GET INSPIRED // The Bon Vivant's Guide to Camping & Feasting

We all love the city, but by this point in the summer, we're officially ready for an escape. Let this beautiful and empowering book, Campfire Cookery: Adventuresome Recipes and Other Curiosities for the Great Outdoors, be your guide to eating and drinking and well under the sun and stars.

Don't be misled by its fanciful and ambitious tone, with tips for a spirit-awakening séance (magic lantern and hypnotic techniques required) and recipes that sound more sophisticated than anything you've tried indoors (Brûléed Brown Sugar Grapefruit Brochettes, anyone?). This practical and accessible guide may very well be dog-eared, ash stained and passed on for generations. Brooklyn-based co-authors Sarah Huck and Jaimee Young aren't afraid to conquer the open flame and get their hands dirty, and you should take a cue from their words of hard-earned wisdom (with recipes) below. If the Campfire Cookery experience inspires you to become really jazzed on the whole outdoors thing, take advantage of opportunities in your own backyard: become an NYC Urban Park Ranger, or begin building a canoe of your own in 3rd Ward's Intro to Woodworking.  

3W: How and when did you come up for the concept of this book? How did it turn from abstraction into something you could hold in your hands?

Sarah Huck: It was March of 2009. Jaimee and I were working at my house; she was editing recipes for one project while I developed recipes for another. Somehow, we got to talking about the serious dearth of camping books that offered the kind of food you'd normally want to share with friends if you were, say, having a nice dinner at home. We get it—if you're rock climbing for weeks in the wilderness, it's not practical to bring Dutch ovens and duck breast in your pack. But for most casual campers, the culinary possibilities are actually pretty endless, yet most people hear "camping trip" and steer over to the canned goods aisle. For two people who enjoy the process of cooking as much as we enjoy eating, this felt like an untenable premise for a getaway. As it happened, the conversation coincided with a grilling cookbook we were working on, and we felt inspired to bring more smoky-but-sophisticated food to the masses and continue working and cooking outside.

Jaimee Young: Conceiving of the book was a bit like putting my hand up in fifth grade and asking, "Teacher...teacher...can we have class outside today, pleeeeease?" Of course all that pleading for more outside time resulted in my practically living at Sarah's kitchen table while we hammered out the proposal. All I wanted was a few days off to run around in the woods. Instead I got a year plus of hard labor, which resulted in a book I couldn't be more proud of. 

SH: We just threw ourselves into it and kept each other disciplined. For several months of nights and weekends, we drafted one sentence at a time until one day we realized we had a book proposal that we felt good about. We sent it to our agent, Jenni Ferrari-Adler, and after a few rounds of tweaking she went out with it to publishing houses. The whole process was a serious whirlwind. We sold the book in July of that year (2009).

3W: The design is gorgeous. What role did you play in that? 

SH: We feel extremely lucky that we landed with Alissa Faden, the book’s designer, who did a fabulous job of giving life to our writing. Jaimee and I conceived of the book as a throwback to another era, with this vague idea of Isak Dinesen on safari, or Auntie Mame goes adventuring. So our writing, and even our recipes to a certain extent, were cultivated with a very vintage-inspired feel in mind. We didn't have much say in the precise design, but the look of the book was created to complement the text. We actually found all those vintage prints ourselves, the constellation maps, the sheet music, the tarot cards (actually from Jaimee's stack), etc. We scoured the Internet for what we wanted and gave them to Alissa, who incorporated them into her design work.

JY: And our editor at Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, Natalie Kaire, was very involved in creating the look of the book, right down to choosing the nubbly hardcover with the title raised on gold letters on the spine. The voice of the book definitely informed the design choices. I often thought of Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility when she’s getting ready to leave the family estate of Norland. Jane Austen writes about her running through the woods, weeping, practically composing goodbye poems to every leaf on every tree. That's the attention to detail we wanted.

3W: How have your combined eight years of working as assistants and recipe testers to Melissa Clark [New York Times food columnist and cookbook author] informed this book?

SH: Although Melissa wasn’t involved in the book (she actually didn't see any of it until we'd pretty much finished the whole thing), working with her over the years was great preparation for this project.  Melissa has taught me a great deal about the cookbook world—in particular, the process of beginning with an idea you find compelling, developing recipes that speak to each other, and filling in the bits and pieces that transform pages of technical writing into something that is (we hope) a pleasure to read. I've always loved literature, and Melissa has reinforced my belief that cookbooks can be just as literary as any other form of writing.

