I am back at work after 2 weeks of… not being at work. The time was spent/wasted on some freelance work, numerous family do’s, quality family fueding at the beach house, drinking with friends and family (note: drinking and family do’s go hand-in-hand, this is necessary for maximum sanity retention), photo taking wanderings and Lord of the Ring-ing. How many freaking close ups of Froddo’s freaky face do we bloody well need I ask you!

I say my time was spent and wasted simultaneously because I of course did not do everything I had intended, such as drawing, getting my resume up to speed and getting a new portfolio together. Oh well.

The Xmas haul was so-so. I got a cool purple bag and ring box. Everything else was pretty average. I guess no one read my Xmas wishlist entry earlier, which in hindsight was still far too short. I mean I forgot to add the graphics tablet, a better digital camera, some furry cat ears on a head band, a rice cooker (my mum can’t cook rice and when she does she puts steak spice and peas in it for christ sakes!), and heaps of other crap I can’t think of right now.

At least work was pretty easily eased into. Non-threatening coding and batch processing some photos was all that needed doing. The absence of the entire project management dept., (2 people) is also a blessing. What, just those 2 people gone make you happy? Why yes, yes it does beacuase they are both fucking nightmares to work with.

On another note, my friend Simone will be singing at the Hard Rock Cafe on Crown St, Surry Hills, 7 till 7:45pm 6th Jan. Go see her she’s good and she can write her own music, but not dance, she refuses to dance, but that’s ok.

OOOOO! Look at that, it’s home time!

I’ve had an interesting couple o’ days with a freelance client I just picked up. I got the go ahead on tuesday-ish. On wednesday afternoon I get a call from the other person I’m working on this project with. Let’s call them Red Wolf. So Red Wolf calls me just as I’m leaving day job / full-time work early ’cause I felt like shit, and informs me that client X wants new logo by friday so he can whack ’em on business cards, and that I should give him a call. You bet I should give this guy a call. Who the hell decides to organise logo design three days before he goes to print? I’ll tell you who, people who think design is just about some pretty shapes ‘n’ colours. These are the people who think that they are also designers because they know some, or own a copy of Photoshop. AAARGGGGHHH!!!!!!

You know what, there are designers who take this approach, and I pity them. These guys only see the surface of what their craft is / should be, in fact they don’t even see it as a craft. Then there are the designers who take a good, well thought out and researched approach to their work. These are the guys who make informed and educated descisions on colour, shape, typography and etc., as well as using their artistic and intuitive sensibilities. What can I say there are designers, and then there are good designers.

Sigh! Everyone thinks they are a designer. Sorry to burst any bubbles, but chances are you are not. Using the lastest fonts won’t help you, neither will using white, grey and orange. Knowing basic concepts or buzz words such as consistency, usability, font, pixel or rounded corners isn’t going to perform any transformations either.

Logo is done now and I sent off an .eps and .ai files to client X so they could shove them infront of their print guy. I then got an email back with him saying he couldn’t open the files. Then another saying I opened it in Photoshop, but it’s cropped weird can you fix this. This e-mail was met with some grinding of teeth, and responded in such a way as to educate him succinctly and diplomatically on the ways of graphic design and print. All seems fine now.

On another note, I’ve actually been eating breakfast at work in the mornings now. Our ceo’s son got a whole swag of mini cereal boxes for free. They kinda fell of the back of a truck.

I checked with a friend and they said there definitely is a rainbow effect in photoshop, why did you tell us there wasn’t one?

This gem along with a gazillion others can be read here. This truly is the holy grail of stupid client quotes guaranteed to make you laugh, cry and then feel depressed because I’m sure many designers have heard the same shit before.

Damn you stupid clients!!

Yes it’s Melbourne Cup day! Yay! My company sweep allocated horsies are Tumeric and Schumpeter. I have absolutely no fucking idea how to pronounce either of them, but they’d better do very well indeed.

On another note, a major-ish web site redesign I spent countless hours designing and coding with clients, project “managers”, programmers and QA people, went live yesterday. I have some very mixed feelings towards it. A lot of my judgments regarding the design were overuled by the powers that be. Countless revisions and changes were made, from small text changes, colour, useability issues, interface design, icons etc. I spent a hell of alot of time working on these but in the end apparently all that mattered was what the client wanted, whether there were more efficient, appropriate approaches, techniques and conventions or not. And what the client wanted, was a rip off of their competitor(s) with their corporate colours slapped in place and rounded edges everywhere.

The aspect of the redesign that I am the happiest with, (but by no means imply that there isn’t room for improvement), are the icons. This project afforded me with a chance to create/illustrate/stylise a small set of icons which are now happily finding their way across this companys’ other sub-sites. Illustration is something I’ve wanted to do ever since I can remember. It’s this interest/passion that got me into design in the first place and is what I want to do.

No the client didn’t go with my preferred design, colour scheme or header and footer treatments, but the icons were the part of this design that both myself, (and my company entourage) and the client, (plus their many, many, many, many layers of red tape and stakeholders) could agree upon. This was the part of the design process that I enjoyed the most, and that kept me going despite the internal politics.

Go Schumpeter and Tumeric!

The Emily The Strange website is ghoulishly cool, with an incredible amount of merchandise. You don’t understand, there’s like a gazillion shirts, skirts, dresses, books, bags and patch work dolls, wrist bands, stickers, key chains etc, etc. All adorably, black, red and catty, and I want them ALL.