I’m writing a new talk. Since a few folks have asked, here’s what my process tends to look like:

1. Several months before the conference, I’ll start researching my topic. For me, this mainly involves reading, and a lot of it. I’ll use Pinboard to store links to essays, articles, and tweets that seem relevant, and tag each link with something relevant to the conference.
2. A month or two beforehand, I’ll start writing. But I won’t fire up a text editor right away. Instead, I’ll buy a stack of index cards, and start writing on them. Each card gets an idea I want to cover, like an item in an outline. But this is much, much less linear: I want things to be as unstructured as possible at this point.
   • Jeremy tends to do this on a big sheet of paper, which I think is wonderful. I think you could easily use a digital tool like Mural to a similar effect.
3. Once I’ve gotten most everything jotted down on several dozen cards, I’ll spread them out on a table, and grouping related cards together. After everything’s found a home, I’ll transfer the cards to a bulleted list. This is my outline.
4. At this point, I’ll start writing. For most talks, this involves a weird jumble of outlining and prose. I rarely write out my talks in their entirety, instead preferring to keep things as conversational as possible. For this talk, I’m writing myself something a little more detailed.
5. I delete a bunch of words, since I suddenly realize they’re awful.
6. I delete a few hundred more.
7. Self-doubt begins to creep in. I remember that in another timeline, I went to graduate school. I wonder if it’s too late to throw in the towel on this whole “design” thing. Maybe I should move back north, see about working the family farm.
8. I write a couple thousand words in one afternoon. Maybe this is doable.
9. I write another introduction, replacing the one I’d written down a week or two prior. This one feels better.
10. Then again, the last one felt pretty good.
11. I write a paragraph about how racism informed the design work of a late, prominent architect. That’ll show ’em.
12. I delete the paragraph I just wrote, as it was terrible.
13. I close my laptop, and sit quietly for a minute.

14. I put on my coat, and walk out of my apartment. The street outside is dark, save for a few streetlights at the far end. I remember the days are shorter now, and colder. I take a breath or two on the porch, listening to the traffic pass by on Highland. Near as I can tell, I’m the only person outside on my street. A block or two away—maybe more?—a dog barks, twice. Then, nothing. The neighborhood’s quiet again, save for me, breathing.

    I step off my porch, and walk away from my building. I walk south, but not far—I come to the top of a nearby hill, where I can see the Cambridge skyline and, just past it, Boston proper. I stand there, in the shadow of a beautiful old cathedral, looking at this city that’s been my home for two decades. I think about the life I’ve made here, the friends I’ve made, the friends that moved away, the friends that stayed but I don’t see anymore, the friends I’ve lost. I think about my grandmother, and whether or not she’d approve of my new apartment—she only saw my last apartment once, the day after She and I got married. My grandmother had a little trouble with the front steps, but she had a grand old time once she got inside: she held court at one end of our living room, meeting new people, eating new food, and reaching down to pet our little cat whenever she came near.

    A car passes by, its high beams bold, sharp; I raise my hands to cover my eyes, and it passes quickly. Then, nothing. Save for me, breathing.

    It’s cold out here. Cold, and quiet.

15. I walk back toward home, and settle back into work.
16. Whenever the script’s done, I’ll start transferring it into Keynote. With a decent script or outline in place, this step should go relatively quickly.
17. Be sure to leave plenty of time for rehearsal. Nothing improves a talk like a few runthroughs.

And that’s how I write my conference talks.

I’ve had a mantra since Trump was elected: "it is going to keep getting worse". It’s depressing but I find being clear helps bolster me for the upcoming pain. There is no realistic scenario where the next two years in America are going to go better politically.

The midterms were a success for the Democrats. They decisively took the House. A victory, hooray! But what does that victory get us? Very little. At best, it slows down the horrible deluge of atrocities that are still coming.