JY: Melissa Clark is not an outdoorsy girl, but of course, her style of cooking and recipe development has influenced me greatly. I love how she cooks to her own tastes, her own appetite. For me, coming from a French Culinary Institute (pastry) background, it was sort of drummed into us never to deviate from a recipe. Ingredients are expensive, so even if you do try something new, you better make damn sure it works the first time. Kind of a lot of pressure there. But Melissa just gets an idea in her head, or maybe it's more of a craving in her belly, and just goes for it. If a recipe doesn't work out the way she planned, she'll tweak it and remake—or maybe decide that what she got was even better than what she planned. In which case, she might just change the name of the dish and move on. I love when she does that. It's such a fun way to work.

3W: How did you manage collaboration? What's the most challenging aspect of having a co-author? The most rewarding?

SH: It took us awhile to get into a collaborative groove. At first we would sit down together and literally agree on every word that hit the page. It was painfully slow. We did that straight through the proposal process, but once we'd sold the book and set out to write the entire manuscript, we realized that we would never meet our deadline at such a snail's pace. So we divvied up the writing and sent each other drafts to edit and critique. Our voices became so similar that now we often struggle to remember who wrote what. As for the recipes, we always met to develop dishes over an actual campfire, so there's not a single recipe in the book that we didn't taste together.

I think the most challenging aspect of co-authorship is that you have to be 100% respectful of the fact that another person's input is equally important as your own. There are times when you have to set aside your ego and seek compromise. The rewarding flip side is that collaborative writing has double the potential. Jaimee and I have pretty complimentary writing styles and sometimes one of us would suggest a word or turn of phrase that would instantly give a sentence greater vibrancy and clarity. It often felt like a case of two is stronger/smarter/funnier than one.

JY: I think the most rewarding aspect of collaboration is having a teammate, someone who is there to push you harder than you might push yourself, and someone who is there to boost you up when you have a setback. You’ve got to keep switching roles, as the cheerleader or the whipcracker. The hardest thing about collaborative writing is figuring out when to keep my mouth shut. Sometimes the internal monologue that I have going on does not need to be voiced to the person next me, my co-writer. Once I realized that little nugget, I also discovered that I write a whole lot better if I stopped listening to that usually overly critical internal monologue myself.

3W: You both have such adventurous palates and imaginations. How do you most like to feed them (i.e. culinary and artistic inspirations)?

SH: Why thank you! My favorite food-related pastime is having friends over for dinner. Developing recipes is a very precise activity and has its own pleasures, but when I have the chance to cook entirely on instinct, without a measuring cup in sight, I am a free thinking woman! I also find that sitting around a table with friends, talking and sharing homemade food, is hugely inspiring. Beyond that, inspiration doesn't usually come from food magazines, cooking shows, or even restaurants. I spend so much of my day in the kitchen, thinking and writing about food, that when I do have moments to feed myself creatively I respond most to escapist activities that have very little culinary relevance, like novels, films, and even design blogs. There's something about mentally slipping into another world that re-energizes me and jolts my brain into adopting a fresh perspective about everything in my life, including food.

JY: I get a lot of food ideas from literature, specifically kids’ books. Maybe because eating is such a powerful force in a child's life (as reward or punishment), children's book authors seem to do the very best job of describing meals and flavors. I am lately addicted to Roald Dahl's books. Of course everyone can point to Charlie & the Chocolate Factory or James & the Giant Peach for simply over-the-top wonderful, gluttonous food writing. But I could read his description of supper at his Norwegian grandmother's house again and again and again. And the weather is another big factor for me. I'm not just talking cooking seasonally. In this last heat wave all I could think about was snow cones. I don't know of a book on shaved ice, but it made for a lovely frosty July in my kitchen.

3W: What few things should every city slicker know about exploring and cooking in the natural world?

SH: Three things: Do not underestimate the importance of dry wood! If your wood is even just a little bit damp, you aren't going to get a crackling blaze anytime soon. Invest in a cast iron skillet. They are about 20 dollars and will last forever. And finally, don't limit yourself. Your camping meals needn't deserve Michelin stars, but don't underestimate the potential of outdoor cooking. If you can do it on a stove or grill, you can do it over an open fire—until 200 years ago, that's the only way people cooked!

JY: I think Sarah hit the nail on the head with dry wood. Its importance cannot be underestimated. Also, don't think you need to schedule a backpacking adventure; just get out there for a day, for a night if possible. Explore! It will give you a charge you would not have seen coming.

