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!