In the Midst of a Wild Goose Chase

I came across this awesome website:

advicetosinkinslowly.net

It's a project where graphic designers created images of advice for other designers just starting out in their careers. I found some great images that would be awesome for the classroom. I saw that they sell posters and I'm more than happy to spend money on things I feel good supporting. Unfortunately the posters they sell are not the prints I want. 

So, I could download the images and have them printed out in poster size at Walgreens. But, that is stealing. Art is their job and their service is inspiring others which is very similar to what I try and do in the classroom. I work hard, I deserve to paid. 

However, I share my lessons online. When you guys enjoy a lesson I write about it on the blog, I tweet it and share it on Facebook and Pintrest because I want as many students as possible to have the same experience. It sounds like I'm really into sharing right? Don't be fooled, my reasons are completely selfish. 

There are a lot of problems in the world and in this country. Pretty soon, it will be you that takes this whole place over. You are the smartest generation to have ever been born. And as far as I can tell from what I've seen in the classroom, you're smart enough, creative enough, and kind enough to fix the problems that we've created. That is the world I want to live in. So, I choose to share. But, that's my choice. 

The artists that created this wonderful work deserve to make their own choices about their prints. So, that means I have to ask them. 

Here's where the goose chase really begins. I started by trying the contact information on the website. Dead end. 

None of the profiles have been filled out. Okay, so the obvious choice would be to google (verb) their names. Works for someone like Ingunn Dybendal but do you know how many Ryan Morgans there are? Time to get a little creative. 

Google images has this great feature. You can upload an image and search by it. 

So, that lead me to the artists websites. Some had emails, others Twitter accounts. Here's the message I'd send:

I'm hoping my question will be taken as a compliment and that they'll want their work in the classroom.

I love this one by Austin Thomas:

Austin was quite tricky. No luck with the search by image so I tried his name with graphic design here's what I got:

Thought I nailed it on the first try, below the yellow (those are paid links). But, this was where it lead me: 

I don't know a ton about art but I know enough to recognize a serious difference in style. So I changed my search to:

Notice the difference in my search terms? The quotation marks! That tells Google (proper noun) that I'm only looking for website that have the words Austin and Thomas next to each other and in that order. Otherwise, like in the first search it finds pages with either of those two words. Big difference.

So, that eventually lead me to this guy, who seems pretty into beards. But, I poked around his site for a bit. See that sticker? The one encouraging you to grow a beard? Doesn't that remind you more of the image I'm looking for?

I'll let you know how it turns out. 

I certainly could have justified stealing the images. Hey, their work is serving a great purpose, inspiring students to work hard, do their best... and all that. I certainly wouldn't have lost any sleep over it (meaning, I wouldn't have felt bad about stealing).

But, that's the easy road. And let me be clear about "easy roads." When you have a decision about Right vs. Wrong and it's apparent from the start that you're going to feel bad, the right choice isn't a difficult one to make. It's not just called the easy road because, in this case, stealing the image would have been easy. It's the easy road because it's easy to find reasons to not feel badly about your choice.

In this case, I didn't take the easy road. So, I could tell you that you shouldn't take easy road because it feels good to do the right thing. But that's not my style remember, I'm selfish.

Finding the artists sharpened my problem-solving skills. Point for me. It lead me to some incredible websites where I found this! Point for me. 



Pretty cool right?

It gave me a reason to contact these amazing artists. Point for me.  

But most importantly, if I were the artist, it would make me feel pretty good that somebody went through all this trouble because they appreciated my work. Point for them. Who wouldn't feel great about that? And who knows, maybe it will inspire them to get more involved inspring students. Remember, you've got a big job ahead of you. Point for the world.

So, by my count, that's 3 points for me, 1 for the artist, 1 for the world. I'd call it a win.