Ramblings of a Disgruntled Designer

I'm ready to get my foot in the door of the design world. And man oh man, the door is huge, but the bouncer is quite strict.

I realize that almost anyone can grab a computer and design themselves a poster, or movie label, or a website for their start-up company... the truth is though, that not everybody should. What I mean is that nothing sells better, or grabs peoples' interest, than an eye catching, emotion yanking design. Something that says "Professional!", instead of "Amateur". In the long run, it's a good plan to spend a few extra bucks in the beginning.

I try to follow the adage, "Don't judge a book by it's cover." but it's almost impossible to do these days. Everybody does it. The thing is... we might get the horrible book to design an advertisement for. Does that mean we need to make a crummy ad because it's a crummy book? Of course not. We do our job, we make it amazing. That's why we're designers, and the rest of the people... glorified desktop publishers armed with Microsoft Word, and Windows Movie Maker.

Basically what I'm saying is that anybody can call themselves designers these days because the tools are readily accessible. The difference between them and us, is the years of school, and years of experience. And we know the difference between Helvetica and Helvetica Neue. Hahaha.

Well... in celebration of the impending release from OhGr, I thought I'd celebrate.



OhGr - Devils In My Details

Tracklist
1. Shhh...
2. Eyecandy
3. Three
4. Feelin Chicken
5. Pepper
6. D. Angel
7. Psychoreal
8. Whitevan
9. Timebomb
10. Smogharp
11. Witness

Business Cards For You!

A few weeks ago a couple came into my work and needed cards printed, but didn't want anything that we offered. Not surprising, since we only have boring templates. So, I offered to design the cards for them. They were more than happy to give me money rather than a large corporation, so that night I designed them some cards.

They're pretty standard, as in simple-ish layouts, but they wanted something clean and professional looking. They needed them double sided, and that was no problem.

The one interesting aspect was that the woman wanted square business cards. She had her heart set on square cards. I was more than happy to oblige because you don't always see square cards, do you? She was totally cool that they wouldn't fit in a standard business card case, or wallet, or anything.

So I did some proofs for both clients, and then printed up 100 of each on some nice glossy on one side, matte on the other, business card paper.


I learned a few valuable lessons in doing this job for these people.

1. For a designer such as myself without a job in the design industry.. working in retail... almost every customer can be a potential client/employer. Poke them, or prod them, ask them the right questions and you might just find they're looking for a website, business card, letterhead, etc.

And the second lesson... Be VERY careful about adding thin lines bordering a business card! I made that mistake with the square cards... and I had to trim almost every one by hand to get that damn line an even distance on every edge. What a nightmare!

Here are some cards I've designed for myself... it's really hard to design for yourself. Very hard.