Yeah, yeah...I know...

It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to blog. I've been so incredibly busy and nothing terribly inspiring (design related or otherwise) was striking me.

Here's what's new and exciting around these parts:

Numero uno and most important: I am finally working from home 100% full time. Yippee! I've been wanting to make this move for a while now so finally, I did it. It's been almost a month. Do I like it? Yes. Do I miss being in an office environment? No. Well, mostly no.

I'll explain what I mean by "mostly no"

I sometimes miss the stimulating conversations such as "Did you see So and So's outfit today? Gross!" and "Damn it, why are the paychecks never here on time. Whine, whine." Let's not forget the ever popular..."I don't want to do this. Can you??" or "Will you get me something from Starbucks when you go?" Note: the last comment should be accompanied by an onslaught of at least 10 people, orders in hand on a sticky note, ready to pass to you.

OK, I'm kidding. I really don't miss that. I do miss the positive stimulating conversations. I liked the majority of the people I worked with 99% of the time. Interacting with them I DO miss. But I don't miss the commute, the time investment each day, or the random bullshit office politics. (Oh come on. They exist in EVERY office. My office had an amazing amount, which I always found rather ironic since it was supposed to be a "no tolerance" subject. Yeh. K.)

I get an amazing amount of work done everyday and most of the time, I go to bed with a sense of accomplishment. Hell, I'm even starting to keep up with my monster amounts of email. (Ever try to answer over 200 messages a day in a coherent fashion and not just a Y or N answer?? Take a LOT of time!)

So it's been a resounding positive change. There are other fringe benefits, too:

I've caught up on a lot of podcasts that I couldn't listen to at the office. (They weren't allowed, and even when they were, I couldn't ever finish one without 10 interuptions) I've also discovered the joys of watching TV on the internet instead of buying shows I like in the iTunes music store. Which would really bug me when the show I just paid $1.99 for sucked.

I save an enormous amount of money on gas/lunch out every single day. Almost $200 a week. (No, seriously!)

I can come and go as I please. (That in itself is the one of the most important benefits)

Oh, there are so many more. I could go on and on.

Don't worry. I won't.

So now I am almost to the point where I feel caught up (whatever that means) on my workload and can handle what I have. (Most days. An assistant is in my near future...) My focus will then turn to new business: where to find it, how to find it and what to do with it once I have it.

I have a marketing plan that's viable, experience that I want to put to use making money, and plans to pursue my passion. Now all I need to do is go out and do it.

From here on out, I am probably going to keep this blog design related. I will be starting a new one however (I already have it parked...just need to start filling it up) which I will use to deposit my offtopic ramblings. I'll keep you all posted on where it is and what it's about shortly.

Until then, get in where you fit it and all those other figures of speech you hear, sometimes at the wrong time...

Show don't tell, and other good advice

I haven't blogged in...geezum...forever. Busy, busy, busy! Such is the glamorous life of a graphic designer. Oh wait. It's glamorous? Ha...I missed that memo.

I was having a conversation today with a colleague about what is better..."direct response" advertising, or more conceptual stuff, and what I prefer. He's a firm believer that the most effective ads are the type with a call to action which is obvious (Like "Call Today" et al).

I disagree. I think an ad which is WELL DONE is the most effective type of ad. Period. I've seen excellent ads with calls to action, and I've seen, dare I say, even better ads which are intended to inform but compel to buy.

Apple Computer. Nike. Geico. AFLAC. Coca Cola. Target. Volkswagen. All very successful brands. Think about the last time any of these people came out and told you "Buy a Coke today!"

Uh huh. So why are they successful anyway? Because they don't have to ask you to buy the product flat out. They create the want - the fundamental part of why you buy something anyway - without asking.

Case in point: Apple Computer. How much money do you think it cost Chiat/Day (the agency that produced the spots I'm about to mention) to produce those black silhouette, dancing iPod people commercials? Probably not much. All stuff that can be done on a computer with the right software. Or heck, if you are using actual people dancing it is still not a zillion dollar endeavor. And if you have ever sat there and dissected one of these, you'll see..these are a lot simpler spots than you realize. All it says is, with some uber-trendy music playing as the silhouette is dancing in the background: iPod. iTunes. Now for Windows. www.apple.com

That's it. Do they need to tell you where to find one, or how much it costs? Nah. The people this type of commercial appeals to already knows where to buy one. They may already own one. And if they don't...they likely will soon because iPods are cool and trendy and sexy and all those things that we all secretly wish we were.

