Type-Induced Coma
Don’t check out the Alphabet/City photos below unless you have lots of spare time and your ‘flickr favorite’ clicking finger ready.
Posts tagged ‘aiga’
Lazy Clients A Design Competition Do Make
During my recent session at BlogOrlando the topic of logo design came up. The question, if I remember correctly, came up over the $100 - 3 comp - here’s your logo shops. While the crowd discussed the merits of these services someone mentioned having competitions to design/choose a logo. This is where I had to step in. The attendee mentioned how they had conducted a competition to get someone to design their corporate logo. I’m not alone in my dislike for such practices, there’s an entire community out there to prevent designers (mostly young designers) from falling prey to companies like this.
I asked the crowd a simple question, ‘would you have a design competition to repair your roof?’ No, you’d pay a roofer to do what he’s trained to do and fix the damn roof. Competitions undermine the design community and practitioners working and struggling to maintain value in the market. Design is a discipline, it’s the product of study, practice, talent and diligence and it’s the designer’s duty to help clients understand the value of their work or to walk away. Being asked to submit designs without payment (on spec or via a competition) is disrespectful and do, in large part, to lazy clients unwilling to invest time to find competent designers or to formulate a strategy to get the design they want and need. they don’t do their homework ann, as a result, ask designers to do the extra work for them with no guarantee of payment.
Not all of the blame lies at the client’s feet, many people have saturated the ‘design’ market simple because they have access to and a modicum of training on the tools needed to produce designs. Jeff Croft posted about this phenomenon earlier this week. The tools are simply that, tools. To extend the analogy above - just because I have ladders and shingles doesn’t mean I’m a roofer. Many clients have been burnt by this caliber of design and have diminished understanding of the value of design as a result. In the end we all lose. Like Paulie said in Goodfellas - Just don’t do it. Don’t do it.
AIGA Roundtable
Tonight participated in the AIGA Iowa chapter’s membership roundtable. It was a small, causal gathering to collect insight and opinions on the where the chapter is today and how we move forward. I was enlivened by the discussion and eager to engage this group. While the UPA offers me some solid working knowledge, discussing design with other designers really excites me.
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