Graphic Designers Annoy Me
It is true. Although I want to ‘be’ a graphic designer, I can’t help but hate other fellow graphic designers. Not because I am jealous of their talent, or even because they themselves believe they are God’s gift to the design world. Not because they snub other designers, due to the competitiveness streak inside them. But because of how incompetent, ignorant and uneducated they are with the difference between web and print. This really annoys me.
See, I learnt how to do graphic design the ‘web’ way; that is learning off other graphic websites how to make blends and signatures. I of course was making everything in 72dpi with low quality. I have a job now as junior designer for a screen printing company. We do printing on T-shirts and other promo stuff like bags, hats, umbrellas etc using images of 300dpi and higher.
Right now I am at work (blogging-oh no) and this rant was sparked by some rich company who wants us to print t-shirts, but didn’t provide a logo. They told me to ring another printing company and get them to email the logo to me. Of course this company claimed they “didn’t have it” because our company is obviously competition to them. Then after going down there in person to speak to the Senior Designer there telling him that I am desperate for this logo, he emails me a low quality 2cm jpeg and says that’s the best he could do. Knowing I needed a printable size logo he send me this piece of crap I could have found on Google.
I can’t remember exactly where or how I learnt, maybe it was always general knowledge to me, but I knew that you cannot print off anything at 72dpi. You cannot expect a graphic you made for your website to print off a nice A3 sized design. Yet these so-called designers send in low-quality tiny jpeg images to be printed, and when I ask them for a higher quality larger sized graphic, they blatantly refuse. But worse still, some don’t even supply artwork. They tell us to “go to their website and get the logo” and expect me to be able to print it at perfect quality without pixelling or deterioration. Impossible people!
Sometimes it isn’t the graphic designers fault, I give them credit for that, but sometimes it is the company wanting the shirts done. We print a lot of soccer shirts and football shirts. We also print the official soccer shirts for a major team here, yet when they request logos from their sponsors to be printed on the shirts, they do not provide any artwork. I am simply told to get the logo online, but to print it at a nice sound quality. We print it to the best of our ability and they go ape-shit over it. These are companies that are rolling in big bucks, company’s that have probably paid someone thousands to design their logo, yet when they want something printed they can’t even supply the logo at decent size or vector form.
I spend the majority of my workday re-drawing logo’s and designs in vector format, for no extra money, so of course I am annoyed. But I can’t refuse to do the work if there is no logo, my boss won’t let me ‘lose’ a customer, so I have to redraw the logo. I spend hours searching Google and Brands of the world to find the right size logo, and if I don’t find anything of decent size I have to scan their business card and re-draw re-draw re-draw! Now I must get back to work and finish this impossibly small logo.
I know just what you mean about print designers. For the better part they tend to be pretentious bastards. Maybe people like us can break the mold?
On a side note, print is fun when you don’t have to redesign miniscule logos.
Comment by Lil - July 4, 2007 11:47 pm
I have a similar problem with my boss. He placed an advert and the advertising people phone up asking for a high-res version of the image, because obviously a small one won’t print nice.
Knowing my boss wouldn’t know what ‘high-res’ meant, I asked him if he had a ‘large’ version of the image. He proceeded to ask me he could make it any size I wanted, and even demonstrated this fact by resizing the picture in MS Word.
*sigh*
Comment by Rachael - July 5, 2007 1:39 am
^oh that would suck. At least my boss knows what high-res is, well not really, but I just tell her “its shit artwork we cant use it” so she will ring them try get a bigger one, they don’t have one she says redraw it.
Comment by Bobbi-lee - July 5, 2007 1:55 am
Lazy doo dahs. Shouldn’t they have copies of their logo in different formats ready for such work? I mean who designs a logo for a company then doesn’t give them any files they can work with?
Comment by Kat - July 5, 2007 2:04 am
Ah that sounds horrid! Why can’t they just give you a logo? I design graphics just for fun in my free time (and they’re not used by anyone who really cares) and people still fret over every little thing. And I’ve tried printing a few of my things off the web — it looks horrible. It’s sad that someone goes and designs the logo, and for some reason they still don’t have the proper file. Re-drawing the logos sound like a waste of time when the companies probably have it somewhere and are just too lazy to find it. GRR big companies can get annoying!
Comment by Ayeayeshrew - July 5, 2007 9:58 am
I hate when people brag about their web designing skills. Especially those who spent years in university learning it. I mean, great they can do web & graphic design. I’m sure I could if I took the time and courses to learn it.
Comment by Shauna - July 5, 2007 11:46 am
I would get annoyed at that too. Sometimes people are very ignorant, or just plain annoying, right?
Good luck with redrawing the logo!
Comment by Emsz - July 5, 2007 12:59 pm
[...] complex logo I had to re-draw on Thursday still hasn’t been done. I have not worked since then, so therefore haven’t [...]
Pingback by IntoTheRain.Org » Blog Archive » General Updates and QOTW - July 9, 2007 7:00 pm
you chose your wording very wrong. Graphic Designers shouldnt bother you, but instead “business minded” grpahic designers.
Comment by cenzi - July 23, 2007 1:28 pm
Yes I guess you are right, but Graphic Designers (business minded or not) in general annoy me. I want to be a graphic designer - but I don’ want to become one of them, if that makes sense
Comment by Bobbi-lee - July 23, 2007 4:53 pm
I would think these “graphic designers” would have gone to school and learned the differences between web and print and to know which format to use for each. At the community college, there’s a class called pre-press that deals with such topics. So, is it safe to say that these designers just happen to forget what they learned in college?
Comment by Cori - September 9, 2007 10:07 am
What kind of graphic designer expects a tiny 72dpi image to print big and beautiful? Well, I studied graphic design for three years and I most of the people that graduated with me didn’t know, more because they didn’t care about pixeling when they printed out, so I don’t even want to imagine what else some ‘certified designers’ ignore. The worst part is the undeserved ego…
Comment by Lene - September 18, 2007 6:31 pm
Wow that sounds rather hellish. I know I’ve tried it once or twice when a friend has asked me to do something with a tiny jpg or something, but I can’t imagine having to produce something professional looking from that.
You poor patient thing. They should definitely be paying you more.
Comment by Imdolien - September 26, 2007 9:41 pm