3W: How did you learn to combine cooking and camping?

SH: I tagged along on camping trips with friends' families in Wisconsin, where I grew up, went to Girl Scout camp every summer (where I perfected the Pudgy Pie), and spent lots of nights sleeping under the stars and telling ghost stories in my neighbors' backyards. My grandparents, who lived in St. Louis, also used to drive an RV to a local Wisconsin campground each year and lived there for the entire summer. I have so many memories of visiting them and picking wild raspberries, building campfires, looking for the Big Dipper, and hunting for s'more sticks. My grandfather showed me how to choose the greenest branches and would pull out his Swiss army knife to pare down one end to a perfect skewering point.

JY: My brother was the big camper on our family. He liked to go to this place in Northern California called Desolation Valley. He still goes there, with his two dogs (they each have their own backpack) and a couple handfuls of Power Bars. Well, that sort of thing is just not for me. I was more influenced in outdoorsy-ness by my grandfather, my mom's dad. On beautiful summer mornings he would say, "Everybody up for camp breakfast!", and we'd all tramp over to our community park where he'd make eggs and bacon and toast right there on the grill. It wasn't any kind of culinary risk; he just thought food tasted better outside, and I have to agree.

3W: What are you working on, and/or what's next for each of you?

SH: I'm doing a mix of writing, editing, teaching, and recipe development work. I've also started working on another book, a sweet and savory guide to cooking with fruit.  I really love the cookbook world, so I'm hoping to just keep on going! 

JY: I'm taking advantage of the August work lull and spending time with my mom and grandma in northeast Ohio. I'm also assisting Melissa with her next slew of projects and will hopefully be working with Sarah soon to put together a Campfire Cookery sequel, which will take the ideals of the first book to a new location! As far as career goals go, I'd love to work the way my current favorite writer, Roald Dahl, did:  short stories, kids’ books, a pair of memoirs, and one of my all-time favorite cookbooks.

See below for two delicious recipes from the book: mussels washed down with rosemary gin fizz! 

Classic Garlicky Steamed Moules

At camp, our tradition is to whip up a bowl of plump, briny mussels wading in an aromatic, garlic-studded broth the moment we arrive. While several among the party rig up our tents, pour glasses of Lillet, and polish the binoculars, the rest of us set to work building a fire. Shellfish being quite perishable, this is a prudent way to use them at their freshest and finest. We also love the speed with which they can be prepared, since one ought always begin outdoor revelry as quickly as possible. Be sure to include a crusty baguette in one’s camp larder; it is a heavenly vehicle for soaking up the mussels’ cooking juices. 

Provides 4 portions

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 shallot, finely chopped

2 fat garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 cup dry white wine

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 pounds freshest mussels, rinsed and well drained

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

Crusty baguette, for serving

Prepare a medium-high-heat fire, with flames occasionally licking the grill grate. Let the fire burn for 45 minutes, until glowing coals and embers form. Then use a coal shovel or like implement to scrape a bed of embers off to the side of the fire.

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven over the high heat until bubbling. Add the shallot and garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Carefully pour in the wine and add the salt. Add the mussels and give a quick stir. Cover the pot and cook until most of the mussels have opened, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and discard any unopened mussels. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with crusty bread for soaking up the delicious mussel liquor. 

Gent’s Rosemary Gin Fizz

This is our take on the classic Ramos Fizz, invented in the 1880s by Henry C. Ramos in the crescent city of New Orleans. It was Mr. Ramos’s innovation to add cream to this concoction. No doubt he felt his patrons were not getting enough calcium to make them grow big and strong (and able to shake this drink for the two solid minutes it requires for a proper fizz). Well, mixing dairy with one’s gin is certainly our preferred way to achieve sturdy bones and a dazzling smile. We took the liberty of garnishing with rosemary to give the sophisticated city cocktail a rural charm. 

Provides 1 cocktail

2 ounces gin

2 to 4 dashes orange bitters, according to one’s appreciation of bitterness

2 tablespoons Lemon Confectionery Syrup (see below)

2 tablespoons heavy cream

1 large farm-fresh egg white, optional

2 dashes orange flower water, optional (see Advisement)

1 fresh orange wedge

1 sprig fresh rosemary

Place the gin, bitters, confectionery syrup, and cream, as well as the egg white and orange flower water, if desired, in a shaker. Close the lid securely and shake vigorously until the drink is fizzy and foamy, about 2 minutes. Pour the mixture into a chilled highball glass and add a squeeze of orange. Use a sharp knife to remove the peel from the orange and skewer the fruit with the rosemary sprig. Plop the sprig into the glass and serve immediately, before the fizz dissipates. 