Trump will remain President. There’s no likely path to an actual impeachment; even if Mueller has clear evidence of treason the Republicans in the Senate will protect Trump. And if they decide to get rid of Trump the result would be President Pence. That may be less stupid and crazy but Pence is also a bad and dangerous politician. And it is the entire Republican party that is the problem, not just Trump, and they will remain in power.

The best outcome from these midterms is the Democrats will use the investigatory powers of the House to unearth some of the Trump Administration’s crimes and malfeasance. (There’s an active debate on how aggressive the Democrats want to be.) A little truth-and-reconciliation would help things. Unearth the Trump Organization’s financial double dealings that corrupt the presidency. Get to the bottom of how our country stole thousands of children from their parents at the border and then lost several hundred of them, permanently orphaning the kids. Expose the Republican strategy of denying people voting rights to win elections. A little fresh air will feel good but it won’t actually change anything. We are way, way beyond where appeals to truth or decency matter.

Meantime, the Republicans will continue their campaign of vandalism. They will continue to undermine Obamacare. They will continue to demonize immigrants in a rank display of racism. They will continue to undermine LGBT rights, particularly transgender peoples’. They will continue to destroy our economy with reckless tax cuts. If not via legislation, then via executive action.

And forget our government taking normal action on necessary things like funding infrastructure, improving healthcare, setting reasonable foreign policy. Gridlock is better than active harm, but the best we have to hope for is gridlock.

That’s normal politics. It could get much worse. Trump is entirely unpredictable. It seems quite likely he will draw a page from the Putin playbook and start a war next year to help galvanize support for his re-election. Maybe Iran, Venezuela, Yemen. Maybe some "shithole" country he decides to attack. Nothing will stand in his way of creating a war.

Even that’s somewhat normal by American experience (see: 2003 in Iraq). The scariest thing to me is the rising fascism in American political rhetoric. The increasing appeals to violence. The demonizing of journalism. The frighteningly aggressive rhetoric of Trump’s rallies. The gun and bomb attacks by brownshirts. I was genuinely afraid the 2018 elections would be marred by some violent event, a mass shooting at a polling place or something. I’m glad I was wrong. I’m not going to be any less worried about that after two more years of Trump.

The country is breaking.

Toward the start of his career, Questlove was part of the Soulquarians, a music collective that answered to music’s digital bent with analog sensibilities. Albums like D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar, Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, and the Roots’ own Things Fall Apart resulted from the Soulquarians’ brief but fruitful existence from 1996 to 2002, epitomizing the height of neo-soul.

That period also became the seed for a running theory Questlove had for decades: There are two types of artists, the more commercially driven “achievers” and the more high-minded “creatives.” Working with the Soulquarians convinced Questlove that creatives worked best among themselves.

But Questlove doesn’t believe that anymore, not when the Roots have since worked with “achievers” like Jay Z, Usher, and Jimmy Fallon, to more success than he could have imagined. In Creative Quest, Questlove updates his terminology, rendering achievers “Type As” and creatives “Type Bs,” to better reflect how no one type is more inventive than the other. In fact, he stresses, the two can often learn from each other. Here are some examples from the book on what Questlove considers some of the most unlikely, yet most successful, collaborations in his career.

 

Jay Z’s tip for improving team collaboration: Be straightforward

In 2001, Jay Z approached the Roots to be his backing band for a landmark hip-hop episode of MTV Unplugged. But Jay’s musical persona as “the CEO as top-dog hustler,” and his shameless chase for commercial hits, made Questlove feel uneasy.

Harder than it used to be.

This post was supposed to be about progressive rock.

This website will turn 20 years old this year. I revisit posts from the first ten years and barely recognize this idiot who seemed to know so much and posted several times a day and didn’t care so much about being wrong.

Today I stop and think: have I thought this through? Does this need to be said? I’ve become less confident in organizing my thoughts.

The point I was going to make about prog-rock was about how I don’t listen to much new stuff. There are scores of bands creating music that sits nicely alongside canonical, genre-defining work from decades ago. But it doesn’t grab me the same way.

