,  i'll see you in the horse

N.B. I don't agree with the tech and the creative terminology, as anyone down the pub who has had their ear bent on this subject can testify, there is so much wrong with the idea that only a visual designer or art director or copy writer is creative. I'm not going to rant about it here as it's a sunny day and life is to short. grab me in a pub and buy me a pint and I'll lay it all out for you