I’d be lying if I tried to tell you I do not covet the Winterhouse writing award. I do. Like Boromir, I fear this desire will destroy me, or at least drive me to beat up Elijah Wood, which is something I really wouldn’t want to do.
Every year Design Observer puts out the call for entries and that amazing $10,000 prize taunts me like Mohammed Ali, letting me know that as much writing and commentary as I produce on design on a weekly basis, it is not worth $10,000. This could be a false assumption, because I do believe the first prize went to a girl who obsessively dissected emoticons. And that seems to be it: like most of the over-long and painfully dull (re:non-Bierut & Heller) articles on DO, you have to write obsessively about something nobody cares about. Like coffee-filter packaging or something. I’m sure somewhere right now there’s some obsessive-compulsive design writer putting together a three-part thesis on coffee-filter packaging and that’s probably going to take the 2010 prize.
I was looking through the 70 (if you count the one currently-produced Special) strips I’ve got here and feel pretty good about a few of them and the medium’s ability to comment on design, and then the rule set of the Winterhouse took over and I remembered the part about everything needing to be set in Courier. This, by the way, is basically designers removing the design from their papers, and I get it. It’s supposed to remove any typographic context. Maybe the judges have a hard-on for mono-spaced fonts, I don’t know.
With a relatively low entry fee (only $25), I am still considering entering the strip, if only to piss off the judges. However, I think I will wait for next year, in all seriousness, when my journals of milk-cap sticker designs and their impact on the American consciousness are completed.
Nate Voss: 
Honey Bee Invites: 
Neenah Paper: 
36 Point: 
Jeff Fisher: 
Nate Voss is a designer, illustrator, talkshow host and design journalist. Working in Omaha since 2001, Nate served four years on the Board of Directors for 
Donovan oversees all creative development at
“The Michael Bay Template & Style Guide” suggests a mono-spaced comic strip typeset in Courier, starring a monotone character named Mercury who has a penchant for bad dialogue and making things go boom. The Roman God Mercury was a messenger, a word which can occasionally be substituted for Courier, and Roman Gods are sweet because they have swords and chariots and stuff. Dude, no wonder Michael Bay is the greatest director of his generation, that sounds like a rad comic.
BOOM. $10,000. You’re welcome.
BWAHAHAHA!