It’s actually pretty easy to get awesome artwork from a professional graphic designer, animator, or illustrator. In fact, it’s so easy that I can sum it up in just two steps:
- Tell the pro what you want.
- Accept the result.
If you hired a pro, then they’ll probably work with you to tweak a few things and correct any errors. Otherwise, accept it.
Oddly enough it takes more steps to get mediocre design. It’s much more complicated. Are you with me? Here’s how to get your crappy art:
- Make sure the artist follows all those rules you read about in your Graphic Design for Dummies book. Don’t let them get away with bending any rules.
- You loved the artist’s portfolio. That style, it just spoke to you. You can just see your project in that style. Now… change it. Why shouldn’t you have your say?
- Change your mind. A lot. Better if it’s in the final phases. If you change your mind early it still might wind up awesome. Don’t risk it!
- Ask your sister what she thinks about your branding, identity, and layout. She just took that scrapbooking class. She’s practically an expert.
- Assemble a team of non-design experts to comment on design elements. Stick rigidly to their suggestions, even if they don’t make sense.
- If you need it in August, ask for it by Monday morning. Then drag out the approval phase three months. You’ve got plenty of time, but why share that knowledge? You need to control artists, they just don’t have those time management skills like the rest of us.
- Make sure everything jibes with your focus groups. Especially that orange text. It might have to be a shade darker to keep the teen crowd. Not too dark!
- Ignore the advice of the artist. I mean, who has time for that shit? Just fucking make our changes and stop thinking already, right? Jeez.
- Suggest some changes. Make sure they’re ambiguous enough so you can tell your boss it’s not your fault. Stupid artists.
That’s it, you’re done! By now your design, illustration, or animation should be flat, homogenous, and pretty okay.
If it’s awesome, edgy, different than anything else out there, and completely original, then you must have skipped a step. Go back and review everything.
Oh the pain! Oh the truth! Excellent post!!
This has so many business parallels, I don’t even know where to start. :D
Having spent the better part of the last 25 years in the print and design industries, and being married to a recovering graphic designer, this speaks all too well. And I would have to agree with Olivier, that the parallels in business are just as predictable.
If you hire someone for the expertise that you do not possess, why crush their creative vision with endless noodling?
The truth was never so bitter.
The truth is… well, truly painful!
One good rule I learned the hard way: never work with a husband and wife. Work with one or the other, but never both.
In my current job, a directive comes down from the big cheese, hopelessly garbled by middle managers desperately trying to please her. Then they all clamor to stick their fingers into the project until it’s a muddled disaster before they carry it back to the big cheese. Then they return with a hopelessly garbled interpretation of the big cheese’s impressions, and this process goes on and on until the project is a steaming pile of uninspired mediocrity.
Of course, on big projects, they include focus groups and questionnaires and outside input, just to ensure that no sparks of creativity lie smoldering in the ashes.
I recently did a logo for a client that did it right – your two-step method – and it was an amazing experience. Everyone was happy, and I was proud of the work. What a treat!
“She just took that scrapbooking class.” Oh YES! You nailed it *exactly*. I can’t even think of anything to add.
[...] Taken from: http://sparkyfirepants.com/blog/2009/07/07/how-to-get-mediocre-work-from-an-artist/ [...]
I approve of this.
Here’s how we ease the pain. Up front payments and hourly charges once you start “changing” things. The only way to discourage this kind of behavior is to get the money we deserve for being subjected to it. They’ll learn eventually. Oh they’ll learn….
[...] Sparky Firepants: Art is Work Inside the Pants: The Business End of the Artist « How to get mediocre work from an artist [...]