One Thousand and One Ways to Peeve Off Your Favorite Designer

As promised.

Okay, I won't deluge you with quite that many, although after today, I feel quite certain I could come up with them all. Easily.

So we'll just touch on a few of the annoying things you can and will have done to you as a graphic artist, desktop publisher, or whatever title you've chosen or have been forced to take.

First off are the clients who wait until it's far too late and absolutely impossible to complete their project by the deadline. I had another experience with this one just this afternoon. Very late in the day, a company salesman requests a few additional projects for a seminar that starts on Tuesday. It's out of state, so anything we send will have to allow for an overnight FedEx shipment. Keep in mind that today is Friday. They're apparently just now thinking about the items they need for this show. Needless to say, it does take time to create these things, and although I have been known to crank out a few projects within a completely inhuman time frame, those aren't usually the award-winners. The kicker was the end of the conversation. "Whip something up real quick and we'll just take it to Kinko's."

Words to live by, I'm sure.

As a student, I, along with the multitude of others in my classes, lived at the local Kinko's. The night before a project was due, half the class would be there making the final, brilliant touches to our portfolios with color copies and rub-on type.

In the real world, quick copies are the bane to our existance. Unless you want your projects to completely suck, never, ever, EVER take a corporate project to Kinko's. Well, almost never. But after school is finished, that place is not your best friend. It's your last-minute, procrastination, no-way-I-can-print-this-many-pieces-on-my-inkjet-printer nightmare.

You will not win awards and acclaim (and a bigger paycheck) by running your project through the color copier. It IS obvious that's what you've done, and any pro will see it.

Unfortunately, the pros are usually not the ones asking you to do things like this, but are the same people who firmly believe that PowerPoint is a professional page layout program.

The second peeve on our list is similar to the first. It's either defined as procrastination or simply stupidity. I'm not certain which. It's those people who wait until the end of the day (and sometimes past the end of the day) to corner you in your office for long, meaningful, detailed project guideline discussions, brainstorming sessions, or any other conversation that takes longer than five minutes.

There I stand, after staying late to finish a project, jacket on, pack slung over my shoulder, keys in hand, when the chief marketing guru corners me in my office. "I'm really worried about this project," he moans, plunking himself down in my guest chair. I lay everything down and sit behind my desk again. Jacket is still on. Bag and keys in plain sight. Big, huge hints that I'm on my way out the door. Thirty minutes later, we're still discussing. He finally retreats after multiple reassurances that everything is fine, and we really DO know what we're doing.

It amazes me how often I have to repeat this phrase. "You hired us because we know what we're doing. We have it under control." Or more often: "You supposedly hired us because we know what we're doing. Why don't you believe us when we tell you something?"

So that leads to pet peeve number three: If you don't know how to design, and you hire a professional, why does that suddenly make you an expert, trying to tell us how we are supposed to do our jobs. I'm not going to tell the electrician how to fix my wiring, and I normally wouldn't be able do it without killing myself. But because I've hired him, apparently I've now gained the amazing ability to do the entire project even better than he can, so I'm going to criticize everything he does and every tool he uses. Just because I can.

I'm not talking about critiquing the project, or brainstorming the initial ideas. I'm talking about things that the typical client knows absolutely nothing about. Like the programs we use ("Why can't you just do it in PowerPoint?"), the time it takes to design these things ("It's just a logo. Don't spend more than an hour on it."), the time it takes to print these things ("Just take it to Kinko's."), and the processes of approvals and pricing ("We need these sixteen people to approve it. It will only take fifteen minutes to get it back to you, so there shouldn't be any rush charges.")

I've often heard of the designers who charge their clients an "Asshole Tax" (although that's not what they actually call it on their invoices). This is an upcharge for the people who are especially dense and extremely difficult to work for. The ones who do every one of the above, plus some. It causes us more work trying to please them, undue stress, loss of sleep and occasionally the loss of other clients. Unfortunately, if you're corporate, you don't get that luxury.

I need to find a way to institute an "Asshole Tax" for in-house teams. I'd be rich.

Next: Stick a Fork in the Marketing Group. They're Done.

Delusions of Grandeur

Why is it that college has been teaching our youth that they can graduate and immediately earn the huge salaries that the rest of us have to work for forty years to earn (if ever)?

Listen to me, talking about young people like I'm that old...

But seriously. It must have changed sometime after I graduated, because our professors were usually threatening us with fast food resumes. "You people might as well start learning to ask if you want fries with that, because that's the only job you'll ever get!" Hmm...What was that saying again? "Those who can't do, teach?"

I really want to know the answer to my initial question, though. What happened that suddenly deluded people into thinking that graphic design is a high-paying job? I don't think any of us who were serious about the art ever expected to do much more than earn a living. Above the poverty line, yes. Enough more to buy our supplies and equipment, eat, and have some reasonable lives, but not enough to run out and buy a Jaguar, have a butler, and live on some private, thousand-acre seaside villa. Especially not straight out of school.

One of the major design magazines does an annual salary survey. Not once do I remember seeing a $100K a year designer listing. A VP spot in a major corporation may get you that. Owning your own VERY VERY successful, multi-location agency may get you that. Being at the bottom of the totem pole, will not get you that.

What it will get you is a long, hard road of very crappy little jobs. The type of job where you are everyone else's bitch. If you can make it through the tedium of production design work, low-end, uninspired design projects, and every horrible, annoying, impossible client that the senior designers don't want to deal with, then you're cut out for this line of work. If not, it's time to change your major or go back to school, because no one else will hire you.

Why not? Simple. You have NO experience.

It's a vicious cycle. Most places who are still hiring want at least 2-3 years of experience, if not more. Depending on the position, that also may include a pristine portfolio of outstanding, award-winning work. And now for the kicker: if you don't have the experience, they won't even talk to you.

How exactly do you get the experience if no one will hire you? Therein lies the problem.

Some things will get you in the door. A creative resume (that's creatively designed, not creatively padded). An internship at an agency, a print shop, doing pre-press work, anything that's related to the industry (you may not be paid much, if anything, but you get to claim real-world experience). Samples of your work (not your full portfolio, at least not at first). And occasionally, a brilliant cover letter (which is actually how my current designer got his foot in the door for an interview).

But what about my portfolio?? comes the resounding cry. Ya know what? Even the most outstanding, god-like creativity won't do you a bit of good until you get inside and someone actually looks at it. Until then, you're a piece of paper.

I'm not going to go into all the self-help, job-seeking, winning-interview speeches on here. Go to one of the job-search sites if you want that kind of motivational, how-to advice. I'm only here for the dose of reality that neither your teachers nor those oh-so-helpful articles will give you. Don't get mad at me. I've already been through it the hard way.

The most important point is this: whatever you do, don't ask for a senior designer's salary. They'll laugh you right out the door.

Next time: 1001 Ways to P.O. Your Favorite Designer.