Mistakes Anyone? Whatever you call them—mistakes, oversights, errors in judgment or just your plain old oopsies we’ve all pulled our share of slip-ups or miscalculations when designing something.
The problem with mistakes in graphic design is that they tend to multiply exponentially.
For instance: the client has an idea but has a design mistake. The designer includes the ill conceived mistake into the design, and the art director or editor approves it-for all to see.
In part three of Graphic Design: The Humorous Side of Things we’ll see that the little mistake gremlins can have pretty funny results—unintentionally of course.
Enjoy and learn from the mistakes of others.
Remedial Math Needed What better way to celebrate a milestone of an organization then to proudly display the dates of its inception and the date of celebration?
In this case, the magazine design layout presents a rather funny and embarrassing result.
…………………………….. It’s apparent that the graphic designer wasn’t trying to show a math problem but unfortunately underscored the dates in a way that the graphic looks like a subtraction problem; ergo 1992 subtracted from 2007 does not equal 25 years.
The humor is especially strong because the magazine article is about education. Oh, well.
Moral of this ad: Double check your design layout before you approve it. . Really? As you’ll see, graphic design (or a lack thereof) is important on the Internet as well.
…………….. It’s hard to not smile and chuckle a little because the advertisement is about good website design and presenting a professional image. Now, if we could just get over the beach balls and loud set design in this video, we might even believe the spokesperson’s message. ;D
Moral of this ad: Video isn’t exempt from graphic design principles.
When Graphic Designers Have Too Much Free Time What do graphic designers do when they have a little free time on their hands? In this video they do wonderful things in their spare time. . ………………
Sometimes creativity can soar when the pressure is off of you. These examples aren’t mistakes but are great examples of what your creative juices can do if you let them run wild.
Moral of this video: Take a break for fun.
Graphic Design School and You While mistake gremlins always try to sneak into your designs you can prepare and prevent them by getting the proper training at the graphic design college of your choice.
You’ll learn techniques and principles of design, art and layout to give you the best chance of designing pieces that can help you in your career. Keep your mistakes down to a minimum by paying attention to the details and obtaining a proper design education at a qualified graphic design school.
Next Time… We hope you’ve enjoyed this series. We’ll be back next time with some more articles on graphic design and how you can keep up with design trends.
Season’s Greetings The Ducati Motorcycles Company have traditionally sent out greetings during the Christmas season via emails to its customers, business clients, partners, and suppliers.
This year Ducati wants to get you involved by asking for your email greeting designs.
The Ducati Greetings Contest wants submissions that reflect the passion and style of Ducati while also wishing its fans a happy holiday season.
The Contest Guidelines Ducati states that submission ideas should “Keep it simple; keep it sober; keep it branded.”
As far as creative guidelines the contest sponsors state:
*Creativity should be simple, played on a clear and effective payoff, ….please no complex or eccentric graphic style.
*Creativity is also sent via email to to professional and business ….recipients, so it must entertain and engage with style and elegance.
*Creativity must be in line with the corporate image and corporate brand values of Ducati ….(see links). So feel free to use any image from Ducati website.
Thematic Guidelines Because Ducati sells its motorcycles to an international market your designs should take this into consideration.
Ducati requests that submitted designs be devoid of any references to Christmas/religion, religious scenes, snow, cabins or any other references that may not be common to other countries.
Generic themes such as “Season’s greetings” are acceptable.
Also do not depict motorcycling or motorcycles in any unsafe or dangerous references or images.
Submission Guidelines Your email greeting entries should include:
* One Thumbnail image (112×157 pixels) in jpg, gif or png that represents ….your full sized design. This will be posted in the vote gallery site. * One Large image (650×500 pixels) in jpg, gif, or png that shows your ….full-sized image for the greeting email card. * All submissions must be done in Photoshop or Illustrator. * A high resolution image must be submitted if your entry wins.
Prizes The First Prize winner will receive €1,000 (1,362 USD). Top entries will be posted on the Ducati website and social network and blogs.
Graphic Design vs Opinion Have you ever had your designs rejected even though you knew deep down inside that your piece was exactly what your client needed?