The rule of Simple = Good definitely applies here.

They did the same basic thing with the iPhone, except no dancing silhouettes. They showed the phone (clever!) because the device sells itself, and it shows a guy watching a movie, getting a craving for pizza in the middle of it...he looks up the pizza place, calls and orders, goes back to the movie. All of these are things you can do on your phone in a matter of moments. How appealing is that-the art of multitasking-to today's busy urbanite/professional/tech geek? Very. And honestly...at this point in the product's launch...who is buying these phones? 68 year old grandmothers of 5? Err...no. It is THIS demographic.

So what does this have to do with the price of pizza? The title of the post: show, don't tell. Telling readers why your product is great is never better than showing them. I could spend all day explaining to you how great my vacuum cleaner is. It does this, or that blah blah BLAH BLAH. I'm starting to sound like the mysterious adults on the Peanuts cartoons. =) But...if I take that vacuum and suck the spots off a dalmatian, or all the water out of a fish bowl...do you sit up and take notice?

You bet your sweet patoot you do. Not only does this show the person how amazing the product is, it lets them come to their own conclusions. People eat that stuff up.

So what is a better way to demonstrate how cool a new jet ski is? Put the same old tired cliche of a happy smiling ultra white family waving on the beach as they ride around on one? Or perhaps use a visual I saw once in an ad for Polaris...which I thought was so darn clever that I remember it to this day, even though it's been at least 6 years since I saw this. It was a hippo. A hippo who was obviously sitting on the jet ski. All you saw was the ski parts...which would normally be in the water. The tag line was understated...at the bottom of the ad. So you had no choice but to look at that hippo. I think it said something about one of the features of the engine being great towing power. So you can draw your conclusion there. Another simple = good example.

Simple? But advertising costs oodles of money and...we should feature all the reasons why we are cooler/better/more trendy/sexier and so on. You can still do that and be simple. You just have to find a creative way to do it.

Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? It states: "What can be accounted for by fewer assumptions is explained in vain by more."

So basically...he was saying: Simple = good. =)

So why does simple = good?

It's hard to miss. It's bigger (Less is more. It really is!). It's more believable, it's easier to remember. It breaks through advertising clutter and nonsense. And about 1,000 other reasons.

I think I'll take my own advice and "simply" end this post with that food for thought...

This was the week it was...

A week. Seven days. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of time but when you think about it in the grand scheme of things...a lot can happen! (What the heck, a lot can happen in a day!)

This past week I have been on "vacation" from my regular full time job. There was a rhyme and a reason for this vacation...I had a number of things I needed to get accomplished, and truth be told - I needed a break. Things have been very stressful there for the last couple of months and when I came to the realization that I just past my five year mark and had yet to have taken an entire week away from the office...I decided that the time was now. Plus at the end of the week I had planned to have two wisdom teeth removed and knowing myself the way I do, I knew I'd be out of it for a couple of days. In preparation for that, I needed to get my proverbial ducks in a row prior to that or I would never be able to relax enough to get better.

So I planned a week of catching up on loose ends, cleaning up miscellaneous projects, getting my surgery and then maybe relaxing.

Ha. Here it is, Sunday, eve of my return to work tomorrow morning and I'm doing a quick assessment of where I stand.

Stuff that happened this week:

Painted my kitchen red. (Well...I personally didn't do it. But I suffered through the fumes as someone else did)
Wrapped up with 4-5 old projects that were hanging on
Billed out a lot of work and received a lot of payment (YAY!)
Got 3 new LARGE clients that are going to be big money makers. Definitely a case of being at the right place at the right time
Met with a client in the middle of day without having to rush or fight rush hour traffic
Redesigned my website. Part of it is already live. I've been planning to do that for a LONG time!
Redesigned my logo and ordered new business cards. Another thing that needed to be done!
Got those pesky wisdom teeth pulled. Ouch. Those people who said that it doesn't hurt are LIARS.
Watched half a season of X-Files (I forgot how much I enjoyed that show)
Designed 4 logos
Made a very cool 80s playlist on iTunes, for when I'm feeling retro
Thumbed through several old PRINT annuals. Wow. The 90s sure did produce some interesting work
Found 2 books on Amazon I'd been looking for for YEARS, and they were both under $1!
Bought another Art Director's Annual on eBay for under $10, shipped
Had lunch with my significant other at an awesome Chinese buffet that is way overpriced for dinner (but priced ok for lunch)
Watched The Shawshank Redemption in one sitting
Went out in public with an icepack on my face
Cleaned up a little in my home studio, mostly put away stuff I wasn't using
Listened to a LOT of kids' daytime TV from the other room
Designed 3 huge banners with horses on them for a client
Sat in bed, very late at night and wrote bio info for my website
Relaxed for half a day, because damn it, I deserve it

There's more of course, but those are the highlights. It's going to be a tough sell to return to work tomorrow. Not to mention that I'm still sore and in pain from the teeth thing. Huh. Freelancing full time seemed like such a crazy idea before but today, right now...it seems like such an attractive option. And it's even a viable one.

