Are You a Hardcore Graphic Designer?
Last week I came across an online article that listed typical traits of graphic designers. It was ridiculous how true everything was, and if you’re a graphic designer then you’d probably see the humor in it. While there are some things on the list that hasn’t happened or doesn’t relate to me at all, pretty much everything else is on spot. Here are the ones I liked the most and was able to relate to:
“You rip your hair when a free Photoshop brush you downloaded from a site is less than 1000px in size.”
This one’s never happened to me, since I rarely ever download brushes. I think the last time I downloaded a brush was mid last year, and instead of it being too small, it just wouldn’t download at all.
“You bumped the car in front of you because you were busy analyzing the font on a billboard on the side of the road.”
This one hasn’t happened to me either, but there’s been a lot of times when I’d either get stuck on admiring and analyzing an incredibly good design or critisizing the shit out of a design so ugly that it doesn’t even deserve to exist.
“You use keyboard shortcuts at phenomenal speed even when blindfolded, but you can’t type a small paragraph without staring at the keyboard.”
I’m slowly working on it.
“During work, you consider meals an annoying interruptions.”
I love food. Of course I wouldn’t pass up a good meal when I’m hungry. But the only exception is when I’ve got all my focus on a design that I’m enthusiastically working on, then I’d work to a certain point before eating, just to rush the meal so I could get back to designing.
“You would spend hours upon hours searching for that perfect font! Every time!”
Don’t really get this one. If they mean an installed font on your computer, it takes me about 30 minutes to find the perfect font for a design. If they mean looking for a new font on the internet, then yeah, it could take a while. Every graphic designer has some sort of obssesive compulsiveness with fonts. We can’t stand ugly or unsuitable fonts. Either play it safe with Helvetica or spend good time finding a font that’s perfect for the design you’re working on.
“You have learned a lesson and stopped using the word ‘final’ in any filename when saving a design!”
This one is ridiculously true. I’d create different versions/layouts for a design (just like every other designer), then save my final design/choice with “final” in the filename. But while reviewing it, I would find something I didn’t like, or wanted to add, or wanted to change or whatever. I’d end up having files labeled as “________final01”, “_______final02”, “_______FINALdesign”, etc. I still haven’t learned my lesson, I still do that.
“You have, at last, given up trying to explain your projects to non-designers.”
It’s every designers pet peeve (at least to an extent) when others don’t understand our perspectives, concepts, or articulation of a design.
“You see CMYK and RGB like a genetics engineer seeing genetic code!”
HELL YEEZIE!
“You nearly had a Design orgasm when you heard that Adobe acquired Macromedia!”
I wasn’t an aspiring graphic designer at the time that happened, but looking back, I probably would’ve had a design orgasm if I were. Seamless workflow FTW.
“When you look at Album art, all you can see is grunge Photoshop Brushes. A few minutes later, you notice the Album art.”
Someone seriously needs to hire modernist graphic designers to work on a majority of the rock/punk/metal/grunge/whatever album covers out there.
“You totally discarded a great design concept because the client thinks that he/she is a great designer. (Everyone thinks they are a great graphic designer)”
Soooooo true. Everyone thinks they know what they’re doing when it comes to design. It sucks when you’ve designed something that’s fresh, innovative, different, yet completely works and looks amazing, only to have it shot down by your client ‘cause they think something else is better.
“Without any affection, you have nicknamed the OSX spinning wheel of death!”
I named it the spinning beach ball of death, but that’s cause I coined it from HappySlip.
“You never give the PSD file to your client (bad practice).”
One thing, no designer wants their client to screw with the final design after they’ve submitted it to them. Another thing, PSD format isn’t universally compatible, durr!
“You have more than 5000 fonts and a very short temper.”
Do they mean fonts or typefaces? I only have about 250 typefaces (which is sad for a graphic designer), but if they mean fonts, then I probably have about 800-1000.
“If you’d have been paid a penny for a mouse click, you’d have been a trillionaire 2 years ago.”
If only.
“You hate clients that thinks they are better designer than you.”
Yes I do. I would have a good design, but then the client would want something changed because they “think” something else is better, when really, most of the time their taste is crap. Centered text instead of left or right aligned? Comic Sans? Don’t like the dynamic layout of the text/segments? BUT THAT LAYOUT IS SO STATIC! WTF.
“You have at least 3 additional 1 TB hard disks because you ran out of space on your first hard disk couple of years ago.”
Hasn’t happened to me yet. I just keep deleting files that I for sure know I don’t want anymore, until I have no choice but to pay over a hundred bucks for a hard drive. Plus, I havn’t been seriously designing for that long, and I don’t do that much 3D or flash work, so yeah.
6 months ago