Or perhaps your design was good but was turned down because the client (or the assistant) felt troubled because it was “too small,” “lacked enough bright colors” or even worse, “It reminds me of another ad we did…” . . The adage that too many cooks spoil the broth can come true when you are dealing with certain clients; everyone, including the office secretary, has an opinion on your design.
Funny or Tragic? As a professional graphic designer you do your best in trying to meet the needs of your clients. But sometimes it seems that they don’t understand your concepts or your talent. Have you ever felt like doing this? . ………………
This movie scene is from the tense confrontation between Tom Cruise’s character and Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie, A Few Good Men. Of course the dialogue between the two is cleverly overdubbed.
In this instance Nicholson plays the role of a graphic designer fighting for his creative license by dressing down a junior designer. Nicholson presents his credentials as seasoned designer and is outraged that his judgment has been criticized.
But in the real world is such an outburst necessary or warranted?
Solve the Problem Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software has this to say about customers:
“When customers have a problem and you fix it, they’re actually going to be even more satisfied than if they never had a problem in the first place.
“So when someone calls [us], and immediately gets through to a human, with no voice mail or phone menus, and that person turns out to be nice and friendly and actually solves their problem, they’re apt to think even more highly of us…”
Graphic Design Schools and Problem Solving Although an education at a graphic design college means necessary career training it also prepares you for problem solving. Clients come to you to solve a graphic design need or problem.
You can be prepared to solve these problems by utilizing all that you have learned in graphic design school to produce a unique visual and graphic solution.
Never forget that design knowledge is important but that action combined with this knowledge is wisdom and good business.
Next Time… Attention to detail, or a lack thereof, can make the difference between a great graphic design or something that draws unintentional smiles. Next time we meet we’ll go over the importance of looking out for the “small stuff” when creating your pieces.
Let’s Have Some Fun Designers, artists and those who work in the arts have a good sense of humor; it’s an essential trait to have when faced with constant deadlines, pressures, and the high expectations that goes along with these jobs.
Watch this video and see if you can identify. . ……………….. . Humor finds itself in everyday situations because it usually points out a truth that most people can relate to. Graphic design is no different and if you have been in this career field or one that relies on creativity you know how it “only hurts when I laugh.” . Changes for the Worse The video you viewed holds a lot of truth in that it presents many of the “requests” you may have heard from clients regarding projects you have been hired to do.
The project you are working on could be an advertisement, a poster or a logo but sometimes the suggestions for changes do not make the design better.
Your job, as a graphic designer, is to correlate all the information necessary from the client to produce a piece that meets specifications, is professional looking and informative.
The Client is Sometimes Wrong But in some cases the design guidelines from your client may not be the best graphic design. A common concern for some clients is too much “empty space” or lack of size. In the design world, negative space can help to enhance a design.
But in the client’s eyes it may mean not getting enough for his money. In cases where the customer wants more color, size, or other “eye catching” graphics you may need to point out what works and what doesn’t.
Graphic Design School and Proper Design Because virtually everyone has access to a computer some think that the job of design is an easy one. All you need to do is to get some clip art, use the comic sans font, some bright colors and you’re a designer!
Unfortunately bad design abounds in the world because of the misconception of “design is easy.” Everyone may have access to some sort of graphics program but this doesn’t mean they can automatically become David Carson.
Getting the proper education from a graphic design college is essential in understanding design concepts, art principles, and the numerous computer design software and hardware that are available today.
If you are interested in the field of graphic design there are online classes, graphic design schools and community colleges that provide the essential tools you’ll need to get your graphic design career going.
Next Time… In part two of Graphic Design: The Humorous Side of Things we’ll see a re-dubbed dialogue track of a well known movie that demonstrates what can happen when a graphic designer takes a stand against corporate mediocrity.
Water as Art? Or perhaps we should rephrase this to say “water bottle as art.” Art Water is a company that makes it a priority to make sure that the water they package is as refreshing to the eye as well as the body.
Art Water is announcing its Skin the Bottle Competition and wants artists and designers to create works of art for its line of bottled water.
Contest Details There are three categories for this contest:
* Photography * Traditional Art * Digital Art
Art Water states:
“Create anything you want using the [provided] template so long as it represents your vision…
“Conform only to the shape of the bottle and create an Art Water label that represents your aesthetic insight…how you feel the bottle should look or what you think the bottle should say is how Art Water wants YOU to design it.”
