|
|
Friday, May 9th, 2008
| |
5:01 pm - craigslist beaut
|
|
| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
| |
11:50 am
|
llbreedll
|
the company i work for is a tradeshow design / production house. several of our clients send us artwork that they have had designed independently from our company, through their own in-house designers.
unfortunately, in-house designers who don't have to work with extremely large format graphics (the graphic that spurred this post is 20ft wide, for example) on a day-to-day basis have NO DAMN CLUE how to go about approaching this, which is an endless source of frustration for me.
if you send me large format files in InDesign format, or if you know anybody who has ever sent anybody any large format graphics in InDesign format, even once, then you are not my friend.
and all those linked images in your files (you know, the ones that I have to individually check one by one to catch all your mistakes), maybe you should ensure that they are not sized to one quarter of the final print size at 100 dpi. just a thought.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, May 5th, 2008
| |
5:14 pm - Just to be sure...
|
bullamakanka
|
Corrections came back from the proofreaders.
All the "TM"s after the product name (eg, BOTOX™) have to be adjusted.
The "T"s look lighter than the "M"s. Really.
There are hundreds of these throughout the document. Each one is circled for correction. This could mean having to retype each one (since the TM is actually one character, option-2 on the keyboard), so that the T can be isolated and given a tiny little stroke to thicken it just a smidge.
Yeah.
|
|
(9 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
8:41 am - Freelance Clients - Wanna Beat 'em to death
|
_stag
|
For the past few months I've had a freelance web client that's been asking me for just about everything under the sun. I try to comply with his requests and get everything online as quickly as possible. He will yammer at me for 2 weeks non-stop calling me at all hours of day and night for changes to his site that range from text updates to animation banners, to updating his company's myspace page.
When I say his company, I mean him. He is a promoter of local musical talent and any other company he can work with to make money. He's been at this for about a year and I've not seen any demonstrative growth in his work.
That aside, I finished what he asked me to do this week and sent him and invoice detailing every little thing he asked me to do. Then he sent me this letter:
Hey Sean check out this site http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/ this is a cool cartoon animation view. Maybe you can do something like this image in a view of the city of champaign with us a cartoon animation characters?
I took a quick glance at Kayne's site and about fainted. It's cool. It's really cool site and way beyond my capabilities with the equipment and time that I have. This client has CONTINUOUSLY asked if I could do something like this site or other sites which work from a completely FLASH interface. Here's the letter I sent him back.
A full concept Flash animation with storefronts music sounds and interactive characters would run about $XX,XXX and would take about 8 months to build. Plus I'd need about 1/2 the money up front. And it would not have all the abilities the Kanye site does.
What you're asking for is too time consuming on my part and too costly on yours. You can check around but you wont be able find a keeper price for what you're asking.
The fact is that you keep setting your sights on Flash animation and don't realize the cost of time and effort that is required. Starting from scratch and recreating ALL the animations on your site's front page took me about 5 hours to complete. To do the updates to add in the (customer) ad took 3 hours for the animation and 2 for the just making the images to stick in there. If you asked any web designer how long it took to do Kayne's site, they would tell you it took years to build and test before releasing it online for the public.
It's a fun idea if you have lots of funds and time to produce. For the turn around you need for the things you ask for, I would stick to things are not so intricate. Flash is fun, and fun to build. But the time and cost required is too much for both our parts.
So, I would say NO to any FLASH CARTOONS OR INTERFACES for the foreseeable future. Any animation that takes up more that 10 SECONDS to watch online will take too long to produce and be too costly.
I'd advise going with something that would be easier to maintain and produce. Caricatures with text. NON-animated pictures that introduce a character or a band. Simple dissolves or simple motion animation like what is on your site now would be a better start.
He responded by saying that I was right and we'd stick to the things we've already done in the promotion of his site.
But, all of this has taught me an important lesson when dealing with freelance clients. Most are cheap and don't realize the value of your time.
If they ask for a project is something that you know will take too long for the amount they offer you , say "NO." I would say say "HELL, NO!" but you want to keep some modicum of professionalism.
If they still wont listen and keep bugging you about say: "It'll take too long for when you want it and cost more than you want to spend for it."
That seems to shut them up and get them out of your hair.
