Newsdesigner.com | An Artist's Defense

An Artist's Defense

1:10 AM, March 26, 2005

Layne Smith, one of the Dallas Morning News artists who worked on the NASCAR hauler graphic disqualified at the SND contest, has posted a spirited defense of the graphic and his integrity, and calls on the judges to further explain their decision.

Hell yeah we bully the judges into enlightening us. How many years have hundreds of us flipped through page after page after page of award winning designs and graphics thinking "WTF were the judges thinking!?" Reinforcing the belief that the judging process consists of some secret society of SND glad-handers, real or perceived, is a big mistake.

I stand before you all to defend myself and my decisions. Yet the judges are somehow safe from that responsibility? They can judge the work that defines who a lot of us are and then shrink back into the shadows and watch the sparks fly? As the single most responsible party for this whole fiasco, you can bet I have every right to call them out. Those who know me know I love to learn, I love to help others learn. That's why I'm here. That's why they should be here too.

>DMN graphic disqualified from SND silver [VisualEditors.com]

Comments

Heads up: After you hit "post" things may be slow and you may get an error. Most likely, your comment did post. Apologies. I'm looking for a fix.

This man has every right to be angry about this whole situaion, which in my opinion probably shouldn't have gotten this far out of hand in the first place.

The level of handwringing that this sort of ethical battle seems to put a lot of judgments on a lot of people that honestly don't deserve any of it. This isn't NASCARgate or SNDgate -- it's one person's opinion against that of a group of judges.

Personally, I got what Layne was going for with this graphic. The logo takes nothing away from the work. In fact, it adds a degree of authenticity to it.

Perhaps, granted, the DMN may have been smarter in putting a logo on the design that wasn't industry-related (hey, at least they didn't use a logo of an active advertiser), but let's not kid ourselves. Getting this picky over a detail that's a mere drop of acid in a pure puddle of water is totally missing the point -- the reader's going to drink the water without noticing the difference, and the page is still very refreshing to read.

Posted by: Ernie Smith at March 28, 2005 3:04 PM

Yeah, because according to that scenario, the reader is on acid.

Posted by: M. Vasto at March 28, 2005 9:54 PM

The informational graphic from Mr. Layne work is great, but it is sad to read an illustrator witting with that vocabulary.

The witting that Mr. Layne wrote in his defense do not represent the spirit of the Dallas Morning News and it does not represent a professional illustrator.

Best regards,

Leonardi Michon.

Posted by: Michon at March 30, 2005 6:18 AM

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