The Illustrator's gripe thread
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- ********
Grrrr.
I'll go first.Why do clients force projects to go so horribly horribly bad?
I'm trying to lay out a project i did last year for my new/revised web site. It started so well. the preliminary visuals, done to production standard, were great. I had a really strong direction, agreed and totally signed off, and then we got going on the real stuff.
If I say the succesfully pitched theme was to create architectural typographic pieces inspired by the 20th Century Fox
typo-architecture (at the start of movies) and the progressive/future facing typo-architecture and dynamic architectural scultpture of the 1956 World Fair, and yet I ended up angrily photographing a baby's wooden train and 'photoshopping it' onto some train tracks as ordered by the band via the label, and then "making it blue, becuase the last sleeve was red"... it should give you some idea of how far from my original vision the artwork ended up being.Now I am trying to get last year's work online and it breaks my heart to see/remember how badly "off the rails" projects can go when you're the illustrator not the art director. As an art director I used to have to fight tooth and nail to keep things on track, as an illustrator I just don't have that authority over the work no more.
Last year I was so busy I could barely fart and the upshot of that is that I have more work on file than I know what to do with, and I don't think there's one project in there that I feel is competent and conceptually 'tight' enough to represent 2007. I actually sacked three clients last year becuase they fucked up the direction once we got under way.
Yeah, I know. Its the saimol-saimol.
Just... God, it makes me so angry when i can't pull together a tight case study.
- ********0
Oh wow, that's way too long. Apologies.
- But seriously though, I think this thread is going really well actually.********
- But seriously though, I think this thread is going really well actually.
- Raniator0
Why do guides auto-lock themselves? That pisses me off.
- Raniator0
Any why do all the smart-ass Illustrator 'experts' say:
"What do you mean? It's just like using Photoshop, just for illustrations not photos"...
Wtf?
- ********0
YEAH I KNOW!... I KNOW!
Actually,... I don't know. Sorry.
- Raniator0
- Seriously though this thread is going really well. Can you hold the fort while I... go, err, somewhere else?********
- Seriously though this thread is going really well. Can you hold the fort while I... go, err, somewhere else?
- YAYPaul0
I love seeing people’s eyes glaze over when I sigh and start to explain in detail the differences between vector and bitmap... They don't generally make that mistake twice.
- ********0
I have an analogy I love to say to client's who deserve to be made a bit queezy. When they ask me to see work in progress... usually five minutes after commissioning me.... I tell them that seeing a piece of work before its ready will be about as reassuring as popping in on a loved one's face lift surgery only to see their face peeled back over their forehead and the surgeon manouvering the eyes into a petri dish for safe keeping.
They don't ask again.
Mind you, they don't commission me again either.
- awesome. please let me borrow this.invisiblechamber
- Its yours to use how you wish.********
- Raniator0
Go Illustrator thread!!!
Woop woop!
- ********0
Thanks Raniator, with your support I think this conversation could find its way back to the top of the Public Voice list...
oh! looky that!
- YAYPaul0
Other illustrators obviously don't have these problems...
- YAYPaul0
Spooky let the thread die... bad Spooky!
- kodap0
Sometimes I end up making a non-stop 16 hour proposal for.... nothing... pisses me, because I can't make a rough and think that will convince the client... my bad, I know, but it pisses me off while making proposals along with other illustrators for the same project/client
- arthur0
Hey, other illustrators, is your 2008 sucking as bad as mine right now?
- ********0
IT LIVES! (the Illustrator's Gripe thread I mean).
My 2008 is going okay by the one measure, and terribly by the other. By the measur eof getting work coming in, I'm super-stacked as always, so in that sense...good.
In the sense that becuase of the amount of work I get in I don't get time to develop new stuff so clients just keep commissioning the same old shit I've been doing all along... bad.
Why is yours going the way of the suckybad Arthur? You have a really strong body of work.
- Raniator0
Yes! Top 3...
Ooooh, 1st now!
Err... Illustrator, yeah. I don't like the orange icon? It's sits to dominant in my dock...
- the other icons are jealous of its tan. maybe.Raniator
- HAHA, Took me a while to figure out what you meant, especially as I'm on CS1 so mine is still pink.********
- They are all pink on the inside, my friend...Raniator
- are you a boy? i'd hate to think i just said that to a girl.Raniator
- I'm a girl. I feel a little violated by your comment.********
- Wait, what's this... ITS OKAY, I HAVE A PENIS! I'M A BOY!********
- Excitement marred by truth. Excellent news on your cock discovery.Raniator
- Yes, we're all absolutely delighted over here. Maureen's giving it a polish and its coming up really nice.********
- Maureen = receptionist?Raniator
- Maureen = Cock polisher********
- ********0
Going back to the original post of this thread, I have 'bunged' the project in question up on my website now. Its a for a band called The Dykeenies. Only the first piece in that stack is anything like what I wanted, and I did that to show them roughly what I meant by "abstract architectural typographic compositions" . After that though when we got into the real work, I was battered about by creative brownian motion, a small voiceless particle tossed back and forth by band and label who disagreed with each other, with themselves, and with me, about how to do the sleeve art.