Because IMO prog-rock is best discovered when you’re a teenager, just learning how to play drums or guitar, and one summer someone hands you a mixtape that blows your mind and for a while your whole life becomes an obsession with odd time signatures and the Mixolydian mode.

Returning to blogging is hard, because in some ways its lost a sense of potential energy. The shared sense of being part of something that is happening right now is missing. (That energy seems abundant on Instagram.)

When I read about or hear people longing for a return to blogging as a respite from the chaos of social media, I wonder if what we’re really missing are the days when blogging was the New Thing. Back when everyone introduced themselves with a URL instead of a Twitter handle; when the addiction cycle was email > blogroll > message board instead of Twitter > Facebook > Instagram. And back when we were certain that something good was going to come from all of this.

Blogging may not be dead but it sure feels like it went underground, like prog-rock.

I’ve been blogging since before “blog” was even a word. (I wrote my first blog post twenty-one years ago last Thursday!) I’ve had a financial blog for a dozen years now. In that time, things have changed in a variety of ways. For instance:

• Blogging has become more business-like and less personal. A decade ago, most blogs — even money blogs — were rooted in the author’s individual experience. Nowadays, most big financial blogs have a minimal editorial voice. They’re much like money magazines used to be.
• Audience interaction is limited. In the mid-2000s, it wasn’t unusual for blog articles to get dozens (or hundreds) of comments. This site has old articles with over 1000 comments. Nowadays, many blogs have removed reader comments…because they receive so few reader comments. And when blogs do allow comments (as here at GRS), they’re scarcer than they used to be.
• Today, most bloggers want to make money. In fact, that’s their primary goal. When I started blogging in 1997, there was no way to make money from it. When I launched this site in 2006, my primary goal was to get out of debt. My secondary goal was to help others get out of debt. Yes, I wanted to make money — but that was only my third aim. It was almost an after-thought. (This was, in part, because it was more difficult to make money blogging in 2006.)

Most of the changes in the world of blogging are neutral. They’re neither good nor bad. They just are. But I think the move to a more money-centric approach often does a disservice to readers — to people like you.

How I Became a Blogging Cynic

Twelve years ago, if I read something on a financial blog, I generally accepted it at face value. If somebody recommended a book, I trusted their sincerity. If they wrote about the best bank accounts, I believed they were telling me about the best bank accounts. If they raved about a company or service they liked, I had no reason to doubt them.

Today, I’m much more skeptical. Why? Because most of my friends are bloggers, and I know what they think and say in private.

Now, these folks are not bad people — I love them! — but, like most of us, they’ll sometimes put profit ahead of, well, truth. Honesty. Objectivity.

• Today, for instance, I saw an article from a colleague I respect. He was raving about a financial service. The problem? I’m damn sure he’s never used the service himself and the only reason he’s recommending it is he gets a commission on it. With his huge audience, he can make big bucks by promoting this company.
• Or there was the time I overheard another colleague talking with her partner about an advertiser who had just cancelled their affiliate program. (An affiliate program is, essentially, a commission program. You provide a sale or a lead to a company, and you get a kickback.) “If they’re not going to offer an affiliate program,” my colleague told her partner, “we’re not going to promote them. We need to go back and change articles to feature a company that does offer an affiliate program.”

I wanted to call out my colleague on that last one but I didn’t. I bit my tongue. I think her actions were shady, but I realize that not everyone shares the same values. What isn’t right for me and my business might be perfectly fine for her. What’s perfectly fine for me and my business might seem shady to somebody else.

I’m not willing to criticize other financial bloggers for what they do. I’m not in their shoes. Their business is not my business. They’re free to make choices that adhere to their personal ethics. (My hope is that they’re at least considering ethics when they make these choices.)

But I have to say: The stuff I hear and see behind the scenes has made me cynical. I’ve become skeptical of the stuff I read on other money blogs. (Not on all money blogs — I’ll recommend some I trust later — but on many of them.)

The Thin Green Line

Here’s a prime example of how what’s right for one person (and business) may not be right for another: credit cards.

