Something everyone should read..

[Mike F]

I absolutely loved doing layouts in art school all by hand.
Our teacher was a skinny old broad named Mrs. Ziegler, she always walked around with one arm across her waist propping up the elbow of her other arm, carrying a lit cigarette between two fingers and b!tching about everyone's poor layout skills.
We called her Ziggy.
She was tough as nails.
Half of what I still do today I learned from her.
Most of the class had no talent they were there because they had the money to pay for classes and two kids even got paid to go to classes by the state.
All of those classes are now obsolete because any schmuck with a computer can buy their way into the sign business.
At the risk of sounding like a bitter jagoff.
Sometimes I'm struggling with the damn design program to make it do something which I can do by hand in like 2 minutes, and I remember Hey! I CAN do this by hand!
Step away from the keyboard and break out the old ebony pencil, Sharpie, or Rapidograph.
Good times.
Love....Jill

Reminds me of when I used to do CAD work for this architectural landscaping company about 4 or 5 years back, the owner always used to say he could do stuff by hand with a pencil, t-square, and compass faster than we could do it in AutoCAD. I kinda miss that job, it was interesting work.

 

[signswi]

It's unbelievable how many billboards around here are illegible..at any speed

That's often not the fault of the billboard company (though most are pretty useless at design), they just put up what the client tells them to. Most of the time that client had their daugher design something because she's "artistic" or the marketing department had the one guy who has photoshop put something together despite never having had a day of design training.

The poor quality of work on billboards and signs isn't specific to the signage industry, they're just bigger examples . The entire design field is swamped with bad, unprofessional, unfocused, ineffective work.

Like Dan, I think that's opportunity. The down side is that all design disciplines (graphic, industrial, fashion, whatever) suffer from the fact that it takes someone in the industry to tell acceptable from good from great, so half (or more) of the job becomes client education/handling. There's a reason agencies still have account service reps and it's not just to poor booze and prostitutes down client throats like you see in Mad Men but to keep the designers from killing all the clients and the clients from walking.

 

[Tash]

It's a sad fact that today, the majority of people in our industry have zero artistic ability and that fact is evidenced by the proliferation of visual pollution that has destroyed the majority of communities and towns across this country.

That along with the lack of business acumen, has created the downward spiral of the sign profession, and I use that term loosely. It's really a shame.

Quote of the century. I also blame these ridiculous rules a lot of businesses have to adhere to, like everyone must have the same sign/colors, or can only use 30% of the window space, it makes it hard to be creative even if the customer wants it.

 

[Gino]

Trying to stay on topic here and not bash the untalented or completely untrained eye.... that was a very good article. Whether you can draw, paint, doodle or only draw stick figures..... I'd just like to see people try a little and stop using the same old excuses over and over.

Like he said, you don't have to be a Rembrandt or whomever...... just at least try and do something.

These computers are exactly that.... another tool at our disposal and if used correctly can do some danged good things. Not trying is just throwing more garbage on the overgrowing pile.