I'll have to think on this...

NOW how much would you pay?

How much do you think you are worth? Seriously! I ask myself this question a lot, not because I'm trying to be philosophical but because I am in a business where I charge a rate for my services. Sometimes I charge more, sometimes less, but always an amount I feel is fair for the work I am doing. Just like I won't take a job designing a 12 page catalog for $25 (Don't laugh...this has happened!), I also won't turn around and charge someone $300 to design a one page flyer that took me an hour to produce. One of the reasons why I end up with customers use me time and time again is that I treat everyone fairly, don't rip people off, and provide them a quality design that they (and I) can be proud of. Or at least that's the goal. Could I make more if I charged more? Maybe. But thus far, I've been very fortunate, and in the year that I have been making a serious, true blue effort to find more freelance clients, I've amassed quite a nice base of "regular" customers and generated a lot of referrals and other work based on word of mouth. I'm always so flattered when someone emails me and says "Hey, my friend so and so says you do nice work, etc and I should call you..." So starting from basically nothing, I would say whatever I am doing must be right.

It's times like these when I think...after almost 10 years of doing graphics and working for other people, making THEM money...why the hell didn't get up off my tookus sooner and get some more of my OWN clients? Hmm. Not sure. Working a full time job in addition to freelancing takes a lot out of you. I should know...I do it every single day. I suppose all that matters now is that I'm doing it...and doing it well.

But I digress. The purpose of this post was actually something different. I read a lot of blogs and message boards every day...some design related, some not. About a week ago, I was reading a message board at a very well known design publication's web site. There was a discussion going on about rates and cheap clients who only want to pay $50 for a logo design. I think everyone pretty much agreed that this is not the kind of client you want, because honestly...that's not a fair price for something that takes as much work and thought as a logo. But someone brought up a very valid point here and they got sort of flamed for it...and I hated to admit it, but I though they were right. The point was this: one person brought up that a fee or rate might depend on the level of experience of the designer doing the work, and did people think it was really fair for someone who is just out of school with no real experience to demand $300 for a logo design and get mad when the client didn't want to pay that. One person chimed in that they felt that YES, that student should get that rate, and several others agreed, one even being sort of nasty to the person who had asked. I didn't comment, just lurked.

I hate to say it...that person who thinks $300 for a student's work is too much...has a valid point. The truth is, when you are first starting out...your lack of experience can put you at a serious disadvantage from someone who has been there, done that and designed a t-shirt for it. I can't tell you how many times I've seen work done for my clients by designers of all kinds or even some big agencies which screams AMATEUR. Sloppy work, work that isn't formatted for printing, complicated "design" elements that interfere with the client's message...I've seen it all.

I'm sorry but if you are just out of school and have never prepped a job for print, I'm willing to bet you are going to make mistakes. I know I certainly made my share. You can be the best student in your class, but there is no degree hanging on the wall that can take the place of real, in the trenches experience. Does this mean you don't deserve to get paid? Of course not. But how large is your ego really that you think you can charge an outrageous amount of money for your work, when you know that's not really what it's worth? You might get the client this time, but you can bet that person won't return to you for future jobs. Nobody wants to feel taken advantage of. Charging unrealistic rates only makes the price of someone with reality check look all the better. And let's face it...I know how long it takes to design a piece of advertising, or a logo, or a brochure. I base my rate on that. If you are slow and it takes you 6 hours to do these, then you need to learn to work faster. Don't punish your client for that. It will only come back to haunt you in the end.

On the flip side of that arguement, I don't think that anybody, student or not, should get paid $50 for a logo design. When you are hiring someone to do a creative job for you (non designers...I'm talking to you) then demand to see a portfolio. Even someone who is a savant can tell you that in simple terms, something looks good or it doesn't. Plain and simple. You can tell if a person is creative or not by looking at their work. Even if you claim to "know nothing about art or advertising" or "Don't know what good design looks like". You do. You just don't realize it yet.

