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.
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.
Retro Geeking at its Best Do you have an affinity for horror films, retro “B” movie monsters, old school pop culture, comics and cool toys? If you said yes to any of these questions you are a prime candidate for membership in the Strange Kids Club.
What the Contest is About SKC wants entries that feature Strange Kid, the website’s mascot, in fan art, animations or short comics.
The way Strange Kid is depicted is entirely up to you as long as the stylistic attributes of Strange Kid are easily recognizable.
The winners of the contest will be included in the upcoming Strange Kid anthology. Winners will receive one free copy of the compilation.
The Contest Guidelines All entries must be submitted digitally via email to ghostab.ds [at] gmail.com (replace [at] with @). Be sure to include “Strange Kid Anthology” in the subject line.
Your uploaded file should be 300 dpi in resolution, CMYK colors, and in TIFF format. Your artwork should be sized approximately 11″ x 17″. Send your completed entry in a compressed form (either zip or rar).
File sizes should not exceed 10MB. You may send multiple compressed files. Your file name should be in this format: FirstName_LastName_Title.tiff.
If you have an animation contact the contest sponsors for more details.
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.
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.
Before They Showed Up The use of personal computers and cell phones is very common today and it’s hard to imagine not having these devices in today’s high-tech world.
We wonder, “What will the next generations of electronic marvels hold for us?”
The Fujitsu Design Award is about the future and how high-tech devices will influence us years from now. In the words of the sponsor:
“The Fujitsu Design Award is held to make the future lifestyles of people richer and even more fun, and to give concrete shape to the future…
As Fujitsu sees it, by more frequently using ICT (information and communication technologies) that is becoming increasingly diverse, and dramatically expanding the possibilities of our services.”
Contest Details This competition is about submitting your best vision of the future and how new computing technology will be used.
Fujitsu is asking designers to formulate designs and concepts for the devices of the future and what they will do for people in relationship to networking with others, daily routines, entertainment, and fulfilling Fujitsu service design concepts.
Fujitsu describes a service concept as:
“…a type of service utilizing ICT is provided to enrich peoples’ ….lives, and can be described in these terms:
* What type of person, and what type of service will it provide? * What will that service be used for, where and when? * What convenience, experience, excitement or other new value ….can be gained by using the service?
There is no need to interpret the service content based on a business model (income and expenditure).”
There are two different design divisions for this contest:
* Lifebook Category: What PCs will be like in 2013; the near future. * Lifedesign Category: What next-generation computing devices will be like (including service ….concept) ten years from now in 2020.
Submission Guidelines Entries may be images or video clips. The following are the recommended specifications for each type of file:
Images:
* 72dpi gif or jpeg files in RGB color mode * Dimensions should be 600 pixels wide x 800 pixels high * File size not to be larger than 150kb.
Video Clips
* Only flv or swf files will be accepted * File size: 640 pixels x 480 pixels * file size: 10MB or less
For full details see the official rules and guidelines.
Prizes The following cash awards will be given to the winners:
One Grand Prize: €30,000 (42,390 USD) for 1 work Two Runner-Up Prizes: €10,000 (14,130 USD) for 2 works (1 from each category) Seven Judges’ Special Awards: €1,000 (1412 USD) for 7 works
Contest Links and Other Information This contest will close on January 31, 2011. The winners will be announced sometime in April 2011. There are no entry fees for this contest.
Follow these links for important information regarding this competition:
Mistakes Anyone?
Graphic Design vs Opinion
Joel Spolsky, founder of 
Graphic Design Schools and Problem Solving
Retro Geeking at its Best
The Contest Guidelines
Contest Links and Other Information
Changes for the Worse
Graphic Design School and Proper Design
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
