venting my anger
- Started
- Last post
- 23 Responses
- antoine_101
getting a bit down. been here at my first full time graphic design job for a month now. seems like everything I do I always have my boss (marketing mgr) telling me to add a stroke to something, or add a blue box up the top, or some other stupid pointless thing and uglify my design, I dont mind changing things or modifying my concepts, but not if it makes it look fucked. Is the rest of the world all like this? Is there a nice way of getting my way and telling her she really has no idea and she should stick to doing marketing and leave design to me?
I was so pissed off yesterday I almost walked out. She wants everything to look like it was produced on Word, has no idea about white space or class.
;(
- fate_0
Sorry man, I feel for you. Have you pressured her into explaining her choices, or educating her on why that isn't an intelligent decision? I wouldn't let her keep it up without a fight. If a client wants me to add something I disagree with, I will explain why and either they accept my decision or we find some common ground.
All about communication.
- quoo0
i know, it sucks when non designer people try to tell you how to design..
it's kinda our job to trick them into wanting something that looks nice... but it doesn't always work. you just have to figure out why your boss wants a stupid blue box or whatever, and come up with something that looks nicer but achieves the same thing. good luck!
- spendogg0
If you have only been there a month at your first job, just be patient, slowly ease yourself into fighting for what you think is right - just dont act like you are hot shit and nobody knows anything but you.
- antoine_1010
yeah I have been biting my lip as I have only been there a month. I dont wanna seem like im trying to run the show....yet.
its just really frustrating. I mean I have even got oppinions from others and they totally aggree with me that my stuff looks alot better until it gets tampered with by other people''s bad opinions/taste/ideas. I mean im doing all this work, and there is not one thing I am proud of that I would put in my portfolio yet. always wants to use these really bad photos that someone took on their shitty digital camera, they are so amature. grrr!
- slappy0
If she can justify her reason, then suggest a better solution.
- fate_0
Post the mockups on Newstoday. We'll cuss you out and call you a hack. Then show her the thread.
- oBeseLilNinja0
probably lots of us here understand your situation, im not in design but software and when a idiot of a manager (or even someone who has just been there longer than me) dilutes my ideas or implementation i start to think - why the hell am i here! its easy for me to say keep going, so thats what i'll do! "keep going" - just look out for #1 bro - when it starts to get to much start to kick back
- e-pill0
my only advise is to never get attached to any of your work especially when you have a boss that hovers!!!
they always feel inadequate!! (spell check on that one)
they feel they need to control every aspect of the design process that maybe on day the designer (which is you) may on day go out and be better than they aare and actually pass them in the field, so they hover!
sometimes its a good thing when they actually teach you something that while you are there you wont be learning but when you do make that decision to bounce you realize you did learn something!!!
that one thing is integrity!!!
never settling is the second best motion you will learn!!
at least for me that is what happened! i had a boss that hovered like no-ones business!! at least he didnt smell bad! but in the end of the day i did learn, and i thank myself for not ignoring the chance i had when i was there!
i know i am rambling but there is a message in there!
i think you really need to set some real future goals for yourself. make a plan! a 5 years plan as a beginning! and start to let go, let it all go!
if your boss asks you to make a stroke or a box on the top! do it !!! yes it may not look good! or it may look cheap or well you fill in that blank! but let it go!! being attached to your work when really its just daily stuff will hold you back for the bigger picture that you want!
also if you make real time goals these little petty stuff become just random stuff that you can notch as experience!
at least when the day comes when you become the boss and you are running a team you know what it was that this guy did and really you may do just the same thing just adding your own flair!!
this is when you get aattached!
when it really is yours!!
believe me!!! let it go!!
you will be aa much stronger creative than before and you will go further than ever!!!
and nothing will be able to stand in your way!!!
i am saying this from my own experience, as i just left a job where i was nt going anywhere, but in the years i suffered, i learned and now i am the boss!!! now i make the rules!!
now i am attached because i am fighting for it everyday!!!
i hope you make it to this level soon as its very within your reach!!! just let the bs slide and move on!!
hope that helps!!!
good luck!!
:)
- BuddhaHat0
an awesomely inspirational and positive attitude e-pill :)
i'm not even having a bad day today and that's still some great advice to take on board...the best advice I think was to just do what they say, in spite of it looking worse... you'll look better in management's eyes, which could reap you manifold benefits in the future...
best of luck, no matter what you do :)
- spongebob0
cheers buddy.
whether you get pissed or not you'd get paid the same amount.
I'm not asking you to cast your pride away but make this a two way thing between you and her.
Bottling up is no good, so let it out somewhere. It's good that you post this here but watch that it doesn't magnify your frustrations.
Again, cheers. ~: )
- gunforhire0
when i have a client or manager offering bad suggestions, i do that thing they ask for and also offer a couple of other options so they a) feel like they are being heard and b) realize that you are thinking of better solutions. and should hear you out.
hth
- uberdesigner0
you're a designer, do as you're told
- mg330
Hi.
One month working?
First designer job?
A boss (God forbid) telling you what to do?You have not been in the game long enough to be as critical as you sound. Suck it up, with some effort one day you'll be able to tell people what to do and you'll remember this.
- level20
are you working on your portfolio in your free time?
- mrdobolina0
just wait until a salesperson wants you to put the phone number on a banner ad.
- Point50
My old bosses at my first gig used to tell me "you gotta pay your dues"... fuckin idiots. I thought dues was pasting up boards and running to the library for research material and filling up 4 pages of my sketchbook with design ideas at 1am to get ready for the early morning meeting. Turns out those weren't the dues; those were the things that always need to be done and that I don't mind doing because they are all necessary parts of the design process. The real dues were having to listen to the bullshit these guys dished out and how they were always trying to mold me to be their little desing clones. Idiots. That's why they went out of business a year after I quit that place.
Anyhow, keep your chin up. It will get better and your opportunity to be you and have your work reflect that will come. Yeah, I'm not doing my dream design job yet, but it's all the means to the ends.
- lettershome0
sorry man. good advice above. however my only suggestion is that if you really think your design is the shit than go find a new place that sees things the way you do. That, or start your own place. The truley successful people I've known in design (and I've known a lot) have done just that. You can beat a dead horse all you want, but either you are the shit or your not so you gotta either take it or leave.
good luck.
- renaphuah0
Im facing the same thing evryday, i have 2 bosses and one creative director. they love using imported magazines as reference, they have no artistic background, but they are so-called 'arty' and 'tastful'. urgh.
- e-pill0
cheers BuddaHat!!!!
it really was like that for me for a very long time! i was doing this one design job for a long while and i felt i was being held back and everytime i made a great design there came the boss to change it to fit their ideal like it was the mthat did all the work and in the end of the day they took the credit.
it took me a very long time to break out of that ideal and not to stay attached to the work that in reality wassnt mine but the company i was doing the work for.
i feel most beginning designers take this as a slap in their faces when really this isnt the fact!
-antoin_101 since you are just breaking in to your industry dont hold grudges, dont hold petty emotions inside, let it out in a positive direction.
again, good luck! set goals! reach them with a positive attitude!
:)
- paraselene0
epill, you are a ray of sunshine!