Great Clients, Great Designers

In this economy I would imagine that designers everywhere are concerned with finding and keeping clients. Designers with long careers typically have a good deal of business come their way by referral. I've recently had a spate of potential clients come my way. One by one, we parted ways with nothing accomplished and nothing gained. Since I had really wanted some new business, I reviewed and evaluated the events to see if I went wrong somewhere. It always came down to the same thing. Not a good "fit". There wasn't a meeting of the minds. So many times a client's perception of the design process doesn't match reality. Any given business deserves good design and advertising. Good designers spend years cultivating their design aesthetic. But clients don't do the same. And why should they? They need to be concerned with the best way to build a widget, or create the perfect business plan, or whatever.

I was recently asked, "what is the perfect client?" I answered simply that it was someone who was familiar with my work, liked what I do, and chose me to solve their problem. Now, I'm not naive, and know it can be much more complicated than that. The bottom line is that good clients appreciate good design and want it. But that same "good" client who knows good design must also be a person who trusts the expertise of others. This is a person who is self-assured and willing to delegate with confidence.

In a 1993 interview regarding the design of the NEXT logo, Steve Jobs, the famous founder of Apple, was asked about the process and working relationship he had with Paul Rand. In this fascinating bit of video we get an insight into the working relationship of a great client and a great designer. Jobs had left Apple where he had quite a famous run, starting the company and developing the Macintosh. The logo, product design, graphics and advertising all won numerous awards. He was used to and expected the very best design work. Rand, on the other hand, was considered the greatest and most influential designer of the 20th century. This of course was very late in the career of Rand. Jobs tells of asking Rand for some "options" when he presents logos for NEXT. He says Rand just tells him, "I'm going to solve your problem, if you want an option, you can get one from another designer."

Not everything can be so "storybook" as their relationship. But I think that in this 21st century designers need to cultivate the client-designer relationship. We can build that kind of trusting, familiarity that provides a good environment for good work and good solutions to client's problems. The enlightened client knows that he needs design and knows it has a value. A great client is an advocate of great design. They are out there. There are also new clients out there who we can work with, cultivate a relationship with, and build trust. This are the qualities that the designer needs in the design process. Be inclusive, instructive, gracious, but most of all, be principled. See the interview....

Those cheap CD fonts... F*%#@!!!!!!

I've looked, but I can't backtrack to find out how or who referred me to this video, but it is very relevant to typography and design. It is also extremely funny if you know the subject, jargon, and are a designer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDiDATbIG-o

Touching Design

The only thing most designers touch any more is a keyboard. Working with your hands is getting to be, more and more, a lost art. While it is encouraging to see many up-and-coming young designers sketching in their sketchbooks,I sometimes worry that certain techniques and methods of design will eventually be practiced only in the backroom of a workshop in Chicopee, MA.

I am a member of the last generation of graphic designers that was trained in markers, rapidograph pens, phototype, and paste-ups. But after making the transition to computers in 1992, I readily embraced the technology. Then later, it was HTML and websites. Now I spend days coding CSS to give web pages the same "crafted" look that print design has.

So it's kind of funny that in the last year or so, I've become interested in fooling around with a design and printing technology that goes back 559 years. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that I have been teaching a history of design class. But regardless of that, I think it has more to do with a need to get away from the cold, impersonal digital world once in a while.

Letterpress received a huge boost of publicity when a complete letterpress printing studio was donated to a 12 year-old, Aariel Dore, on the show "Extreme Home Makeover". It is interesting that there are a fair number of people who are still practicing the craft of letterpress printing. Many of the companies produce invitations, especially for weddings. Some of the work is absolutely amazing. Most people these days only see digital design work printed on inkjet or laser printers. What a shame. I know that many companies don't even send there print work to real outside printers anymore. So how interesting it is to see a real letterpress printed piece. The paper is often quite unique, having texture, pattern and thickness you don't get with today's slick coated, varnished work. The type is pressed into the paper, giving it a dimensional feel.

Some links to check out...

Dick and Jane Letterpress

Studio On Fire

Briar Press, a great resource

M and H Type, oldest metal type foundry left in U.S.

Go To The Head Of The Class

I teach a couple of classes at a local design school (college). I noticed that students generally pick a seat on the first day and then don't move around from week to week. They literally choose the same seat for the whole ten-week term. Now I completely understand that some don't want to sit right up front for various reasons. Self-conscious, don't want to be seen as a suck-up, don't want to be singled out, or don't want to be called on or otherwise embarassed. I get that, really. But I have observed a direct correlation between those who pick a back row seat and those who are poor students. Never has it been proved more convincingly than in one of my classes this term.

The classroom has 20 desks and the class has 10 students. So, there are a lot of choices for seating. Here is the breakdown for the recent midterm exam grades for the ten students:
Front row-- 99%
Second row-- 99%
Third row-- 76%, 92% and 100%
Fourth row-- 82%, 77% and 84%
Fifth and last row-- 53% and 63%

From the data I'm presenting here, you can see that middle row is definitely a volatile area, but overall there is a certain trend. I swear I am not making this up.

The Polish Poster

In September of 1980, the Solidarity movement was founded in the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland. It was the first time a non-communist trade union was formed in a communist country. Lech Wałęsa and others led a non-violent fight against the communist repression. Almost ten years later, the government was forced to negotiate with the union and later elections brought about the forming of a Solidarity-led coalition government. I watched, with the rest of the world, as the first cookie of the Soviet Union crumbled. I felt proud.

