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I have a few theories:
1) He’s filled it but he’s such jerk to work with they keep quitting
2) He’s running a scam

OR the most likely scenario
3) He’s only willing to pay peanuts.

There seems to be a devaluation of the talent and skills involved with graphic design and the talent involved with sound web development. When the tools of the trade are available to anyone with a computer –and that’s not even a requirement – the public at-large begins to think that anyone can be a designer. And they can’t. Just because you choose a font and put a photo in your PowerPoint presentation, it doesn’t make you a “designer.”

We saw this happen with photography over the past 10 years when it became expected for stock photos to cost a buck or two from online sites. However, we’re witnessing a “correction” in the market with the sites like iStockPhoto.com steadily increasing their prices and developing a “tier” system regarding photos. Dirt cheap photos tend to look like what you’re paying for. And, those photos from photographers with real skills and talent, are fetching much better prices.

Will it ever return to pre-Web days? Doubtful. But I think watching the stock photography business rise up out of the dirt-cheap level and prove that there’s more to good photography than simply owning a camera and a copy of Photoshop bodes well for the graphic design industry.

Yes, there are designers and companies out there willing to do cookie-cutter (quasi-stock) design for a few measly bucks and count on volume or cheap foreign labor trained in a factory-style method of design. But I think we’ll see the consumers of design work take note of the fact that their dirt cheap brochure, logo, website, etc. doesn’t look nearly as attractive or well-made as work they see by others who paid a designer a fair price. They’ll see the difference: talent and personal service comes with working with a real designer. One that has a name, a reputation and pride on the line and who listens to his/her clients.

So, to the person needing a website designer for their caffeine energy drink, ask yourself some questions (if you’re running a scam especially): Am I not finding someone to fill this position because I’m not willing to pay what someone with the skills and talent to do what I’m asking? Are my expectations too high for my budget?

Or a better question probably is, in this specific case, does the world really need another caffeine energy drink?

You ponder those questions while I go to the fridge to get another Red Bull.

Dad was a journalist and I’d watch him type up articles and later see them in newspapers, etc. with his byline. That’s probably when I first had an inkling that there was this profession in which people decided how the elements would appear on the printed page.

I had never thought of art as a career though. It was just something I did – something I enjoyed.

I started college thinking I’d go into science or English as that had been what I focused on in high school and at which I excelled. It only took one class of calculus and one class period of physics to completely dispel any thoughts of doing that for a career.

I quickly shifted to art history and printmaking, loving them both but I knew it wasn’t a perfect fit. I was looking to be something else. That’s when my college introduced an BFA program in Graphic Design. Finally, I found what I wanted to do! What I wanted to be.

After college, I recognized that there was a revolution beginning in graphic design. Paste-up, typesetting and tricky stat camera work was being replaced by a small but powerful device called the Apple Macintosh. I wanted to be on the forefront of that revolution so I found a grad school that also recognized the sea change that was coming and had put together one of the earliest Mac computer labs for graphic design students in the nation, Louisiana Tech University.

I spent three wonderful years there mastering the art/science of computer-aided graphic design.

Fast forward to present day and you’ll still find me trying to stay ahead of the curve (or at least not get left behind) by self-teaching myself each new design tool that came along; hardware and software. I also learned from some of the best in the business – especially when it came to learning web design.

My clients these days are looking for great print design, web design and copy writing. Gone are the days when I could sell 25-cent pictures of R2-D2 but what’s not gone is my love of the media I work in, the satisfaction I get when a client is excited about my work and my continual learning and growing as a designer and writer.

So, if you’re looking for a veteran graphic designer, web designer, art director and/or copywriter, I’m eager to hear from you and face whatever challenges your project has for me.

And if all you want is a picture of Kiss, I’m sure we could arrange something.

Sign I made to help sell candy for my son's school candy sale

As a kid I always hated the annual candy bar sale to raise money for the school. This was back in the day when it was still considered relatively safe for kids to walk without parental escort door to door to sell their candy. I was such an introvert this was akin to torture.

So, now a few decades later and my kids have to sell candy. I would no more send them door-to-door than I’d let them play with a rattlesnake loose in the house. So, what’s a kid to do? Well, they can hit up family and friends, or try to sell them at church but every kid does that so there’s “candy fatigue” if yours is not the first school out of the gate with the candy sale.

So, I end up taking the candy to work to sell. Here I am doing something I swore I’d never do again. I’m not as shy as I once was and I know that people at work get “hit up” for buying fundraising stuff almost as the people at church do.

So, being the veteran advertising/marketing designer/copywriter I am. I created a simple but very effective advertisement to help sell my son’s candy bars. I used some of the oldest tricks in the advertising repertoire: kids and playing on people’s emotions so they’re not simply buying 2nd rate candy but purchasing an emotion — in this case guilt.

The accompanying photo is my “ad” placed next to the candy bar box on our department’s common-use table.

Not too brag, but it was one of our best sales to date. If I can sell second rate candy to people trying to watch their weight, think of what I can do for you — especially if I put design with the copy I write.