In the world of personal finance, credit card companies pay big bucks for sign-ups. Why do you get pitches for credit cards in the middle of cross-country airline flights? I guarantee you the flight attendants (or at least the airline) get a kickback. Why do services like Mint promote the hell out of credit cards? Because they make their money when users get new cards!

And why do financial bloggers write credit-card reviews? Because they’re earning $100 or $200 or $500 per sign-up.

Does that mean promoting credit cards is evil? No, of course not. But while some people feel okay promoting credit cards, others don’t.

I have never made a penny on credit cards. Not a cent. The opportunity has always been there, but I’ve never taken it. Having wallowed through twenty years of credit-card debt myself, I don’t want to play a part in trapping other people in the pit. (True story: Ten years ago, I turned down $20,000 for a single blog post about a credit card. That’s right: I could have earned several months’ worth of income for a day’s worth of work, but I said no.)

Now, having said that, I’ve made peace with the world of credit cards. I’ve come to understand that credit cards are not evil. They’re a tool. And like any tool, they can be used constructively or destructively. I now believe I can promote credit cards — and earn commissions — in a responsible manner, doing my best to steer readers clear of debt. As a result, I’ll soon be writing more about the subject, and I’ll include affiliate links when I do. (This might happen as soon as next week!)

So, you see, what’s right for one business may not be right for another. There’s a thin green line that each of us is unwilling to cross — but that thin green line is in a different place for each person and each business. And that line can shift with time.

Actually, this is true for all sorts of businesses, right? One restaurant may not offer alcohol because the owner has religious objections to the stuff. Another restaurant might be vegan-only. Another might source only products from within a hundred-mile radius. And so on. This thin green line isn’t unique to bloggers or to financial bloggers.

Your Mission: Be a Skeptic!

The trouble with the rise of blogging as a business is that the business has become the focus for most financial blogs. Financial bloggers aren’t making decisions based on what’s best for their audience. They’re making decisions based on what’s likely to bring them the most income.

And truthfully? They’re generally looking at short-term profit rather than long-term profit. I’ve seen so many people make choices that earn them a big payout today at the expense of audience trust; as a result, their audience shrinks and they’re less able to earn profit tomorrow.

This problem is even worse with corporate-owned financial blogs. As more and more businesses acquire small, personal blogs, these businesses make decisions based solely on short-term profit. They miss the fact that what’s profitable in the short-term may actually kill the golden goose in the long-term.

So far, it probably sounds like I’m writing this article to call out my colleagues. That’s not the case. They can do whatever the hell they want with their businesses. I wish them all the best. (No, really. I do.)

My purpose in writing this article is to encourage you, the blog reader, to approach financial blogs with skepticism. Do the same with any website nowadays, especially if it’s about personal finance. My goal is to get you to think critically about the financial advice you read on the internet.

When a popular money blog recommends a specific mortgage company, ask yourself: Why did they write this glowing review? Did the author use the company themselves? Did anyone in their family use the company? No? Then what other motive could they have? And could their review be colored by the fact they’re getting paid?

That list of “best bank accounts” on Financial Blog X? It’s probably actually a list of “best bank accounts that pay me a commission”. And it’s not just blogs. Find a list of best bank accounts on a nationally-known money site and odds are it’s exactly the same thing. (Another common trick with lists of best bank accounts? Link to the ones that pay commissions, but don’t link to the other ones — even if the other ones are better.)

Based on what I know of the space, it’s especially important to be skeptical of reviews for credit cards, bank accounts, and so-called robo-advisors. Financial bloggers with big audiences (or strong search-engine presence) can make a ton of dough pitching these products, even if they wouldn’t ever choose them personally.