I remembered the logo. Jerzey Janiszewski created the design pictured here. The grafitti-style lettering serves to distance the movement from the establishment government. The letters symbolize people standing together, solidly.

My mother was the daughter of Polish immigrants. My father left Poland shortly before the Nazis invaded. Having a strong affinity for all things Polish, I was quite thrilled when my wife and I visited the country several years ago. Walking the streets of Warsaw and Łódź, I was amazed at the proliferation of poster imagery. Everywhere we went, I saw posters for concerts, plays, protests, causes, issues, and festivals.

Beginning with the period right after World War II, the Polish Union of Artists, with the support of the major art universities, set rigorous standards that set the stage for a tradition of amazing imagery, creativity and technical proficiency. The result can be seen in a poster design legacy that few other countries can match. According to Phillip B. Meggs in Megg's History of Graphic Design, the Polish poster is a phenomenon that really has no peer.



One particular sight we saw in our trip, was a "walking" poster. Three men dressed in green jumpsuits were walking the streets, holding a banner. The graphics were also posted in the traditional way on walls and kiosks.

The Brutal Truth

After graduating from UF in 1975, I took my graphic design portfolio to the big city of Atlanta to start my career. My new wife and I packed up everything we had and rented a little apartment on the north side of town. We spent three long summer months looking for jobs while nervously watching the bank account. Interviewing for me was brutal. The shy and withdrawn artist type didn't play well in the big city. I tried to hit all of the big agencies, not realizing that my portfolio was extremely lacking. Some creative directors and art directors wouldn't even see you. Just drop off the portfolio, and pick it up the next day. Often there would be no comment at all, and no personal contact. And those were places where there was an opening.

I'll never forget one particular interview I had at a graphic design firm. It was a respected, award-winning shop known throughout the south. Tom, the creative director, was very gracious in seeing me. On the phone he said they weren't looking, but were always interested in meeting new illustrators and designers.

The studio was in an old brick building with all the requisite antique toys, and other cool things lying about. Tom was very friendly and easy to talk to. He might have made one semi-committal comment about one piece, out of the fifteen or so in my book. Wished me good luck and that was that.

The wife managed to snag a teaching position at a special education school. I was lucky to finally land a paste-up job in the advertising department of Davison's, a large department store chain. During the next year I set about working on my portfolio. I was very aware that it simply wasn't good enough. I sought freelance work on the side and jumped on any chance to work on design at Davison's. I submitted a breakthrough creative idea for a full-page ad. Davison's was having a grand opening for a new branch. The ad was the announcement. The art director loved my concept and I ended up with an amazing addition to my portfolio. It was a wonderful thing to get published.

It had been over a year since I interviewed with the creative director, Tom. Armed with some new additions to the book, I called on him again. I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from hiring me this time. The second interview went better than the first. I felt more knowledgeable and comfortable in just making small talk. After all, I’d been working for a while. He did like my new full-page ad. But then, finally he said, at what was to be the closing moments of the interview, that he wanted to tell me something. He said it was because I had made the effort to call on him a second time. He pointed to the new showpiece of my book. He said that when I had ten pieces like that one, I might be considered for a position at a firm like his. I felt validated and crushed at the same time. It was a very strange moment.

I became even more motivated. I went back to work at Davison’s and was eventually promoted to layout artist. I also landed a gig designing covers for a community tabloid, Common Cents (for no money). I did a few freelance jobs for the Atlanta office of Young & Rubicam. And I never stopped working on the portfolio.

Starting A Fire

We sit down with the sketchbook and try to make a new design. Maybe it’s a logo or a poster or coming up with the name for a new company. It’s making something from nothing. For a graphic designer, it’s the hardest thing we do. Setting out to create something is kind of like starting a fire: a number of conditions have to be just right. In going about the business of graphic design, certainly a creative enterprise, it’s essential to have certain conditions just right. When your trying to start a fire it’s good to have dry conditions, dry stuff. When your trying to start a creative fire, I believe it helps a lot to have lots of “new” around you. New stuff is essential. And here’s the thing. It doesn’t have to actually be new, just new to you.

You don’t get new stuff from the 3” screen of a Nintendo DS playing hours of Tokyo Beatdown. That was only new to you for about five minutes. That is an example of an activity that doesn’t provide new stuff, and doesn’t help creativity. Inspiration can come from many places. In fact, it always comes from many places. Experiences, trips, encounters, challenges, and environments are all things that provide a background for inspiration. They can help creativity. Think of your mind as a library. In that library you have only James Patterson novels. Nothing else. No magazines, no newspapers, no history books. All of your resources are confined to that one author’s work. Try starting a creative fire with that. The point is, we need a broad base to work with.

One day, the proverbial blank canvas or page will be facing you. The next great creative idea is not already in your head, just waiting to come out. The next great creative idea is a product of those experiences, trips, encounters, challenges, and environments. It has to be cultivated and grown. A problem will present itself, the blank canvas. Your job is to solve it. Your mind will take a little from here and a little from there, and try putting little bits of information together in combinations and permutations. What resources will your mind pull from? The well-stocked library looks like a good idea right about now.

The person who has an open mind, a discovering mind, has a better chance. I understand this all may sound very simplistic and obvious, but the truth is, people can get lazy and comfortable in their lives. A graphic designer can’t afford to be lazy when it comes to creativity. You have to proactively work at it. For a designer, creativity must be cultivated.