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As a graphic designer I can only offer you my sympathy.

The fact is, there are a ton of people who are blind to the nuance of a well-designed piece.

When they "own" the piece, some glaring errors or sloppiness just isn't apparent.
Now, if they were their own prospective client, that faulty design might not be something they consciously notice, but it gives off an air of incompetence.


Please don't tell me he wanted you to use Papyrus or Comic Sans.

38 pages of copy? Shheesh.

Doesn't sound like a Graphic Designer to me if he/she gave you a document in Word. We despise that program, and run away at the instant it is mentioned.

See this all the time.

Crop them. When he asks you what happened, explain while pulling your cheeks in opposite directions and use the words "silly putty." Gets 'em every time.

longboy wrote:

Doesn't sound like a Graphic Designer to me if he/she gave you a document in Word. We despise that program, and run away at the instant it is mentioned.

He's not a graphic designer, he's a piano player. To expect him to try to learn a layout program would be pointless and frustrating for both of us. That's why I told him to use Word.

My bad, I assumed he was a Graphic Designer due to the title of the thread

I had to blow up that Max smiley quite a bit to see what Max was hitting the guy with. It, um, looked like, uh, something else.

It's a fish Bren. Not sure what kind though. Could it be a red salmon?

I thought about citing the reference, but I always liked the Unix manual version better.

There's nothing worse than a client who thinks they know what they want.


Sturner: Internet Relay Chat?

Bren wrote:

There's nothing worse than a client who thinks they know what they want.

You mean like when someone hands you something they made in Microsoft Publisher, and think you're going to treat it with some degree of sincere respect?

mrreet2001 wrote:

if it's exactly what they want why be judgmental?

It's not about being judgemental per se BUT

When you are hiring a designer,  aesthetic judgment IS part of what you are paying for.
The fact is, a seasoned designer is simply going to look at things with more seasoned eyes and experience.
The non-designer often suffers from not seeing the full picture, or context, or the underlying qualities that separates "ok" design from "good" or even "great" design.

It goes beyond just taste.
Many clients get locked into one idea (often the first one they dream up). Many of these same clients are not seeing possible minefields ahead, or are simply re-doing a cliche or even a stolen concept.

sturner wrote:

/trout Bren

sturner slaps Bren with a trout

That thing doesn't look like a trout.

It...

looks like something else.

Regarding "Why be judgmental?"

Well, maybe Pithecanthropus might want to actually get paid for doing Web design some day. Maybe, therefore, he doesn't want something to be out there, looking like crap, if it's going to have his name on it.