Category Archives: Design

Design

Why I hate “Clients From Hell”

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There’s a popular site whose content is sourced from supposed actual conversations between graphic designers and their clients, it’s called Clients from Hell … and I hate it. At first I thought it was funny, especially since I’ve been in similar situations to those posted and could relate. I followed it for a bit, laughing and pointing while thinking to myself how ridiculous everyone’s clients seem to be. A little while after first following the site, it started to leave a bad taste in my mouth. There’s a general lack of respect for the graphic design field in most professional circles and this site does nothing except support the idea that we’re all a bunch of whiny, spoiled brats who just sit around and play with our Macbooks and drink coffee all day while bitching about how unfair life is and that nobody understands our vision. Gag.

Having a public forum such as this simply to illustrate how stupid clients are viewed by designers is terribly damaging and does absolutely nothing to dissuade anyone from the unfortunate stereotype that (most of us) are trying so desperately to escape. We are, in general, a group of well-written, intelligent and professional people who love what we do and enjoy working with the clients we work with, who are not the bumbling idiots the site makes them out to be. Like all business relationships, there are ups and downs, but they are akin to those of other professionals such as accountants or photographers. We are educated in the visual arts, whether it be formal or professional, and that gives us the opportunity to offer expert advice when it comes to the field of graphic design. As a client, you acknowledge that expertise by choosing to hire a professional designer to do your work and as with other services that some people choose to do on their own (like accounting or photography) we appreciate that recognition.

The popularity of Clients from Hell saddens me. They recently posted that there’s a book coming out of the site’s posts. I hope that it goes largely unnoticed—to those who would hire us—as the whiny, “poor, poor me, I’m so misunderstood” rant that it is since some of us choose to see client relationships as something to develop positively with education and guidance as an expert in the field instead of trying to make everyone you work for look stupid.

Design, Life

Deftness

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I’ve been trying to keep myself busy lately. It’s been a mixed bag of work, reading, Javascript Live! and fun with the fam. Since the weather’s been all screwy and everyone seems to be traveling for the month of May, I’m going to concentrate on the remainder of the month as a catch up time. Hopefully if I can get caught up on client work there’ll be room for some personal projects, you know they kind I talk about all the time in very little detail and then forget about? Yep, those. One is an artistic project, I’ve been rendering a typeface off and on for the better part of a year and now that there’s a Cintiq in the house it might be time to investigate the possibilities. The other project’s a little less clear, but it’ll be here when it’s done. Probably a web comic, but I’m not sure yet.

One last thing, I came up with a company name (yeah!). We’ll be operating under the name Defthouse as an art and design agency and I’m set to get things going and build that identity (double yeah!). Got a domain name secured, but that’s about it so far.

Design, Web development

New WordPress Book

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Just picked up a copy of Smashing WordPress by Thord Daniel Hedengren. I’m looking to see what more I can do with WordPress and this book looks like a good start. I chose WordPress for this site because my former host had an easy install option in the dashboard setting and it turned out that I liked the backend of it pretty well. It’s easy to use from an organizational standpoint and there are lots of plugins available.

Lots of people have strong opinions on what platform is best for a blog, and since I’m no expert on the subject—I’ve some experience with WP and limited experience with Drupal—I’ll not stretch to comment on the topic. I hear that there are some fun things in the upcoming release of WordPress 3.0, for that I’m excited.

It seems that this new WP book has a good amount of basic information on how to get started on developing themes, plugins and how WP itself is structured. It just made it to the top of my—now very large—’to read’ pile of computer-related books beside the bed. Will report back with findings once I’ve gotten further into it.

Design, Life, Web development

The need to be

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This past month has been really interesting. I’ve taken on a couple new projects, mostly personal, and have been continuing to develop my skills as a developer, writer, blogger and designer. Sounds like a lot, right? Really, everything all ties together and will hopefully prove to be very interesting one completed, possibly launching in the next couple months. While all this is great, it isn’t paying the bills. I’ll be out of work for a full year at the end of this month and I’m starting to feel a little disconnected and concerned about getting back into the fold.

I’ve had some new interesting things come up lately, one would be very interesting and close to home with the gym located in-between. I like the person I’d be working with seems like a good guy, although he gives me beard envy. I’m reminded on a daily basis how important stability is as well as the need to be strong. I typically take things at a slower pace than most when it comes to change—partly because I’m overly logical about it, as in “how will this affect me in three years” and partly because I’ve still got a bit of the lazy teenager hanging around whispering in my ear from time to time.

I am indeed hard on myself when it comes to certain things career-wise, mostly those to do with applying things I’ve learned. For example, I can program better than some of the people I’ve met who do it for a living, yet I’m not confident enough in my skills to present myself as a true developer. I think it’s probably a shield I keep up to protect myself, also that I truly think that never having a good mentor has hurt me professionally. I know I’ve got a lot more to give as a professional designer but my portfolio of work doesn’t show a particularly polished set of skills, or one thing I do particularly well. The same goes for my development portfolio; however, that portfolio is much younger than the design one and there’s a bit of wiggle room.

Sure, I’m still young and there’s some time to get things going and nurture the sleeping beast within, but I need to be. I need to be a provider. I need to be a father. I need to be a husband. And I think doing those things will make everything easier, however, right now I need to be eating something because I be hungry.

Design, Life

A little respect

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I wish there was a legitimate excuse for not being able to keep up with writing, but there’s really not. Part of it is my recent attempts at working (a client who I fired after only a month, long story) as well as serious attempts at building a solid clientele. This has proved significantly harder than I’d ever imagined, but some real success stories happen this way so, why not?

I seem to have developed either an increased self-worth, or woken up to the fact that one just doesn’t get rich working for a living. Which is a bit of advice that I took away from my first, and BY FAR, worst job that I had in the past 12 years as a professional designer. So, instead of trying to market myself as a person who is worth $XX dollars per hour, I’m going at it from a different approach. That approach is selling myself and my skills as a product instead of clamoring for some hourly wage job. Of course, it’s the road less traveled as it is surely the more difficult one but will most definitely pay off better in the end.

I’ve been investing some time into discovery as well, this has given me a new found respect for pretty much anyone who can barbecue well (and those that know the difference between BBQ and grilling) cause it’s fuckin’ hard to do that if you’re not sure what you’re doing. Also, my respect for single parents has gone up ten-fold. I really have the ideal situation when it comes to raising a little one, so all of you single parents out there–my hat’s off to you. Kids are a damn hard job and doing it alone can’t be easy.