You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For
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For many up and coming graphic designers, especially those without a college degree of some sort, finding work can be very difficult. I have met dozens of designers who are brilliant – often with work that I don’t think I could top – who spend hours a day scouring the internet and using all of their connections to try and find something to stuff their portfolio and their pockets with. The problem? Well, read my article on outsourcing and you’ll understand a bit better! Of course that is not the only issue here – a lot of it is how these young artists choose to advertise themselves, their portfolio, their first impression, etc. Because of this, so many great and talented designers get taken advantage of financially, and I can relate: it has happened to me on more than one occasion, I’m embarrassed to say.
I remember my first design gig I landed during my junior year of high school. I was still tinkering around with Photoshop (CS1? PS7? Who remembers…) and one of my father’s coworkers needed a flier made to help promote a gig for his band at a bar downtown. This being my first real, professional design job, I was understandably excited to not only show off and test my skills, but to make some money on the side. Prom tickets and limos aren’t free, you know. So I actually met this man face to face and showed him my small portfolio of almost exclusively print work, which consisted of school projects and things I did in my free time. He half smiled at me, almost sarcastically, and said “Well, looks like you got what it takes kid. How’s $25 sound?” My first reaction was of disappointment, but then I realized that I would be happy to do this for free for the guy. Hell, for anyone, so I accepted. Although I only was paid $25, I spent hours every single day at and after school working on his flier for a straight week, and when I handed him the final design, his eyes widened. “Wow, you really made somethin’ slick here Arthur. You’re not even in college yet and you can do this better than some designers I know who have been doin’ this for a while. Keep it up and you can make a living doin’ this, haha!” My father’s coworker got a pretty good deal – most designers can charge several hundred dollars for a well designed flier. Of course, I was just a young high school student with little to no experience, but the man still landed a pretty sweet deal for that flier.
Unfortunately, that kind of thing is just as common then as it is now that I am older and have my own design business. Brilliant, extremely gifted artists often get paid little to sometimes nothing for many of their first projects just to get a name for themselves and have reputable references. As artists, many of us do not mind because work is often enjoyable to the point where the experience is pay enough. However, our talents are also our jobs, and many potential clients out there fail to realize that you don’t always get what you pay for. Talking to the guy who will design your iPhone app for the lowest price possible probably will get you a terribly rushed and unpolished app, but on the other side paying a huge design firm $5,000 to design your five page website might not get you something that an art student can make for $500.
I recently had a meeting with an old friend of mine who now works for a small new business that he interns for. Having known me for years, he asked if I could design a thing or two for him since he has seen my portfolio and admired my work. I of course accepted, and when I asked if their company had a website yet he said that they already paid a designer over $5,000 to design it, and that it would take her over nine months to complete and simple sub-ten page website layout. It gets worse – when he showed me the first draft of the website, I could not help but laugh – it was about the same quality that you would see from a 1990s spam website. I felt bad for him however, this new and likely not extremely wealthy company was overspending immensely for a website that would not garner them much profit or publicity due to its low quality. Sure enough, when he showed their CEO my designs, she immediately requested I work as their go-to for design work – she thought that what I had made for much less than $5,000 exceeded the quality of the website their designer had made.
So to all of you designers out there – keep your chin up, and don’t sacrifice your integrity and self-worth to scrape a few more dollars off the ground. The price you charge for your skills is also a value that your clients, current and future, will see as how you value yourself compared to other designers.
To all the clients – do your research! Don’t go with the cheapest and fastest, nor the most expensive and well known without looking at as many options as you can. Trust me, the money you will save and make by putting a little more effort into your search will be more than worth the effort.
Inspiration Right Under Your Nose
Every artist comes across it at some point – that creative wall that seems to be just to tall to hop over. Writer’s block, a blank canvas, or just plain lack of motivation…all of these things are hard to overcome, and usually come when we need them the least. Instead of sitting in front of a monitor and browsing Facebook until my eyes bleed, I try to find something to inspire me, and that something can often be right under my nose.