Don't insult someone by offering them what even you know is a bargain basement rate. If you they are charging you what you feel is too much, do a little cost comparison. That ought to give you a guideline on what the service you are looking to have done should cost. Be willing to work with people on the rate - designers this means you too. Employers: most people will negotiate because they would rather have the job for $20 less than planned in contrast to not having the job at all.

See what a simple world this would be if people would just listen to me? :) I'm totally kidding...but somewhere deep inside, overpriced designer who might be reading this...you know I have a point.

OK off the soap box now. Happy 4th of July everybody!

iPhone, You Phone, We...Phone

With apologies to the creators of the fine 80's cult film, Better Off Dead, of course. (If you've seen the film, you know where I borrowed this take off from...if you haven't seen it then darn it, you need to!)

Yes, I am just like every other Mac geek and am desperately in need of an iPhone. I plan on getting one soon, but I flat out refused to stand on a line or camp out at the Apple store. I know that once it's been a couple of weeks since it's been out, the furor will die down and I can walk in a store calmly and purchase one. Another thing I know, being a devout Apple loyalist, is that it will likely go down in price as well, as do all of their new buzz products in time. Not being cheap here folks...I dropped $300 for my last phone and $450 for a phone for my significant other not that long ago. I just look at it the same way as I looked at the iPod. When those first came out back in 2001, I said to myself..."Who in their right mind would pay $500 for a little box you can play a couple hundred songs on???"

Then I got one. Now, on my third iPod (currently using the 20 GB video, black) I don't know how I ever lived without one. If I forget my iPod on the way somewhere, I will more times than not go back for it. Sick huh?

That's the one thing I fear about the iPhone. Even MORE ways to find me, email me, Twitter me, IM me. Great. As if I don't enjoy enough interuptions. :)

I'll still buy one, of course. Because I depend on my electronic leash just as much as everyone else, and who doesn't want to have the nicest leash at the dog park? Of course...you do!

People often laugh when I call my cell phone an electronic leash. Granted I own a super sleek RAZR so it's not obtrusive, but...still a leash nonetheless. Because I'll be damned if everytime I step into the bathroom, my phone is ringing before I'm doing doing my business. It's just the way it always seems to work out. Soon people will interupt me on a cooler device, and after I'm done listening to them gab on, I'll be able to check email and my horoscope, all while in the stall. Marvelous!

The other day my significant other and I were having a conversation and we both wondered....what DID we do before the Internet? iPod? And soon...iPhone???

Remember the good old days, everyone? When you had to hope someone was home in order to call them? When you needed to talk instead of just send a text, IM or email? Or God forbid, actually go to their house to see something instead of GoToMeeting or look on their web cam? When you actually had to use a STAMP and WRITE a letter to someone? Holy hell! How DID we do it?

The times they are a changin'. So sayeth Bob Dylan, anyway.

You can't be me, I'm a rock star...

Earlier today I was fondly recalling being a child and all the times that I sat with my cousin Helen, who is also a graphic designer, and watched her do her "art". I loved pencils, pens, glue..all of which she had ample supply of in her home studio. She's about 10 years older than me but when you're a kid, 10 years can seem like a million. She was the first person in this neck of the family to graduate from college, which I thought was super cool...even though a lot of people dismissed her degree because it was achieved from a school with the word "Design" in it's name. (I grew up in NJ, she lived in Queens, NY so with a little detective work you can probably figure out which school I'm talking about.) Helen had so many cool things around her at any time...lots of hot/cold press boards, Xactos, cool "target" stickers (registration marks in a box, as I later came to know them) The days in particular I was reflecting on today were the times where I would watch her do ad mock ups or spec stuff, either for her portfolio or as take home work from the ad agency she had just landed a job at. I thought her job was the most glamorous in the world.

