Tom’s Graphic Design Journal

It's disgusting. I'm disgusted. It almost makes me want to jump and find a completely different career. The quality in the graphic design (web and print at least) is absolutely horrible. I'm sorry, but I take pride in what I do. It's not just some job. I went to the best college I could find and I'm still paying for it. It wasn't easy. I have loans and I sucked it up. I did what I had to do. I taught myself a ton of additional information to do what I need to do for my job and do it right.

So, my question is...why can't others? I never fault anyone for not knowing something. I'm not trying to say people are stupid. I'm saying people are lazy. Everyone makes mistakes too, but not caring and being lazy is just completely different.

I just saw a meetup group for Drupal. Ha. First off, this isn't saying anything negative about Drupal...though I could go on for hours about my issues with Drupal, all in all it is a good CMS. It's just not able to do what I need it to do and it's not the right choice for the project I'm working on with it...and no I didn't choose it. Anyway, the point here is they mention about some topics they were giong to cover that include the Google Blueprint API for CSS...Sound familiar? It should, scroll down a little bit.  1. It's not Google's (it's merely hosted on Google Code) and 2. It's not an API...it's a (self proclaimed) framework. It really is just CSS. Nothing fancy. It's not an API. Now. This is a group of "professionals" making this kind of mistake. Come on. Really? ...Worst of all, they probably make money and get paid for web design.

Ok, like I said, we make mistakes. It's not hard at all to confuse the verbiage on things. Especially for those using canned CMS', I'm not really going to be surprised at all. It's just part of a point I'm trying to make.

Another great example would be different materials that design firms produce. Take a close look. We often give some people or firms too much credit because of popularity, connections, etc. The truth is, they have absoultely no clue what they are doing. The only reason why they are successful is because of their connections and because they've been fortunate enough to sell to those who also don't know what their doing. That's not hard to do of course because if their clients did know what they were doing, they woudln't be hiring a firm, now would they?

So it's a really rough deal. It's like going to a doctor and getting poor treatment. You easily might not know.

I know this won't stop and it's around in any industry...but what I'm more concerned about here is that in the design industry, we have these attitudes. People start getting all cocky about their iPods and Mac laptops and how "good" they are. Give me a break. It gets so rediculous that people assume you "need" a Mac or an iPod to be a designer. What? How can you design on a PC? How can you be a graphic designer if you don't have an iPod?? That's just impossible.

So I guess I'm just venting here...but what really disgusts me is how these people and firms get away with it and make all the money, while I'm still sitting here working my ass off for next to nothing. Sure, I like my job and the pay is good...but it doesn't make things easier when there's all this poor quality out there. People start to actually believe that this poor quality work is good...and that REALLY makes my job harder.

Of course my design isn't the most amazing stuff out there, but at least it's technically correct. Ok, minus some of the kerning on the titles for my blog posts...Sadly that wasn't able to be helped due to limitations of technology. Still looking for a solution. So there's one example of how it's different...but if I made actual graphics for the titles manually -- there'd be no excuse.

So when will it just stop?? I'd almost like to start a web site that showcases poor work...but I don't want to just blatantly insult people...especially if they don't know better...I just want to make it a little bit more fair for the honest hard working professionals out there that just get overlooked.

   

It's disgusting. I'm disgusted. It almost makes me want to jump and find a completely different career. The quality in the graphic design (web and print at least) is absolutely horrible. I'm sorry, but I take pride in what I do. It's not just some job. I went to the best college I could find and I'm still paying for it. It wasn't easy. I have loans and I sucked it up. I did what I had to do. I taught myself a ton of additional information to do what I need to do for my job and do it right.

So, my question is...why can't others? I never fault anyone for not knowing something. I'm not trying to say people are stupid. I'm saying people are lazy. Everyone makes mistakes too, but not caring and being lazy is just completely different.

I just saw a meetup group for Drupal. Ha. First off, this isn't saying anything negative about Drupal...though I could go on for hours about my issues with Drupal, all in all it is a good CMS. It's just not able to do what I need it to do and it's not the right choice for the project I'm working on with it...and no I didn't choose it. Anyway, the point here is they mention about some topics they were giong to cover that include the Google Blueprint API for CSS...Sound familiar? It should, scroll down a little bit.  1. It's not Google's (it's merely hosted on Google Code) and 2. It's not an API...it's a (self proclaimed) framework. It really is just CSS. Nothing fancy. It's not an API. Now. This is a group of "professionals" making this kind of mistake. Come on. Really? ...Worst of all, they probably make money and get paid for web design.

Ok, like I said, we make mistakes. It's not hard at all to confuse the verbiage on things. Especially for those using canned CMS', I'm not really going to be surprised at all. It's just part of a point I'm trying to make.

Another great example would be different materials that design firms produce. Take a close look. We often give some people or firms too much credit because of popularity, connections, etc. The truth is, they have absoultely no clue what they are doing. The only reason why they are successful is because of their connections and because they've been fortunate enough to sell to those who also don't know what their doing. That's not hard to do of course because if their clients did know what they were doing, they woudln't be hiring a firm, now would they?

So it's a really rough deal. It's like going to a doctor and getting poor treatment. You easily might not know.

I know this won't stop and it's around in any industry...but what I'm more concerned about here is that in the design industry, we have these attitudes. People start getting all cocky about their iPods and Mac laptops and how "good" they are. Give me a break. It gets so rediculous that people assume you "need" a Mac or an iPod to be a designer. What? How can you design on a PC? How can you be a graphic designer if you don't have an iPod?? That's just impossible.

So I guess I'm just venting here...but what really disgusts me is how these people and firms get away with it and make all the money, while I'm still sitting here working my ass off for next to nothing. Sure, I like my job and the pay is good...but it doesn't make things easier when there's all this poor quality out there. People start to actually believe that this poor quality work is good...and that REALLY makes my job harder.

Of course my design isn't the most amazing stuff out there, but at least it's technically correct. Ok, minus some of the kerning on the titles for my blog posts...Sadly that wasn't able to be helped due to limitations of technology. Still looking for a solution. So there's one example of how it's different...but if I made actual graphics for the titles manually -- there'd be no excuse.

So when will it just stop?? I'd almost like to start a web site that showcases poor work...but I don't want to just blatantly insult people...especially if they don't know better...I just want to make it a little bit more fair for the honest hard working professionals out there that just get overlooked.