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. :)