Advisement: Be judicious with the orange flower water; a little of this elixir goes a long way. If one uses too much, the cocktail will be more suitable for decanting into a lady’s cut-crystal perfume bottle than into a glass. 

Lemon Confectionery Syrup

Making a confectionery syrup out of one’s tree-ripened lemons is the most expedient way to capture their tart sweetness just at the pinnacle of their glory. This syrup can be made prior to a camping trip, and refrigerated in a jar with a tightly fitting lid for up to 3 months.

Provides about 1 1/4 cups syrup

2 lemons

1 cup sugar

Use a Microplane to finely grate the zest from both lemons into a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Extract the juice from the lemons. Place a sieve over the pan and pour the lemon juice through it. Add the sugar and 1 cup water to the pan and place it over a medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and bubbles appear (there is no need to bring the liquid to a full boil).

-- Interview by Cara Cannella 

Wind-Up Photos // Member Networking Event

Last week we had another great Member networking event, with refreshments from the Jello Shot Girl and presentations from 3rd Ward Members! See all the Wind-Up photos on the 3rd Ward Facebook Page and find out more about Wind-Up here.

PLAY NOW // An Evolutionary Process // Meet Launa Eddy

At 3rd Ward, Launa Eddy creates everything from jewelry to inflatable sculptures to a crazy surrealist chair (you may have spotted its fangs in our lobby).

“I don’t know where I’m going...[but] the more I learn and the more time I put into the things I do, the more all-encompassing it becomes. It becomes a lifestyle. It becomes creating the world that you know.“



An Evolutionary Process // Meet Launa Eddy, 3rd Ward Member from 3rd Ward on Vimeo.

Launa has been a 3rd Ward Member for a little over a year and just finished teaching her first class, Extreme Paper Mache Sculpture. She even did the animation in this video.

Learn which Membership is right for you on the 3rd Ward Membership Page.

EQUIPMENT UPDATE // Major Metal Shop Upgrade

Jake Antonelli, who arrived here last spring from Philadelphia to manage the metal and wood shops, explains the draw to 3rd Ward: “You can get practical real-life application in a cool setting and be surrounded by plenty of high-end customized work. There's so much potential here, and it’s a perfect place for that to flourish.”

So on a recent afternoon, we toured the evolving space with him and learned about some new game-changing assets, including a Clausing Colchester 15" Metal Lathe, Bridgeport series 1 automatic and manual metal mills and a Kuhlmann engraver (Check out the photos after the jump.)

“Until now, our metal shop has been equipped for welding and grinding. Now with the addition of the Bridgeports and metal lathes, we’ll be able to mill metal, which allows for more precision types of applications,” Jake says. The equipment was purchased over the past few months from a neighborhood machinist who used to manufacture for the Navy and went out of business.

“All of these machines are 1950s technology. Students here are learning the basics from scratch; there’s no better way to learn. The timeless approach is being challenged by digital technology—meaning your hands are removed from the process—but what we’re trying to do is spark a renaissance to bring back old and forgotten methods,” he says. “This is an opportunity to really explore materials in depth and understand them from the inside out. We want to be current [and the shops’ digital components are growing], but also want people to understand things from the ground up.”

Along our tour of the currently intersecting metal and wood shops (within a few months, the wood shop is moving upstairs, to a gorgeous light filled loft space outfitted with a separate classroom), we pass a guy building a guitar, surrounded by a collection of other musical instruments he has made, and a stack of wood from an old water tank that will be turned into reclaimed restaurant tabletops. Miles Davis plays in the background, and Jake points to other pockets of activity: a guy using materials from an old bowling alley to build his own kitchen; another working on a residential cabinet job for a designer.

“We have a lot of professionals working out of here. They’re here all day long running a business, often working for architects or designers on fabrication projects. They’re really up on the latest equipment and tools, always pushing, ‘Hey, we need one of these.’ They’re a great research group. We’re trying to build a model of education, and I’ve been treating it like a university [in terms of acquiring equipment]. We have all the basic machinery, simple and accessible enough for everybody,” Jake says.   

