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!