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Regardless of what kind of work you do, it’s likely you encounter this type of project – high expectations, critical deadlines, limited resources (often too limited to deliver with). While this is a tough spot to be in, it’s certainly not the end of the world. Actually, some of my favorite projects over the years had these types of constraints. Projects like these have the potential to really bring a group of people together on both the agency side and on the client side to deliver something nearly impossible.

Project Heaven

The nice thing about a project like this is that there’s just no time for the types of things that can get in the way in a normal project. There’s no time for politics, no time for endless deliberation. I often use the phrase “it’s a marathon, not a race” but in these projects – it’s a race.

The difference in making these projects the best or worst experiences of your professional life is entirely who you’re working with, who you’re working for and the tone you set for the work together. I’ve had projects where everyone on both the agency side and the client side checked their egos at the beginning of the project and dove in to do the work as a single collaborative team. The agency/client division all but disappeared and everything was shared – both the failures and the successes. There’s laughter and there’s stress, and no one is in it alone. And at the end of every day, everyone can feel good about the time that was put in on the project.

Project Hell

The other type of project is where there’s no shared ownership, no sense of a collective team. People aren’t collaborating, they’re “put on the hook” for things – and are more often than not, they’re set up to fail. Every day is met with dread. Every day it’s own small failure.

Not a day goes by that I don’t feel lucky to work with the folks that I work with today – meaning both my fellow designers, writers and developers as well as the clients we get to help. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything but that first type of project and I hope I never have to to back to an environment where the second kind is the norm.

Coachella has released this year’s lineup, and as usual – it’s a tough call. There are a few bands I haven’t seen that I would love to – namely, Thom Yorke, Gorillaz, The Dead Weather, Devo and a few others.

But then again, there are a few acts I have no interest in seeing at all, for example: Jay-Z, Muse, Faith No More, Spoon, Pavement, etc.

But for the most part, the lineup looks pretty solid with bands I’ve seen before, enjoy and would like to see again. These include: Vampire Weekend, Grizzly Bear, Echo & the Bunnymen, Ra Ra Riot, The Raveonettes, Tokyo Police Club, Beach House, Yo La Tengo and King Khan.

This is where the difficult decision kicks in. At this point in my life, I’ve seen a ridiculous number of bands and attended more music festivals than is practical. I’ve been to Lollapalooza, Pitchfork and Coachella more times than I care to count. The more festivals and bands I see, the more difficult it is for something to really stand out from the crowd.

But all of that is in the past. What matters is what’s happening this year, what I can experience next. And Coachella is easily my favorite music festival, hands down. It’s not even a close race.

That said, if I’m going to make a big to-do about seeing a festival this year – will it be Coachella or the Brighton Festival in the UK? Coachella is a great event, but Eno is curating the Brighton Festival, which is sure to include some interesting events. In particular, a performance of Eno’s album “Apollo”.

Decisions, decisions.

Pretty excited about the new David Byrne album – his collaboration with Fatboy Slim, telling the story of Imelda Marcos. Odd as that sounds, I’ll buy it on pure Faith because Byrne never puts out junk. Although it’s disappointing that he only sings on two of the twenty-two tracks on the double CD.

Preorder David Byrne’s “Here Lies Love”.