General Submission Guidelines
* All designs should be in JPG, PNG or GIF file formats. * If your entry wins you must submit the accompanying PSD or vector file. * All entries must follow contest template guidelines. * No watermarks or other distinguishing graphics that identify the ….author/company. * More than one entry is allowed. * All contestants must be registered on the deviantArt.com contest site.
Judging Criteria All entries will be judged against the following standards:
* Level of Superlative Visual Design * Best Utilization of the Art Water Bottle Design * Overall Presentation and Appeal of the Design
Prizes The winners of each category will have their designs imprinted on the bottles of Art Water sold throughout the US.
In addition:
* Each winner will receive $1500 * 8,000 deviantART points * One year premium membership to deviantART.com * A $0.03 royalty for each bottle of water incorporating their design
Other Contest Info and Links This contest if free to enter and you may enter as often as you like. The contest deadline is November 30, 2010.
Follow these links for important contest information:
Been There, Done That, and Been There Again Sometimes a difficult customer can make you feel depressed, angry or both. But as they say, it’s all part of the package when you work for clients.
Tak Robinson, a lead graphic designer, shares his story of a difficult client.
“One of our customers used us because we were known for fast service. He had to pay a premium but grudgingly did so to meet his tight deadlines.
“Then he started to drop off his work after our studio was officially closed for business. He knew we had a night crew and demanded that his projects be ready by the next day.
“This really disrupted our night shift’s schedule in taking care of other rush jobs for the following morning. Our excellent night team was not happy.”
What did Tak do? The rest of the story is at the end of this article. (As usual certain circumstances and names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty.)
Difficult Clients Most of the time, clients are reasonable. But there are always customers who stretch your patience to the max. . ………………. . As Jill the graphic designer indicated, you can’t really tell off a customer the way she did. But in rare cases where compromise or a mutual understanding isn’t working, it may be the better part of valor to diplomatically turn down the job.
Kristen Holden of SitePoint offers this advice:
“The easiest way to deal with problem clients is to not take them on board in the first place.
“Avoid feeling compelled to accept every piece of work you come across. Some clients are truly not worth the extra effort spent on managing them. Over time, you actually lose money.”
With that said make sure that you are doing the best you can to be professional and understanding in order to find a solution that will keep both you and your client relatively happy.
Graphic Design School and Customer Relations The first priority for going to a graphic design college is to get a strong education in design and art. The secondary purpose is to prepare you for career opportunities upon graduation.
How you relate to your fellow peers in graphic design school, how you handle the pressure of deadlines, and your ability to produce consistently good work under adverse circumstances helps you in providing good customer service.
Hard Decisions In a perfect world there should never be a circumstance where you need to turn down a client. But as we all know this isn’t a perfect world. Turning down a client must be done in a pragmatic and logical manner after all other avenues to work with the client have been closed.
In some cases a job may not be financially sound for your business. In extremely rare cases the client is unreasonable and unrealistic concerning expectations, deadlines or final costs.
Let’s find out the rest of the story concerning our graphic designer and the difficult client.
“His demands were becoming increasingly over the top for us and we had to make a decision to tell our night staff to charge him premium-rush-overtime to complete his work ahead of our other clients.
“The funny thing is he never complained about the extra charges. He started to drop off his work during the daytime again instead of at night. Eventually we figured out that he was always behind in his work and passed his hectic deadlines on to us.
“We wanted to drop him as a client but things worked themselves out for us. We think his company fired him because another graphic artist took his place.”
Next Time… We hope you’ve enjoyed this series about Graphic Designers vs. Clients. In the next few weeks we’ll take a look at the creative processes of graphic design and see how good ideas can sometimes backfire.
Mistakes Anyone?
Season’s Greetings
Because Ducati sells its motorcycles to an international market your designs should take this into consideration.
Contest Links and Other Information
Graphic Design vs Opinion
Joel Spolsky, founder of 
Graphic Design Schools and Problem Solving
Changes for the Worse
Graphic Design School and Proper Design
Water as Art?
General Submission Guidelines
Prizes
Sometimes a difficult customer can make you feel depressed, angry or both. But as they say, it’s all part of the package when you work for clients.
Hard Decisions