Image is Everything

I was seventeen when I made my first logo design. It was for a small company in Rockford, Michigan called Earthbound Worm Farms. My dad was doing silk screen work for the owner and one day we were in his store and I noticed a plaque up on the wall with his company name and a very crude drawing of a worm. I instantly envisioned a different worm; one with a face and a cape flying above a globe of the planet. I told the owner about this and he asked me to draw that up for him so he could see it.

I went home and started sketching the idea out on paper. This was the first time I'd ever drawn anything for someone who owned a business so my dad (who was a technical illustrator at the time) helped me get the supplies I needed; Bristol board, pencils, sharpener, markers, etc. When I had the concept drawn out and colored I took it to show to the store owner. He was very excited and asked me how much I wanted for the design. I looked at my dad because I had no clue what to charge and my dad smiled and told the owner it would cost one hundred dollars. I was shocked - one hundred dollars? Wow.

The owner wrote me a check and when we got home my dad asked me what I wanted to do with all that money. I was so elated by what had just happened that I couldn't imagine spending it, so we put the check in a frame and hung it up on the wall. My first check for my first logo design. I was so happy that I spent the rest of the day dreaming of future logo design jobs. There would be quite a few in the coming years, and all of them came from my innate ability to envision what a logo should look like for a particular company. It seemed to be something I could do naturally, like walking and chewing gum.

But once I entered the age of computers and the internet a whole new world opened up for me, and a whole new perception. With the advent of these new technological toys and the invention of programs such as Photoshop the Web was soon overrun by a plethora of bad designers (and equally bad designs). Something that had once taken me hours or days to craft on paper could now be done by anyone and in even less time. To me this was appalling. I've spent my entire artistic life not only creating things but also taking care to create them well and now here were these yahoos who hadn't a lick of experience (let alone talent) raking in business left and right. The whole situation reminded me of a line from the movie Ratatouille where the lead character (a rat named Remy) says, "Yes, anyone can cook. That doesn't mean anyone should."

This is a good analogy of what was happening here; anyone could design, but that didn't mean anyone should. A kid with a copy of Photoshop producing beveled buttons and drop-shadowed web layouts was not a professional. The problem is the majority of people seeking designers to make their web sites and logos are clueless about what constitutes decent design and therefore susceptible to hiring any Chef de Plúnge.

So what to do? Well, the best recourse is education. Therefore as a designer I not only take the time to do an exceptional job for my client I also like to educate them on the proper aesthetics of the craft. Image is everything, after all. It isn't just acceptable to do a job but also to do it professionally. This is important not only for your client but for the field of graphic design as a whole. Unfortunately, bad designers will always be with us, but the more knowledge we impart upon the masses the less work there will be for those who should not even be cooking in the first place.