Here are two specific examples:

• A lot of folks promote Bluehost, a company that provides hosting for websites and blogs. Why do they pitch Bluehost? Do bloggers actually use Bluehost? No. I don’t know a single one who does. Yet, people promote the company because they earn $100 per sign-up…maybe more. When asked why they push Bluehost if they don’t use the company themselves, they’ll say, “Well, my blog is too big. Bluehost is good for beginners.” Fair enough. But in private, I’ve never heard a single blogger say they’d use Bluehost even if they were starting out. Regardless, they’re perfectly fine running “How to Blog” articles that promote the company. (I have nothing against Bluehost, by the way.)
• In the personal finance space, you see ads for Personal Capital everywhere. I have them here on Get Rich Slowly. (And soon I’ll move over my Personal Capital review from Money Boss.) In this case, many folks do use (and like) Personal Capital. I like the service — primarily because I think they have one of the best retirement planning tools on the market. But many of the people promoting Personal Capital do not use the app for various reasons. In fact, some have strong objections to the company yet still push it on their financial blogs because they earn thousands of dollars per month doing so.

Every so often, you get to see a public example of a blogger having second thoughts, changing their mind about what they’re willing to do for money. Last week, Early Retirement Dude wrote an article entitled “I Won’t Be Advertising for Personal Capital Anymore, and I Apologize for Doing So”. (I love that piece for its honesty!)

Again, I’m not writing this article to call anybody out. And I’m not trying to hold myself up as “holier than thou”. No, my aim is to make sure that you, as a consumer of financial information, view recommendations with a critical eye.

Actually, skepticism is a handy skill in all walks of life. When you hear something, verify it before you believe it. And don’t just verify it from a similar source. Seek out opposing viewpoints.

This is especially important in the realm of politics. If you hear something from a liberal commentator, seek out a conservative rebuttal — and vice versa. Don’t live in an echo chamber.

One of my favorite ways to check the accuracy of a review? When somebody recommends a product or service to me, I use Google to search for “[product/service] sucks“. Or, if I’m on Amazon, I read the one-star reviews. You can learn a lot from the complaints about a company or product.

Readers First

Other personal financial blogs with traffic similar to Get Rich Slowly (about 10,000 visits per day) earn anywhere from $500 to $2000 per day. (Yes, really.) Get Rich Slowly earns only $50 per day. Crazy, right?

Part of this is because I’m lazy. Part of this is due to fear (no joke). But another part is because I’ve been wrestling with how to make money without compromising my personal values, without crossing that thin green line.

How do I advertise credit cards when I know credit cards cause problems for so many people? How do I promote banks in a way that I’m providing honest, objective info yet still earning commissions?

So far, I’ve been treading water using Google Adsense and Amazon links. I’m earning more than minimum wage with this blog — but not much more.

Get Rich Slowly is a business. It’s a money-making venture. It doesn’t make much money right now — about $2000 per month — but I’m hopeful that it can eventually earn as much as it did in the olden days: over $20,000 per month. That said, I’m not willing to compromise the editorial side of things to make a quick buck.

Here’s my number-one guiding principle at Get Rich Slowly: Readers first.

In everything I do, from design to advertising to content creation, I try to put myself in your shoes. Does this article help my readers? Does this ad interfere with the reader experience? How does the layout of the site help or hinder the folks who come here?

You know why I don’t have pop-ups or splash screens at Get Rich Slowly? Because I think they’re actively reader-hostile. My colleagues tell me they vastly increase the number of subscribers and affiliate conversions, but I don’t care. I personally hate pop-ups, so why would I subject my readers to them? That sounds like hypocrisy to me.

It’s important to note that “readers first” doesn’t mean “readers only”. A “readers only” policy would mean no ads. I’m not willing to run Get Rich Slowly for free. This is work, dammit, and I want to get paid for my work. (This notion is lost on a lot of folks at places like Reddit, where they think any blogger who tries to make money is somehow shady.)

“Readers first” means that before I decide whether to run an ad, before I decide whether to write a review of Personal Capital, I do my best to minimize the negative impact on my audience.

The best-case scenario is promoting something like a bank account. Helping readers sign up for good bank accounts is a win-win-win: a win for the reader, a win for the bank, and a win for me (because I get a commission). Amazon affiliate links are another no-brainer.