Now, twentysomeodd (mumbled under breath) years later, I look back and say...glamorous is not really what I would call this line of work after having done it. It is rewarding work, don't get me wrong...but it can be tedious, frustrating, and sometimes downright annoying and at times, thankless. I don't know about anyone else, but I feel as though my phone never stops ringing, and deadlines stop for nothing and noone. I've gotten called on holidays, evenings...I even had one guy call me at 1:00am once asking if I would design him some business cards. OK, so he's in the Pacific time zone and I'm in the Eastern, so I forgave him, but I did charge him more. =) Anyway, I digress. I sometimes feel like a surgeon...constantly on call, constantly putting off personal things to better service my clients. Sure, "emergency" projects like that pay well most of the time. I make a very comfortable living and though I'm not rich or anything remotely close, I have a better living situation than a lot of people I know, and I'm very, very fortunate indeed. Sometimes you wonder...how much is it worth, sacrificing your time? But I look at it this way. If I can do one project in a few hours and the sum I'm paid equals or supercedes my monthly mortgage payment (which is over $1,000 currently) then...it's worth it. How well I'm doing financially is always gauged against how quickly I have made the mortgage money. If it's the 8th of the month and I'm sitting on more than half, then SCORE. It's gonna be a good month. (I use the mortgage as a gauge because in my good fortune, it is the only truly major bill over $500 that I pay in a month)

Sometimes, admittedly, the lack of sleep, constant difficult deadlines and the stress of "Can I realistically crop 1,000 pictures in a day, even for a huge sum of money???" can make me a very, very cranky person sometimes. When I find myself saying "Why oh WHY did I not listen to my father and be an architect? Or a freakin' English teacher, like I dreamed about for so many years???" then I know...it's time to take a break. Time for that 2nd (or 3rd) latte, and yes Starbucks is within biking distance of my home office. Another Red Bull? Sure. Looks like an all-nighter. Gee, that new Diet Pepsi Max looks interesting...I wonder how much caffeine is in it??

So all of this somewhat whiney diatribe begs the question: why do it? Well, it's simple. I love to create. Nothing, and I mean nothing beats the feeling of seeing your work out in the public domain and people saying...WOW! I still get those pangs of excitement when I get a phone call from someone who has their proof in hand and they love it. I feel like a rock star. I've had a lot of those days. Those are the days I think about when I get that one pain in the ass that I just can't make happy. Those are definite candidates for my fart in a bag program. :)

Speaking of rock stars...back to work. I have some clients to impress. (Hopefully!)

There is no such thing as free lunch

You ever notice just how popular this little phrase is in the vernacular of today's world? Sure, it's not as used anymore as "True 'dat!" or "Hella (insert whatever word here)" but it is still said by a lot of people. Which brings me to the point of this post. In my line of work, it is not uncommon for people to ask you to do things essentially, for free. You can call it a sample, a mock up, a comp, a spec ad, whatever, but as my grandpa used to say, putting lipstick on a pig STILL makes it a pig. I think if people were to step back and take a look at what they are actually asking you to do when they couch their request with one of the above little phrases is, in fact, work for free, they might not ask for it as frequently. I don't know any other business where this is accepted or done as much as this one.

I look at it (and explain it to others) this way. When you are getting your taxes done, do you go to 4 accountants, ask them to itemize your deductions, and then only decide to go with (and pay) the one who saves you the most money? Do you go get the oil changed on your car and then say "OK, that took longer than 15 minutes so I'm going to drive away without paying you." No. You wouldn't do either of these things. But asking an artist to do a spec ad which they are not being paid for is doing exactly this, just worded differently.

I ALWAYS say no to specs, mock ups and other like requests. The only time I have ever done them is when I agree with the other party AHEAD of time that I will be paid for it (and many times I ask for that payment up front). Usually the fee is smaller than the project cost and I count those fees towards it if that work is used. Does this cause me to lose jobs sometimes? I'm sure it does. But a better question is...are these clients I REALLY want anyway? Somebody who would ask me to spend 3 hours on something and then not pay me for it? No. It's hard enough to chase people down for money as it is. And I've found this amazing factoid, too. The people who are in the hugest hurry, ask for unpaid "favors", add ons or mocks, are a real pain in your ass and call you 30 times a day are usually the slowest to pay when the bill comes, and the most likely to stiff you altogether because they found some idiot in Pakistan that will do the job for $1, leaving you no place to compete from.

The reason that spec requests exist are the same reason that floppy disc drives continued to be standard on a PC for so many years. Were people demanding them? Not exactly. The computer manufacturers were putting them out there. So the biggest enemy to spec work is actually not the clients asking for it. No. It is the artistic community themselves who continue to say yes and then do it. They are hurting themselves more than they are helping, and they probably do not realize it. Because honestly, if the person was going to give you a job they were likely going to do it (or not) anyway. If you want people to see what you can do, don't put yourself out there by offering to work for free. Get yourself a decent portfolio, Learn to talk the talk AND walk the walk. Then when people say "I'd like to see what you can do." you can point them to that portfolio.