While some equipment can be reserved, it’s mostly available on a first-come first-serve basis. The off-peak (i.e. less busy) time tends to be between 8 and 11am. “The shop community works together to share equipment, and people figure out a rhythm,” Jake says. Come on in for your own tour, and see how it all comes together. 

Clausing Colchester 15" Metal Lathe

Kuhlmann engraver

Bridgeport metal mill

-- Cara Cannella

Pig Roast pics are up!

Thanks to everyone who came out for our Pig Roast last Saturday! See below for a couple of our favorite shots and check out the 3rd Ward Facebook Page for the full 130+ photo album. Thanks to Liz Clayman for the amazing photographs.

Sneak Peek // 3rd Ward’s Amazing New Store at the Dekalb Market

If you’ve been to the Dekalb Market, you may have noticed a mysterious container labeled SHOP BOX from 3rd Ward.

What is SHOP BOX? We’ll have more details to reveal soon, but here’s a bit of an inside scoop. It will be memorable in every way.

Design: The container itself is being transformed into a windowed showcase, with spinning, multi-level pedestals illuminated with video and a timed light program. 3rd Ward Member, Luke Schantz, programmed this techno-commerce-box with Arduino. (Luke has done a lot of interactive environment work with Blue Man Group, so that should give you an idea.)

Products: We searched far and wide for the most amazing American-made products. We’ll be selling everything from tools to gorgeous tables to plastic flamingos. Think high-design, hands-on, and delightful in every way.

Easy & Fun Buying: All SHOP BOX goods will be text-to-buy. No apps. No cashiers. You’ll be able to buy on-site or at home, and can share the code with friends. We like it because it’s easy, secure, and also pretty fun.

And this is just the beginning. SHOP BOX is just Phase 1 in a larger retail program. Pretty soon, 3rd Ward will be opening its own retail store. But we’ll save that for another blog post…

Plus, check out 3rd Ward’s farm plot at the Dekalb Market here.

GALLERY OPENING // Andrea Galvani: Four Works

"Death of an Image #12" invites cosmological readings. Andrea Galvani: Four Works
Thursday, August 28, 7-10 pm
Aperture Foundation, 547 West 27th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY

Our friends at Artists Wanted, in collaboration with Aperture Foundation, is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by Artist Andrea Galvani, winner of the 2010 Exposure Prize. Curated by Nora Lawrence, Four Works shows both the breadth of the artist's work in the last five years and the consistency of his research.

Cerebral, austere, and visually sharp, Galvani's images present singular moments in time that invite the viewer to enter rich, seductive and allusive visual universes. Two of the images selected for this exhibition are being shown for the first time in the United States.

"I feel the need to get close to the land, to slowly repossess it, in order to then violate it -- to to turn it on its head using diffrent materials."

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW // Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge: Loud & Clear

We’ve been interested in Brooklyn based writer Grace Bonney and her perspective on DIY design since the launch of her blog Design*Sponge in 2004. Through its inspired, empowering, and exhaustive content—including home tours, city guides, small biz advice, recipes, DIY projects, and more—the site has built an audience of 75,000+ daily readers, 280,000+ Twitter followers and 20,000 Facebook followers.

As content creators, we admire the constant evolution and growth of Bonney’s site and voice…so when she speaks up, we listen. Her impassioned and thoughtful 3,300-word response to the recent New York Times story about the new world of online shelter magazines struck a nerve, and we asked her to continue the dialogue here. (Join us after the jump for the Q&A.)

Not only does the drive behind these small, successful online magazines (including Lonny and Rue) taking on the big dogs of traditional media have much in common with the entrepreneurial creativity of folks working in all kinds of mediums at 3rd Ward, but Bonney herself embodies what we’re all about—building community through shared resources, vision, hard work, and play.

Her response to the Times piece—inspired in part by Tina Fey’s take on women and competition in Bossypants and her rereading of the Riot Grrrl literature of her teenage years—addresses several hot-button topics surrounding traditional media vs. online content. It also raises the bar for young women content producers and business owners in terms of the need for increased professionalism and collaboration.

A former contributing editor at Domino (shuttered in 2009, much to the dismay of its devoted following), Bonney founded Design*Sponge as a one-woman show and now runs the site with her husband Aaron Coles (director of advertising), managing editor Amy Azzarito, and a team of 20 freelance contributors. The site has established a breezy yet authoritative voice captured in her soon-to-be-published first book, Design*Sponge at Home, a comprehensive (and gorgeous) guide to home décor and DIY projects (Artisan, September 2011).