A middling scenario is something like banner ads at the beginning and end of my articles. Or my Personal Capital review. Or the upcoming credit-card articles.

Less-than-ideal scenarios include those two stupid ads I have embedded in the middle of articles right now, which seem to be causing headaches for certain readers. (Those are on the chopping block for when the redesign goes live. Eventually.) Or the promotion I did for Credit Sesame back in January. (My solution there? I did the promotion — because I was contractually obligated to do so — but I declined to take money for it.)

Last year at Fincon — the financial bloggers conference — I participated in a panel discussion called “What Will You Do for Money?” We talked about scenarios like this as we explored financial journalism and ethics. If you’re interested in this subject, you can watch this video recording of the entire panel (which the Fincon organizers have graciously made available specifically for this article).

Four Financial Blogs Worth Reading

It’s perfectly possible to run a blog — even a financial blog — in a way that serves the readers and provides an income for the author. That’s how I made money before with Get Rich Slowly, and that’s how I intend to make money in the future.

There are lots of other financial bloggers whose view of the thin green line is similar to mine. Some are big. You’ve probably read Mr. Money Mustache, for instance. Pete and I have remarkably similar views on monetization and serving the audience. It’s easy, though, for MMM to play it safe. His audience is so large that even minimal monetization produces huge income.

I’m more impressed with new, small financial blogs who have made a commitment to serve their readers. When you’re just starting out, you want to make money now now now. It’s tough to wait. Most new bloggers bury their sites in ads. (I saw one a couple of months ago that was almost entirely ads — the editorial content didn’t start until “below the fold”. Ugh.) Most new bloggers want to run advertorials and/or promote products and services with big payouts.

Here are four newer financial blogs that I think do a great job of making money while remembering to serve their readers:

• The afore-mentioned Early Retirement Dude, who is also one of the moderators on /r/financialindependence.
• The Luxe Strategist, who writes about living large while saving large too.
• The data-oriented Four Pillar Freedom.
• And, especially, the hilarious Bitches Get Riches. Kitty and Piggy don’t do any traditional monetization that I know of. Instead, they ask for Patreon pledges. I love this idea and I love their blog. (I love Bitches Get Riches so much that I’m a $50/month Patreon subscriber.)

Please note that these are by no means the only financial blogs worth reading. There are tons of folks producing quality content and putting readers first. These are just four blogs that I personally have found to be filled with useful, entertaining articles without the marketing that mars the experience for me on other sites. Simply put, these newer bloggers have earned my trust.

Honestly, if I were starting out, I’d be tempted to focus on the money too. I’m fortunate that I’ve earned a wad of cash already, so I can sit back and take a more measured approach. I’m not in a hurry to make lightning strike twice.

Instead, I’m going to stick to my Readers First pledge. Yes, I want to make money from Get Rich Slowly, but my primary aim is to help the folks who find this site to make and keep more money for themselves. If there are ways that I can do this while also earning a little scrilla, I’m going to do it.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to be skeptical of the information I find on other financial blogs. I encourage you to do the same. In fact, you should be skeptical of what you read here too. I know I’m staying on my side of the thin green line, but you don’t know that. I want you to be skeptical of me and my motives until I’ve earned your trust.

Several GRS readers have written to let me know they love the “Spare Change” section that resides after the first post on this site’s home page. I use the “Spare Change” to share worthwhile articles from financial sites around the web. It’s my attempt to sift the wheat from the chaff so that you don’t have to. You can find an archive of all past Spare Change links via my Pinboard account.