Every day, I see ads and requests on message boards or Craig's List or wherever, asking for “artists” to help people with everything from auto graphics to comic books to corporate logo designs. Many people use the qualifier "To use in your portfolio so others can see what you can do." or something similar.

Let me ask these people this: Do you think it would be ok to ask your mechanic to work on your car for free? Would you look him in the eye, with a straight face, and tell him that his compensation would be the ability to have his work shown to others as you drive down the street?

Would you offer a neurosurgeon the “opportunity” to add your name to his resume as payment for removing that pesky tumor? (Maybe you could offer him “a few bucks” for “materials”. What a deal!)

Would you be able to seriously even CONSIDER offering your web hosting service the chance to have people see their work, by viewing your website, as their payment for hosting you?

If you answered “yes” to ANY of the above, you’re obviously insane. If you answered “no”, then kudos to you for living in the real world. Why then, would you think it is okay to live out the same, delusional, ridiculous fantasy when seeking someone whose abilities are in less in supply than these folks? Do you know what the comparitive ratio is for mechanics to graphic designers, or neurosurgeons to graphic designers, or even IT/web hosting people to graphic designers? I don't know any exact numbers, but I've read in more than one reputable source that there are far less graphic art professionals than either of these 3 above mentioned trades. (and there are, I'm sure a lot less GOOD graphic designers, but that's another matter...)
Graphic artists, illustrators, painters, etc., are skilled tradesmen. As such, to consider them as, or deal with them as, anything less than professionals fully deserving of your respect is both insulting and a bad reflection on you as a sane, reasonable person. In short, it makes you look like a twit.

A few things that I think those free and cheap seekers need to know:

1. It is not a “great opportunity” for an artist to have his work seen on your car/’zine/website/bedroom wall, etc. It IS a “great opportunity” for YOU to have their work there.
2. It is not clever to seek a “student” or “beginner” in an attempt to get work for free. It’s ignorant and insulting. They may be “students”, but that does not mean they don’t deserve to be paid for their hard work. You were a “student” once, too. Would you have taken that job at McDonalds with no pay, because you were learning essential job skills for the real world? Yes, your proposition is JUST as stupid.
3. The chance to have their name on something that is going to be seen by other people, whether it’s one or one million, is NOT a valid enticement. Neither is the right to add that work to their “portfolio”. They get to do those things ANYWAY, after being paid as they should. It’s not compensation. It’s their right, and it’s a given.
4. Stop thinking that you’re giving them some great chance to work. Once they skip over your silly ad, as they should, the next ad is usually for someone who lives in the real world, and as such, will pay them. There are far more jobs needing these skills than there are people who possess these skills.
5. Students DO need “experience”. But they do NOT need to get it by giving their work away. In fact, this does not even offer them the experience they need. Anyone who will not/can not pay them is obviously the type of person or business they should be ashamed to have on their resume anyway. Do you think professional contractors list the “experience” they got while nailing down a loose step at their grandmother’s house when they were seventeen?
If you your company or gig was worth listing as desired experience, it would be able to pay for the services it received. The only experience they will get doing free work for you is a lesson learned in what kinds of scrubs they should not lower themselves to deal with.
6. (This one is FOR the artists out there, please pay attention.) Some will ask you to “submit work for consideration”. They may even be posing as some sort of “contest”. These are almost always scams. They will take the work submitted by many artists seeking to win the “contest”, or be “chosen” for the gig, and find what they like most. They will then usually have someone who works for them, or someone who works incredibly cheap because they have no originality or talent of their own, reproduce that same work, or even just make slight modifications to it, and claim it as their own. You will NOT be paid, you will NOT win the contest. The only people who win, here, are the underhanded folks who run these ads. This is speculative, or “spec”, work. It’s risky at best, and a complete scam at worst. I urge you to avoid it, completely.

So to artists/designers/illustrators looking for work, do everyone a favor, ESPECIALLY yourselves, and avoid people who do not intend to pay you. Whether they are “spec” gigs, or just some guy who wants a free mural on his living room walls. They need you. You do NOT need them.

And for those who are looking for someone to do work for free… please wake up and join the real world.