We also admire (and learn from) Bonney’s support of the community that supports her. Since 2007, she has offered no-strings-attached scholarships for art and design students, and in 2008, she launched D*S Biz Ladies, a national series of meet-ups offering free legal, business, financial and marketing advice for women running design-based businesses.

Last month, on a break from the DIY Business Association Conference, where she was headlining, we sat down with her over coffee in DUMBO.

3W: What was your initial reaction after reading the Times piece?

Grace Bonney: I couldn’t stop myself from responding. It came from a gut level, and I haven’t been that excited to write something in years. I thought, “There’s no way I’m getting through the day without getting this out.” I have a lot of strong opinions about online magazines in general, but for the most part when you express opinions about the online design community that aren’t positive, people immediately read that as cattiness or jealousy.

3W: So it’s more of a rah-rah cheerleader atmosphere?

GB: It’s not a community that I feel supports constructive criticism, so I usually keep it to myself. The online design community has a hard time accepting criticism, and as someone who absorbs a hell of a lot of it on a regular basis I see that while it’s difficult and sometimes mean-spirited, it can also be incredibly helpful.

3W: How did you become open to criticism?

GB: I was an art major in school, and crits [critiques] were such a big part of that. If you get used to them, you realize they can be incredibly forceful in terms of really pushing yourself to be better. In the [online design] community a lot of people are coming to art for the first time, I think, so it’s so sensitive and personal. They have a hard time realizing that once you get past that initial hump of making something, you have to try to make something even better the next time.

3W: What kind of reaction did expect after you posted in response to the Times article?

GB: I thought I would probably get attacked for saying this. It’s important that the design community supports each other, but the article made a lot of really good points that I wanted to discuss…so I think it was the right time, right place, and I had to say it.

3W: In the evolution of anything, standards must be raised, right? Regarding online magazines, was that the intention or result of the article and your response to it?

GB: You don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade and say, “Okay, you’ve been doing the same thing for a few years. Now you can do something different or better.” The general problem I have with the DIY community right now, even at Renegade…I walk around and see people doing really simple screen-printed cards or tote bags and stuff, and that’s fine, but I want people to take it to the next level and experiment with something in a more difficult way, to push themselves beyond using stock imagery. I want people to try harder. And that’s how I feel about online magazines. I want people to realize that yes, they’re totally in their infancy, and I don’t expect anything to be perfect—I mean, believe me, my blog is not perfect—but I have a readership that constantly tells me what they’d prefer that I do or how they want me to change things. I hated it at first, but now I realize that’s what has really pushed me, and I wanted to offer the same.

3W: Soon after the discussion about The Times article, you worked with a journalist to offer Media Training as part of your Biz Ladies series. Why did you feel the need to do so?

GB: I thought that the young women who were interviewed should have been more careful with what they said. I’ve had trouble with The Times, too. Not being misquoted—what I said and what those girls said I’m sure is what was actually said—but you have to be careful about how sarcasm comes across. I had a very visceral response to understanding what had probably happened.

3W: What else bothered you about the article?

GB: They didn’t say what these magazines are doing in a good way or discuss what this all means for design publishing in general. I was glad that the article pointed out that the first couple issues of Lonny were heavily Domino material, but overall, the oldest of these magazines is two years old, so there isn’t as much copy-catting as the article made it sound. I also hated that they they shit all over blogs [From the article: “As Crystal Gentilello, the 28-year-old co-founder and editor of Rue, put it, ‘Everyone and their mother has a blog.’”] For me, it’s not about the medium, it’s about the message, and I think that the message [at these online magazines] is getting watered down by a lack of editing. I read The Times article seven or eight times, and the more I read it, the more I realized that they missed a chance to talk about something really important: the fact that these magazines are free means that the competition is very different. You don’t have to subscribe or pay for them, so you can read like a million of them. Bloggers always feel competitive with each other, but they shouldn’t, because all of those readers read all of those sites. It’s not like people say, “I only read Design*Sponge and nothing else.” That’s not how online readers work. They want as much information as they can find.

The article set up those two women [Crystal Gentilello of Rue and Michelle Adams of Lonny] to be really catty. There’s obviously plenty of cattiness in an industry dominated by women, but the focus shouldn’t have been about that.  I don’t care if those two girls hate each other. If they do, fine…duke it out. But for the most part, those two magazines are doing pretty well for being new ventures. They should have been talking about how their businesses were set up, where did they get the money to start, how they got their advertisers. They’re businesess! I don’t think any of them are that profitable (I don’t think they’re paying the people who work for them, and that’s a whole different side-story), but it would have been great for the reporter to pull in Sweet Paul or another online magazine.