_stag
Sean-Thomas
current mood:  annoyed
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Friday, May 2nd, 2008
| |
8:11 am - W-T-F
|
navistas
|
I am a freelancer and I have a company I normally do business with. Usually it's 2D drawings of planes and all their parts as they animate them in Flash and create a media DVD for the airplane company... any who.
My client is from Germany and although she lives near me in the US she's been over there for the past several months. Apparently she hooked another design gig (or a friend's company? I don't know) involving making a Newsletter for a bank. Mucho different then what I've been doing for them but I don't mind. I was just emailed the specs which all seem fine...given the colors in web format (I can deal), told the size is A4, told not to do 2 different layouts but not spend more then 2 hours on each...again I can deal... The client needs it finalized by Tuesday in Germany, so basically Monday for me - suck - means I am working the weekend? ...and then the kicker.
This needs to be in Corel Draw so the client can edit
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
I think I used Corel Draw once and I don't even have it. I hope the trial version lets me do everything I need to...this could be a frustrating weekend.
I might also add that everything is in German...I don't have any articles for them, a logo, addresses (except web) or anything but the size and colors. *facepalm*
|
|
(9 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
| |
4:45 pm - Photoshop vs. Paint
|
|
| Thursday, April 17th, 2008
| |
8:14 am - A pricing dilemma
|
cedarseed
|
I hope it's ok to post this here, I need some pricing advice... I have been developing 2 in-game logos for an American game developer company, through the Jordan-based company I work with. We're nearing completion and the billing question will arise soon. My problem is that I haven't done logos for the American market before and I have no idea what would be a reasonable rate – I don't want to undercharge too badly and dig a hole for myself, as we're going to be working for these people regularly. Can anyone give me a hint? Thank you!
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
| |
8:36 am - What type am I?
|
_stag
|
I sent this to a friend yesterday and thought I should post it here as well. Eat your hear out, Kip Addotta!
After all I've bind through, I kern only wonder what all the x-height is about. I'm not a spur of the Roman kind of typographer. No, Arm just a dummy trying to find a smoothing loop where I can come to a transitional point. I'm an open type of guy. I don't throw my M-weight around. I'm just looking to make a full spread without crossfolding the margins. I went to a cross bar the other night looking for some X-height ment and maybe a little tail. I met a bold diacritical named Lorem Ipsum who had a really nice body copy. She told me in a fully justified exclamation, that if I kept italicizing my neck to spline her ligature, eye was a hairline away from losing my descender. I turned yellow and got my slab serif out of there. It's my rule of thumb never to let an asender deck me. This only leads me to rag & rag. So, I cyan made my way to the wire side. I asked the local guides where what the best placement was for a link up. But they told me I had Zero opacity and I would only get saddle stiched and wind up in the gutter. That was the kicker. So I took that as an endsign and made a resolution to keyblack and not to gif a dot to proofing my imposition by trying to up my halftone frequency.
current mood:  giggly
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, April 14th, 2008
| |
8:07 am - FRAK me...
|
samuraiartguy
|
[ Clipped, edited and embellished from personal journal ]
While I do enjoy the "Force Multiplier" of my digital tools. But even on a Mac, they do produce some Pain-in-the-ass moments... If someone had told Me back in 1980 that in ten years, I would be replacing 90% of my Entire Studio every three-five years, I would have told them they were fill of crap. I mean this steel T-Square ought to last about 50 years with decent care...
But surprise... welcome to the world of SOFTWARE...
Computer... software... upgrade... upgrade... upgrade... New Computer... upgrade... upgrade... upgrade... New Computer... upgrade... upgrade... upgrade...
JOY UNENDING. (not to mention... $$$$$$$$... but I digress)
I am up early today to try an get the main computer back up to snuff. I had to upgrade the tower to Mac OS 10.4 to run the 2007 Version of TurboTax, but I found out that PHOTOSHOP CS2 is unstable in 10.4! Aieeeee!!!! I spend half my professional DAY in Photoshop, it is a MUST WORK application. A round of upgrades and driver tweaks and disk cleanups has not helped. Thank the GODS I have a copy of Photoshop 7 (two versions back) that still runs while I figure this out. Tried re-installing PhotoShop, pfft. So re-installing MAC OS 10.4... we'll see what happens. If all else fails, Get the taxes put to bed and DOWN grade the machine back to 10.3.9.... *shrug* Adobe and Apple are NOT helping , their answers are "Upgrade to 10.5" and "Upgrade to CS3."