OK, off the soapbox now and going to bed. Fight the power! (I don't know, sounded like a good closer)

Defining a Design...and a Designer

We currently have an opening in the design department that we are trying desparately to fill, but yet...despite many resumes received, we have yet to find the perfect person. You wouldn't think that this would be a difficult task, right? After all, the market is saturated with graphic designers and those who play them on TV, any of which would be suitable for the position we are hiring for. Ideally we'd like to find someone experienced who can design AND think on their feet, and who doesn't live in the fantasy world that they are going to make a 6 figure salary walking in the door. (For anyone still in school who might be reading this...STOP LISTENING TO THE CAREER SERVICES people. These jobs do not exist for people with no experience in this business)

If you're not that experienced but can demonstrate creativity, then we have a spot for you too. With just a little rearranging, we can find you a job anyway, as long as you are willing to learn.

Don't we sound like reasonable people? But...read on.

This past week, I've sat down and spoken with a few people called in for interviews. This is the 3rd time in about 5 months that we've had to do this. We've had terrible luck finding someone sane and normal...well, ok maybe just someone who will show up is a better way to put it. During these slew of interviews, we've had some people come in who remotely qualified but wanted a ridiculous amount of money, and then others who apparently got lost on the way to their Taco Bell interview and ended up at my office. Let me just say this. We offer a very nice wage for the area we are in when you walk in the door. It's commensurate with experience of course, but it's still more than MOST jobs in the Bay area pay walking in the door. Unless of course you are going for a management position, which this is not.

The people who wanted more money generally had the chops, but I saw nothing that made me stand up and go WOW...please start tomorrow! The people who were less than stellar were OK money wise, but some had never even used the programs we do. It's not like we're using some strange Afgani photo editing software here, folks...we're talking Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign. All industry standard programs which anyone who calls themselves a "designer" should know how to use....even 2 out of 3 would be acceptable since there are still a lot of Quark people out there.

Can you see why this is a frustrating process? Why is that people think they can just run over to Office Depot on Friday night and buy Photoshop Elements, take some pictures of their cat and superimpose it on a horse, run some ugly ass filters and then by Monday call themselves a graphic designer???

You might think I'm kidding. I'm absolutely not.

Why is it that with graphic design chops there always has to have some kind of huge ego trip attached. This has to be the only industry where "I am better than you" is said more than any other. Don't get me wrong, I'm an aesthetic snob too. I'm definitely the first to laugh at the flyer with clip art and Comic Sans all over it. But...I'm a little humble too. I'm not the world's most amazing designer. I like to think I'm good at what I do, but I solely base that on what other people tell me. (not just my family and friends) "Good" is subjective, and gauging your own ability to be "good" usually doesn't give you a very accurate or unbiased opinion.

I believe that creativity can be seen even in the most mundane items. If you are creative, but yet all you do is ugly car ads, your creativity will still shine through the inherent ugliness. I've seen some completely crappy ads before make me say to myself "Wow, there isn't a person on earth with eyes that can possibly think this looks good!" and yet I'll spot something in there...a little something that shows that the person making it tried the best they could with the parameters they had. Sometimes it takes even more creativity to make something ugly in order to please the client than to just design something aesthetically pleasing. After all, when you are talking about graphic design for a business etc. the most important element has to be...no, not "Does it look good?" but "Does it WORK?" You can have the most amazing idea and design in the world, but if it's executed poorly or it doesn't work, it's NOT GOOD. It doesn't serve it's purpose. That makes it art for art's sake, and though we certainly need that...it's not really a good position to find yourself in when you are creating for an advertising campaign or the like.

This is, I believe the main problem that people who are super creative and "artsy fartsy" have when they get jobs in the commercial art field. They want to make everything beautiful and fancy schmancy and....STOP. Right there. You get what I'm trying to say here. These are the people that will spend 4 hours creating one simple ad which had a simple message. They will disregard what the client wants or ask for and do what they think "looks good". More times than not, this approach backfires. You then find yourself dealing with a temper tantrum when they are asked to make changes or told to do it over. Why? Granted, sometimes you have to take creative chances. I do it all the time. But other times, a brochure for a septic tank company? It is what it is. You can simply do the best you can with what you have. The MC Escher look isn't going to work here, so why try to force it on the client? (I'm just using this as an example) So make it functional. It may not win any art awards, but it's going to make the client happy. And happy clients pay their bills.

Now next week we will continue the search. More portfolios to look at, more people talking about how great they are. At least it amuses me. :)

Hoppy Easter and all that jazz

Today's the day. That's right...the day that as the close of business comes to your friendly neighborhood Walgreens/CVS, the Easter candy goes on clearance. The only thing better than Peeps and Cadbury Mini Eggs are both of those items at half price. Yesssss. By the end of next week, they will be darn near giving the things away. Sadly by then the only thing usually left are those bunny-shaped confections that somewhat resemble circus peanuts...and probably taste like them. (I've not been brave enough to try them). But hey, for someone's cheap sugar rush, they'll do.

