Say What?

Reactions across the board are varied and passionate as the news begins to spread in the design world. What news you may ask?

Adobe and Macromedia MERGE!!. Or more appropriately, Adobe buys macromedia in an all stock deal worth a little over three billion dollars.

This reporter's reaction is nothing short of stunned. Apparently, there has been undercurrents and rumors of this potential merger over the past couple of years as both companies' product offerings grew closer in purpose, but somehow, I never heard of it.

My first instinct is - NOOOOOOO -. I love Adobe. I love Macromedia. But the joining of both, for me is like (.. takes a moment to come up with a proper simile..) mixing peanut butter and chocolate. I know that there are hoardes of Reeses peanut butter cups lovers out there, but for me, the mix just never took. I like to have both flavors distinct, appreciate one and then the other. Combine them and what you have is just... not quite right. One inevitably gets lost in the other.

In addition, considering that these are the two biggest software companies out there for the products they offer ( for the unitiated, think graphics, print, multimedia ), this constitutes the death of choice, options and friendly competition. The last part particularly of note because friendly competition drives innovation. Now, they both have quite literally almost no one to compete against them.

What to make of this is yet to be seen.

Macromedia
Adobe

Inspiration... where art thou?

I have this cycle, created, I think out of necessity. I get a project, or if I'm fortunate, ( or unfortunate as you may soon decide) I get more than one, and I have to play this juggling act. I'm working on coming up with something extremely ingenious for each project, to keep up with my standard of work. Ultimately, I do and then I burn out. I've used so much brain power I guess, that my brain demands rest. I have to stop and relax as much as possible if I'm ever going to do anything worth looking at for the next project. Of course, I'm beginning to wonder if this is the way to go. Something about pushing yourself to the point of burnout every other month is potentially unhealthy.

I of course started this because as a freelancer, when you begin, you take projects when they come, projects you are sure you can do no doubt, but projects none the less. You do this because the next few months may be unpleasantly quiet as far as clients go. Problem is you may end up like every other token designer out there eventually. Spitting out the same layouts, and ending up using lime and purple on your next layout.