3W: What were your art school critiques like? How did they thicken your skin?

GB: They’re brutal! I distinctly remember during my senior crit, a teacher told me I would never be an artist…that I was not in the right field. In a way, he was totally right. I was not meant to be a fine artist. I’ve always had a better eye than a hand for things. Luckily I stumbled into another teacher my senior year who got me and said, “I think you’re going to do well. You’re not going to be an artist, but I understand why you want to be a part of this community.” She pushed me to take criticism classes, actual art history classes, which I found to be way too formal and overly critical. So I found a way to combine my love of writing and feedback with an eye for a very specific style.

3W: So more of a curatorial career in a way?

GB: Yes. I realize I don’t have the background or education to back up a serious criticism career. I don’t see myself as a serious critic or serious writer, but I’m someone who is very sure of my opinions and very enthusiastic about the community. But I realize that that part of a community growing is to push itself harder. I think the DIY community needs that.

3W: Voice is such an important aspect of a blog. How did your voice and strong opinions develop? 

GB: I’ve always been really opinionated. All of the women in my family are. I grew up with a lot of strong female role models who aren’t afraid to say what they think. I lost that in college [at William & Mary in Virginia]—I did a lot of just watching and listening and paying attention, and when I got to New York after school, I felt like I was ready to say something. I wasn’t seeing the things that I was interested in in magazines or on TV or online, so I had plenty to say. The hard part as time goes on is to maintain a voice that’s excited and relevant. All of the things I wasn’t seeing before are now super saturated in the market, so you have to keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s part of my responsibility to constantly be learning new things and to grow and change.  

3W: How do you establish the tone and how personal to make your voice?

GB: It changes over time. I was really personal at first. I tried to sound cooler than I was, then realized that didn’t work. I really loved Wonkette, that political blog, and I was trying to be sassy like that. I can be sassy in real life, but in terms of a public voice, that wasn’t right for me. I try to keep it positive as much as possible. For the most part, that means people contribute that energy back. I pulled myself out of the site personally around 2007 and started using other writers. There was too much of me, and I wanted to keep more of that for myself. Then people started to miss that, and I got emails that said, “Where did you go? I miss when you write about what you do.” So I started to put more of myself back into the site, and people responded really positively. It was a good reminder that it started as a personality-based site, and it still is one, but now when I talk about personal things I talk about things that are a little more serious, since that’s where I am.

3W: When it comes to feedback, how do you know what to ignore and what to pay attention to?

GB: You get used to it over the years. It’s hard not to take it personally, but you also learn to put it in perspective. The teacher who told me I would never do anything— he’s now a regular reader of the site, and we talk. I remember thinking then, “He doesn’t get me.” Sometimes you’ll get criticism from people who don’t understand what you’re doing or who aren’t interested in it. It’s not that it’s not valid, but you don’t have to absorb and change based upon everyone’s criticism. I got a lot of valuable input from people like Andrew Wagner at ReadyMade and Allan Chochinov at Core77.com, one of the original industrial design blogs. He’s someone I really respect. I was the keynote speaker at a conference of industrial designers in Portland, and I felt very out place. So I worked really hard on the speech and called him and said, “This is what I’m thinking of saying.” Then he said, “I want to hear what YOU have to say, not what you think you should say.” He was totally right. He gets me and the community, and it was totally valuable feedback.

I’m a very type-A person, and I’m my own worst critic. There’s really nothing anyone can tell me that I haven’t already felt self-conscious about, whether it’s about how I write or if I feel like I’m having an off week on the site. It comes back quickly in comment form because I’m really open and honest with my readers.

3W: What can you tell us about your book and the writing of it?

GB: It comes out early September. The process was really organic. I’d been blogging for seven years by the time I wrote it, but I began hearing from publishers in '06 or '07 about wanting to turn the blog into a book, or they wanted to hand me a topic they already had in mind. Nothing felt right. They wanted to do something really nichey, and I wanted a book to reflect the breadth of information that we deliver every day on the site. So I waited. I thought, “There’s really no reason to put so much time into something unless I really love it.” You don’t necessarily make money off a book, so I knew it had to be something I’d love regardless of whether I lost a bunch of money on it. So I waited until I found the right house. Artisan was awesome. They let me bring in the design team. That never happens for a first time author. A lot of people want to take the first thing that comes along because it’s exciting, and you’re so flattered, you just want to say yes. But most business owners who do really well are really selective about what they do, and that might mean waiting three or four years. I firmly believe that things happen when they’re supposed to, so I never feel rushed.