When I squeeze the budget and it coughs up $5000 for the new Mac Pro to run them on, THEN maybe that'll work. LOL. Seriously, CS3 upgrade for Design Pro... about $600.. the Mac Pro, $4500 hardware penalty...
Opps, just dinged at Me.. back to kinda sorta work. Ohhhh ... let's see, the "Previous Systems" folder... about 4 gigs I DON'T have to spare... time to back that puppy up temporarily and get it the FRAK off the drive... Amazing... a 40 gig drive is... well, SNUG for contemporary software needs.
[Copying 67,366 items to "Backup Folder" ... 165 MB of about 3.9 GB – About 2 hours] Oh MY. And that's a FireWire drive, yet... FRAK me. Time to go make coffee and suck down a bagel.
banzai...
current mood:  working
current music: Hard Disk Hummings...
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, April 4th, 2008
| |
10:33 pm - the world revolves around my boss.
|
reughr
|
my boss had a big presentation to do for a potential client. He needed 3 copies of his presentation that included like 30 different marketing deliverables.
(okay the piss me off part): He asked me to design 4 brochures, direct mailing cards, and a 20 page booklet...as samples. I threw something together because he didn't say what it was for. Honestly, he didn't give me any details...timeframe nothing. So email him some ideas and then don't hear from him for a day. Then at the last minute he asks me to get everything ready for press in one hour. All the things I did, plus 20 something other files that he 'knows' exist but don't know where or what condition they are in. Plus wants the copy changes on all of the documents to reflect what the clients name is. Then wants to send his new printing company print ready files...(however has no idea what file format they want...and never thinks to ask).
OMG, it gets better... he then called them up and had a 20 minute debate on why they couldn't fire up the presses and print him 3 die-cut specialty folders. (They are not a print on demand company and they work in volumes like 5,000 and up...) Then got pissed off because he sent them a 90 page, double faxed (black blurry mess) of a document and wanted them to OCR it and convert it to a word document and they couldn't because he gave it to them 1 day before deadline. ..
I am very surprised that he hadn't gotten mad at his assistant because she couldn't walk on water or make the blind see...LOL.
--update info... it also tickles me that he hired me to bee his production manager for my skills and experience. However all this time he has yet to consult me about any of his production projects. A lot of these issues couldn't been handled if he came to me first.
current mood: busy
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
4:35 pm
|
lame_carrot
|
What are your thoughts on http://www.mycustomlogo.com/ ?
Their claim is 3 custom logos for $99, and they put at least 2 creative logo designers on your project. They only hire the most talented designers in the country! UNLIMITED REVISIONS!
I perused their portfolio. Obviously, some are terrible, but if you look hard enough, some are either clever or well-illustrated. Maybe some clients get lucky.
I just don't know.
|
|
(8 comments | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, March 29th, 2008
| |
3:20 pm - precious moment figurines for sale
|
|
| Friday, March 28th, 2008
| |
11:17 pm - How about no.
|
ceruleanst
|
I've been trying to perfect a few complete typefaces for years now. Strictly speaking, I haven't published any yet. The details of typeface design are abundant and involved, to put it mildly. This e-mail with the subject "Typeface Work" just appeared with no introduction or salutation:
The project is for outputing a variant Typeface from an existing open source Typeface, where the variant is replacing only 1 alphabet (upper,lower case, basic and italic) and
putting a sanskrit alphabet (upper,lower case, basic and italic) that will have to be designed.
That's an interesting definition of "only one".
The process will require telling you particular issues and tips.
Like teaching me all about Sanskrit? I should think so. But it sounds like an interesting project to spend a year or two on, if it'll feed me for that year or two.
The budget is about $100 via Paypal, Moneybookers. Delivery for
early/mid-next week.
WHAT.
Um, it's Friday. There are services that I, perhaps ridiculously, will perform for a hundred dollars, but the difference in scale here is perhaps too profound to adequately put into words.
These are a few time reducing guidelines that's
going to reduce costs:
= Use macros on the softwares used for the font
= Use specific existing Typeface curves, weights etc that are on the
Typeface, basically a cut and paste first, then filling the gaps and then
smoothing
= Then for the smaller case and italics use the upper case but with again
only 5 specific differentiators on each
Copying and pasting strokes from the Latin alphabet and "filling the gaps" can sometimes get you a passable Greek or Cyrillic version of a typeface. If you think you can make SANSKRIT that way, you are OUT OF YOUR MIND.