The post The thin green line: Why you should be skeptical of financial blogs appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

“Library to the Max”

Established in 1800, the Library of Congress is an agency of the legislative branch of the U.S. government whose mission it is to "document the history and further the creativity of the American people and which record and contribute to the advancement of civilization and knowledge throughout the world, and to acquire, organize, provide access to, maintain, secure, and preserve these collections." It is the largest library in the world, with more than 167 million items on approximately 838 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 39 million books and other printed materials, 3.6 million recordings, 14.8 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 8.1 million pieces of sheet music and 72 million manuscripts. A portion of those collections are available digitally and is one of the best places of the internet. Yesterday, the Library of Congress introduced a new identity designed by New York, NY-based Pentagram partner Paula Scher.

Pentagram has designed a new brand identity that captures the spirit of the Library and its universal collections in a dynamic logotype that is a metaphor for a bookshelf or bookcase―a place to collect things―and can hold images and typography.

While it officially serves Congress and the federal government, the Library also serves as the national library of the American people. Its central mission is to provide a rich, diverse and enduring source of knowledge that can be relied upon to inform, inspire and engage. The breadth and power of its collections should be easily understood, and be coupled with an invitation for all to visit physically or virtually to take advantage of all the treasures within.

Pentagram project page

Our view here at the Library of Congress is the image of a treasure chest, filled with limitless information and services, ready to explore and amaze if you open it up.

So today, the Library of Congress is introducing a new visual brand that seizes on this concept and amplifies it. It can change to feature different collection items, stories, images and sounds. The potential is limitless, like the Library itself.

Library of Congress blog

Other than the use of Trajan, the old logo was great. Designed by Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv in 2010, the icon brought together two elements -- a book and the stripes of the American flag -- in a simple, effective way that felt... congressional. The new logo is interestingly very un-governmental -- no blue, no red, no stars, no stripes -- and as much as those things generally lead to overly American-looking identities they do help create a more instant connection between institution and government. This new logo could easily be an extension of Amazon. The objective and brief, though, are evidently to make the Library of Congress more library, less congress which would explain some of the decisions and the approach to make this look more like it belongs in the retail and cultural sector.

I still have a hard time with the emphasis on library as what makes the Library of Congress impressive is not the fact that it's a library but that it's the library of the United States. I can go to a library any day of the week I want but the library OF CONGRESS, that's another story. Making the logo so much about "LIBRARY", to me, plays down that this isn't just any library. But, again, assuming that the job was to out-Library congress, then this does the job well. I like the concept of the condensed "LIBRARY" being books on shelves and, as you know, I am a huge proponent of Druk Condensed so as a piece of typography I can dig it. What bothers me, a lot, is that the word "library" is then repeated again, smaller, in the full name of the organization. I keep reading "Library Library of Congress" and it's not entirely pleasant. I would have loved to see "OF CONGRESS" in the same style and size, given the same importance, and then you would have a huge line of metaphorical books lined up and you could also stack the words up to make it look like shelves. My guess would be that this was attempted but the lack of readability of Druk Condensed was maybe too much.

I also like the idea of interspersing "stuff" between the letters just as we all do in our personal libraries, putting book-ends, photos, knickknacks, between and around our books. The execution works great when it's crops of a picture vs. the silhouetted objects that, even though they surely come from the LOC's collections, some of them end up looking like clip-art. In the folder shown a couple images down, the silhouettes work best when they are more evidently historical images.

The applications have a bold energy to them thanks to Druk Condensed which, again, is bad-ass and in its condensed-ness allows for a lot of things to happen in layouts with big typography and still plenty of room for imagery. To me, the collection posters are the best kind of manifestation of the identity, with the tight, even spacing around all the elements that feel like a unit working together and the images and text playing off of each other.

The merch renders are okay; I still react more positively to the ones that show blocks of stuff in between the letters. The ones with the repeating logo look kind of cool but also awkward when you stare at them too long trying to figure out what to write about them (as just happened to me these last three minutes). Overall, this definitely breaks through any pre-conceived expectations and limitations about what a government identity should look and act like and it also definitely solves the goal of emphasizing the library-ness of the Library of Congress but in its friendliness, accessibility, and cultural bent perhaps it has lost its status as an authority and as one of the few branches of the government that celebrates the knowledge and output of the people.