3W: You’ve used the term “DIY” a few times. Can you give us your take on it?

GB: I was very into Riot Grrrl stuff when I was younger, and I’ve been rereading a lot of it lately. It’s inspiring since they’ve been doing their own thing for a long time. It seems to me that the DIY community is starting to splinter into a lot of factions, and I’d like to see it come together more often. Support for one another is usually in hugging form, and it also needs to be in real valuable feedback form. What’s happening reminds me of what happened with feminism; there’s a lot of infighting. I want people to not kill each other from the inside, but to find a way to take those divisions and disagreements and learn from them. There are a lot of bloggers in my own niche, and I might totally disagree with how they run things, but I find it really fascinating to have good conversations with them about why they do things the way they do, and I almost always learn from it even if I don’t agree with it. It’s valuable to get someone else’s perspective on something that you’re passionate about.

3W: What excites you these days in the design world?

GB: In terms of publishing, we’re in a weird space right now. People are testing out things. Some of it’s going well, some of it’s not. I don’t feel entirely inspired by the design blog community right now, and I include myself in that. I’m in a weird shift space where I’m trying to figure out what that next big thing is, what I really want to do with the site, where to push it next. I need to take risks really often, or I get bored. I can’t figure out what that next thing is. Everyone’s trying to figure out what to do next. In the next year there will be a lot of rebirth and excitement happening, but right now people are trying to get their footing and stay afloat, so there’s not a lot of risk-taking. People who are developing iPad apps are exciting to watch…iPads are beautiful & perfect for magazines.

3W: How have you managed during the economic downturn?

GB: I keep things as low overhead as possible. I don’t want to have a studio or an office. We have 20 freelancers, and three of us are full-time—me, my husband, who runs the ad team, and Amy, the first full-time editorial person I’ve ever had. I brought her on this year. We’re a very small run-by-the-seat-of-our-pants company right now, and I prefer it that way. If we had VC money right now, there would be someone else to answer to, and it wouldn’t feel fun anymore. Design*Sponge is a DIY project. I did it entirely on my own. I would never sell the site or take a chunk of investment money. My plan is just that someday I’ll write a I’ve-decided-to-do-something-different post. Although it’s a business, it’s a creative art project more than anything else. It’s run by a single person who has changing interests, so the site is going to grow and change. If I’m not inspired, then my writing’s not inspired, and there’s no point in doing it if I don’t love it. 

-- Cara Cannella 

 

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY // Make Something + Make a Difference with The Future Project

Do you care about the future? Of course you do. Otherwise you probably wouldn't be reading this. Well, how about applying your creative skills to actively helping the next generation discover their interests and talents?

Do just that by volunteering as a Future Coach for The Future Project, a new national movement that's shaking up the traditional education paradigm by bringing together high school students and artists, makers and idea-generators of all types.

Each Future Coach is paired with one high school student, a Future Fellow, and coaches and fellows meet in groups for 90 minutes each week to collaborate on projects based on something that they care about. "The idea is that maybe school wouldn't be so boring if students, even low-income students, were given the opportunity to create projects they care about," says Ian Temple, The Future Project's Chief Operating Officer. 

Coaches and fellows work on a project that excites them for an entire school, building leadership and self-expression skills and having fun and inspiring each other in the process.

Interested? Act now. The application deadline for becoming a Future Coach (July 31) is less than a week away!

Watch a video about The Future Project after the jump.

PIG OUT TOMORROW // UNION STREET PRESERVATION SOCIETY PROVIDES THE RAGTIME

How were we supposed to throw our 4th Annual Pig Out tomorrow without the likes of these guys?:

That is correct -- Brooklyn's own Union Street Preservation Society will be bringin' their much hallowed old-time, ragtime, bluegrass, country jazz thing to 3rd Ward's BBQ tomorrow afternoon; transforming the back patio's pig roasting festivities into what'll hopefully resemble Lockhart, Texas (BBQ capital of the country, people) circa 1937.

You want in on the time warp? You've got to RSVP at www.3rdward.com/rsvp

Head right here for all the info you'll ever need.