= The project is client focused rather than designer focused with little
room for total start from scratch approach
What a genteel way to put it. I figured that out on my own, thanks. The fact that you want it done in three days for a C-note tipped me off. Seeing what you consider "time-saving tricks" pretty much nailed it down.
I await to hear from you urgently.
Regards
Meeku
Pressed for time, huh? Here's an idea. License an existing font. There's a lot of them out there. There are probably some that meet your needs. Some may even cost you less than $100. You can't need your own custom font that badly if you'd be willing to use whatever garbage I could Frankenstein together in a weekend.
|
|
(5 comments | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, March 27th, 2008
| |
10:51 am - pretty
|
somanykisses
|
Apparently my work is on par with selecting "the color of the stationary" and making things "pretty' and it is not necessary. (Google Docs should work to publish a newsletter to a group, yes? no reason to make things complicated (or even legible) by using, say, an email service.)
This coming from a member of an organization I do hundreds/thousands of dollars of pro bono work for every year.
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
| |
9:59 am - Client wants to buy InDesign
|
molly_girl
|
I have a winery client who has a menu/price list that needs updating every couple of months. I just got an email from my contact there asking:
I was just talking with [the general manager] and he was wondering if we can buy the software that you are using for these forms? He would like to be able to edit these in house simply because they are ever changing. Could you let me know at your earliest convenience?
I have to LOL. I billed for a total of one hour's time for these updates for the last six months. I sent them the link to the Adobe store.
|
|
(13 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, March 24th, 2008
| |
3:13 pm - Hazardous Materials Playtime
|
evilgecko
|
So there was a department store bag shoved off in the corner of the office that wasn't there last week. It had several big flat boxes with the word EPSON printed on it in large blue letters. "Score!" says I. "I thought we were almost out of photo paper!"
I reached into the bag to scoop out the prize. The boxes were somewhat...squishy. I sort of froze, and my little internal announcer shrieked "OHGOD I DID NOT JUST PUT MY HAND IN..."
"...printer ink." Oooooh yes. My palm and sleeve were now a most fetching combination of cyan and light magenta. Six hours later, they're STILL cyan and light magenta. Somehow two old ink cartridges exploded all over the stash of printer supplies, and my boss, being the insane packrack that she is, KEPT THEM instead of salvaging the sealed paper and throwing away the rest so it couldn't spread its oily, indelible evil all over the carpet and innocent employees.
She owes me a new fucking shirt. :(
current mood: stained
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Friday, March 21st, 2008
| |
2:43 pm - Taproot?
|
tiaralynn
|
Has anyone worked with The Taproot Foundation, a pro-bono agency? Seems like a great networking opportunity and the chance to add some more collateral design and logo work to my portfolio.
Seems a good way to find legit pro bono jobs and cooperative clients instead of dealing with the nutjobs on Craigslist.
current mood:  curious
current music: Iris: New Invaders
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| |
3:07 pm - But is it ethical?
|
samuraiartguy
|
OK... As my frakkin' BRAIN is oozing out my other ear....
Is it ethical to arbitrarily change a client's webhosting account to another provider purely on the strength... or rather, the horrifying awfulness of the Hold Music on their Tech Support Line?
I don't want to go off on a rant here, but I swear to the frakkin' GODS that this 1.5 minute loop of fuzzy New Age dreck is KILLING ME. I can feel my I.Q. dropping points with each repeat of the loop... By the time a human gets to me, I'm going to be too STUPID to remember the finicky tech question I had in the first place, or be able to understand the answer.
Can't code... must wait... already read my Webcomics...
Aieeeeeee...
My mind is going...
My mind is going.
I can feel it
I can feel it
Stop it, Dave.
Arrrrrrrr.....
** Facedown, drooling on Keyboard **
current mood:  numb
current music: New Age Dreck on Hold!
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
| |
1:19 pm - *fap fap fap*
|
|
| Monday, March 10th, 2008
| |
9:42 am
|
ashleyv1016
|
i'm in love with this community. FINALLY a place to rant to my heart's content about design!
okay, I HATE COMIC SANS. as everyone should. it is a piece of rounded SHIT. i hate hate hate when people use it in advertising, or even for a damn paper, it is UGLY and despicable.
i always feel a bit bad for the poor guy. i think a slap or two would have done, haha.
|
|
(32 comments | comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
designrants