In addition to being a graphic designer, I am an adventurer: cave diving, urban exploring, abandoned building spelunking, you name it I’ve tried to explore it. San Diego may be one of the nation’s largest and most crowded places, but that does not mean that it is so stuffed of people that there are not places rarely touched by man. Our city has its fair share of artists, and if you look in the right (or rather wrong) places, you can find art in places that surprise you. Recently, I have discovered the most beautiful graffiti and street art I have ever seen in some of the darkest corners of San Diego. Some of these places are not exactly the most safe, or sometimes legal, but sometimes that is what it takes to keep your art hidden. Well, they could not hide it from me.
Most of the design work that I do is not similar to or related to graffiti at all, so I have to look for other inspiration as well. The Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala is a fantastic piece of architecture, founded in 1769 as California’s first church. It is fascinating to see the combined influence of Catholic, Mexican and early American culture and art all in one building that is still intact after almost 250 years. Walking through the beautiful stone arches reminds me of my old church back in Orange County, and gives me a small rush of religious nostalgia. The unquestionably soothing light coming through the stained glass windows is a rare luxury today, which together with the natural light from both doorways makes you feel as if you are really kneeling in Spain’s most beautiful of monasteries.
Whenever I crave something more modern, I let the Ocean Beach Farmer’s Market treat me. Every Wednesday from 3PM to 8PM, dozens of artists display their incredible range of art from soaps, clothing and jewels, to paintings, sculptures and music. To name a few favorites, Katy Helen‘s Dali inspired paintings always catch my eye, and every week her new work puzzles and inspires me to think outside of the box, while Gregg Visintainer‘s amazingly detailed drawings about his past and future struggles, melded into large canvases of art within art make me realize that there are always ways to innovate one’s work. The always stunning hand-crafted jewelry of gemcutter David Leight reminds us that there is so much beauty in art that cannot be put on a piece of paper.
So close that Google images tab and get out there – even if you do not live in a crazy city like San Diego, there is inspiration everywhere. Step outside and watch the sky, maybe the man upstairs will let inspiration strike where you least expect it.
Outsourcing Designers – A Double-Edged Sword
One of the most troubling tasks that designers, developers, and programmers face is the threat of their work being outsourced. It is hard to blame a client for going with a coder from Asia when he works for less than half of your rate. Luckily, for us graphic designers, this threat is much smaller – usually outsourced work from other countries is vastly inferior to work from European and American workers, but obviously not always. The hard part for us is convincing the client that our work is exactly that: superior, and worth the extra money. Each person has their own way of doing this, but usually the argument consists of showing the client your experience, influences, creativity, dedication, and value above an outsourced worker. Many of the websites out there available for freelancers such as myself are completely saturated by outsourced workers willing to design a website for dollars a page, which, compared to the time necessary to complete such a task, is quite a punch in the gut for us.
Now this may all sound like nothing but negativity, but there is some good to gained from it. The best innovation comes from competition, and this case is no different. I refuse to allow the dirt-cheap work of these outsourced freelancers to daunt me or keep me from doing what I love; no, I let it inspire me. I live in one of the most beautiful and liberal places in the world, just a stones throw away from the beach. Around every corner downtown is an artist trying to make it, and around the next is a musician travelling the world on nothing but tips from playing his violin. Instead of letting the work of others get me down, I put myself above it and reach further. So many jobs have started to get outsourced to other countries, and by accepting it as a necessity and not improving their own retoric and quality of work, many artists are simply furthering the problem.
To everyone out there who deals with the problem of outsourcing: If you are indignant about it, do something about it. Prove yourself to your clients and to you so that you can continue to grow your business and your self-worth, without sacrificing your integrity by demeaning those who are your competition. “The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.” - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
50 Creative Business Cards of Graphic Designers
Recently, I remade my entire online image – I redesigned my portfolio, business cards, created a Twitter account (finally), and started to devote more of myself to my online image. One of the toughest yet smallest of those, surprisingly, was my business card. I never was happy with my previous ones, always thinking that I should have a logo out of my name or that it should relate to the “Green” of my last name. Well, I took the plunge and ordered a few boxes of them after much deliberation, and although it might not be as lavish as some of these designs, I feel like it will still be a good representation of my style on a 3.5 by 2 inch slice of tree.
I of course spent many hours perusing over thousands of cards, looking at what my competition – and potentially future clients – looked like on something that fits in your hand. These 50 cards inspired me with my designs, and if you take a quick look at them, I think that you’ll stare at your own and think, “Well, back to the drawing board…”