

‘Confessions Of A Designer’, What Goes On In A Designer's Mind - andycroll
http://designtaxi.com/news/351395/Confessions-Of-A-Designer-What-Goes-On-In-A-Designer-s-Mind/

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benohear
Disappointing. I was hoping to get some insight into this designer's creative
process. Instead it is just a series of hackneyed statements about how clients
don't value design and Macs are better than PCs.

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benohear
If you want a much more interesting take on designer-client communication,
check out this project by Brighten the Corners:

<http://brightenthecorners.com/page.php?jumpTo=56#i56>

They took samples from 10 years worth of email received and split them into
three posters: Positive, negative and neutral. They are all good, but the
headline for the 'negative' poster is an absolute classic ...

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rglover
Sorry, but this is the farthest thing from real design. Slapping a (poorly
typeset) font onto a poster with some commonly commiserated points is not
design. They might as well have ditched the "posters" and just shared the
quotes/anecdotes.

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kyberias
Can't you designers just give Comic Sans a break? It's a fine font and has
some fine places for usage.

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culturestate
No we can't, no it's not, and no it doesn't. There are many other fun, comic-y
faces that aren't terribly designed.

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agilebyte
Could you give some examples please?

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culturestate
Examples of alternatives? Glad to. Blambot(1) makes a range of great ones,
especially Giant Sized Spectacular, and I'm personally partial to Loose(2).

(1) <http://www.blambot.com/fonts_design.shtml> (2)
<http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/zeptonn/loose/>

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kyberias
These fonts (1) certainly look good but they are very different from Comic
Sans, almost too pro. I think none of them capture the childish, random, non-
professional feel that Comic Sans visualizes. I can understand why people
loath Comic Sans but as I said, it has it's uses where more professional types
fail.

I recently saw Comic Sans used in one company's printed invoices. I though it
ridiculous until I discussed the topic with the people there. They actually
made a very tactical decision in using the font. It was all about the feel of
it.

Come to think of it, perhaps I'll found a fan club for Comic Sans. :)

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wallflower
If you want a humorous take, the classic "Missing Missy"

<http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html>

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guynamedloren
Pretty accurate, but the designer overlooked one small design detail: all of
the posters use the same crumpled paper background image. That's sloppy and
lazy.

Here's my designer poster: _Details Matter_

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rvkennedy
Quite - I was also disappointed in her grammar. Anyone who did paid work for
me and came back with something containing "just because... doesn't mean"
would not get a second contract.

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talmand
Depends on whether you hired the person to be a designer or a copywriter. But
for such a short bit of copy I get your point.

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hobin
I dislike these quotes. I would expect a good designer to be a professional,
and to understand how all the people working on a product are important. In
'Confessions of a Designer', I sense mostly elitism and the idea that if
you're not a designer, you can't make good-lucking stuff. Admittedly, none of
these things are said quite that literally, so maybe it's just me interpreting
the quotes that way.

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rytis
IMO she's wrong about Comic Sans. According to 'Just My Type', teachers value
this font, because autistic children accept/comprehend it easier.

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andycroll
I like "if you think it's simple, do it yourself" works for devs too.

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villagefool
But sometimes things are simple and just time consuming, so you'd rather have
someone else do them...

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jeffmax
I feel like the sentiment portrayed in these posters could apply to almost
anyone in any profession that happens to be feeling a little undervalued. This
is not unique to design. More importantly, there is very little in useful
advice. Disappointing this made it to the front page.

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rythie
There is no attempt to educate clients in this just a number of blanket
statements. I'm sorry, but in most industries you try to educate clients about
what you are doing and why it's valuable - this is just telling people they
are idiots.

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aen
I clicked on the link before I saw that it's Taxi, which is crap.

This sort of shallow thinking is representative of the designer, if we define
designers very loosely and pathetically.

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j_baker
Perhaps it's just me, but I find myself wanting to say "If you think it's so
easy then do it yourself" _to_ designers rather than it coming from them.

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jrabone
Uninspiring. <http://clientsfromhell.net/> is (funnier|sadder|closer to the
truth)