At a family dinner recently we were discussing the upcoming Easter holiday and where exactly the tradition of the Easter bunny, eggs and all the trappings came from. No one seemed to have a good answer.

So today, I decided to search the "internets" for some info, and I went to the source where I find many of my facts.

Yes, I looked it up on Wikipedia.

In case anyone wants to read up on the Easter Bunny, they've got a great article on it as well as many of the other Easter traditions.

The long and the short of it is that, like many of the holiday rituals we celebrate, the tradition of rabbits, eggs, etc. came from the Pagans. The time of the year of Jesus's crucifiction/resurrection happens to coincide with the Vernal Equinox, so somehow throughout the course of time the two items got melded together.

The issue of eggs, which were once considered sacred (since all life begins from an egg) are perhaps the only Easter tradition that actually has a religious origin. The egg tradition in the Spring dates all the way back to ancient Greece, though it was the Catholics who ritualized it very early on in the genesis of the faith. They then associated it with Easter, and first began the tradition of coloring them way back in the 17th-18th century.

Ironically enough, eggs were-and to those more dogmatic still are-forbidden foods during the fasting period of Lent. That came in seemingly pretty handy, leaving plenty of eggs to color.

In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson, "God bless those Pagans."

Happy Easter!

Tragic Wand? Eh?

What is a tragic wand you ask, and why the devil would you name your blog after one?

Allow me to explain. And introduce myself.

I am a graphic designer by trade. Or if you prefer, a commercial artist. Or a graphic artist. Or someone who draws funny pictures all day long AND gets paid for it. Call me whichever you prefer, so long as you don't forget to call me when I can come pick up my check. :)

I love what I do. Partially because I truly enjoy creating. or watching something I dreamed up while sitting in traffic get put in motion to make somebody a lot of money. I clicked some keys and cut a turtle out of a picture in Photoshop, and suddenly someone's sales go through the roof for the week. It gives you a sense of accomplishment that's hard to put into words.

Most people do not understand the less than glamourous part of this job. (Well, most of it is actually non-glamourous, but shh! Don't let that get out!) The common man/woman has no idea that putting together a piece of successful advertising takes more than running over to Office Depot, buying a copy of Photoshop Elements, throwing some words on a page and printing it on your LaserJet. It takes skill to operate the software (and do it correctly), it takes creativity and talent, and it takes patience. On a good day, I am in control of 2 of those 3 postulates. Or at least I like to think so.

It is this skill in operating the software that stops you from selecting part of an image and "erasing" it, only to find you have removed someone's limb in the process.

It is creativity and talent that tells you "Hey, should I really typeset this brochure in Comic Sans bold at 20 points?" (The answer is NO NO NO, by the way.

And it is patience that keeps you from taking a bag, farting in it, and mailing it to the customer you are on the phone with for 40 minutes now, discussing the finer points of whether or not you should italize her name on a business card.

That brings me to the other part of why I think my job is one of the best in the world.

Design work is funny. Especially bad design. And it's everywhere. Yay! When I say bad design, I mean something so utterly hideous that even people who are not design oriented (read: aesthetic snobs) say "Wow, that looks like poopie."

I've seen more than my fair share of bad design. Maybe it's because I am looking for it all the time. But regardless, some of the most heinous graphic offenses I have seen have been the byproduct of the "Magic Wand" tool in Photoshop.

Basically, it is just a tool sitting one row down on the right in your Photoshop palette. It is supposed to help you remove things from the background with ease. Problem is...it doesn't always work that way, and more often than not, this otherwise innocent tool is responsible for cutting off Aunt Mildred's left arm in the family photo, because you were selecting white and her arm is also white. Or, you are selecting a diamond ring in a photo to put elsewhere and accidentally grabbed part of the diamond, decreasing it's size or shape, etc and now it looks like a tooth with a cavity.

See why it's referred to as the "tragic wand"? This Photoshop tool has, I'm willing to bet, dismembered more people and ruined more jewelry pictures than should really be mentioned. And when you do that much damage, you definitely need a blog named after you.

So if you are reading this thinking that the tragic wand refers to something goth related, I'm sad to report that is not correct. You won't find that here. But you will find my random musing about advertising, graphics, and anything else that strikes my fancy. Enjoy!