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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: One-Sheet Typos
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-14-2006 07:47 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
The United States no longer requires anyone to have any formal training, any kind of graphic design degree or any qualifications at all whatsoever -or even a decent portfolio of work.
Huh? Are you implying that at one time the "United States" required graphic designers to be somehow certified and/or licensed? I doubt that very much. Like many artistic professions, no one has to be certified or even talented. The marketplace is supposed to take care of that. And there always was and always will be both good and bad designers, photographers, artists, performers, etc. And although I don't have the facts to back me up, I'm not sure it's any different in most other countries either.
Whether one has a legal or illegal copy of Photoshop or Illustrator is about as relevant (aside from the ethical considerations) as whether one has a pencil and pen they bought legally or whether it was shoplifted.
One is either talented or not (whether that talent is intuitive or as a product of training and education) and there will always be far more untalented people than talented people. That's always been the case and always will be.
While there's a lot of bad design out there, there's also a lot of very good design.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 11-15-2006 12:18 AM
quote: Martin Brooks
Huh? Are you implying that at one time the "United States" required graphic designers to be somehow certified and/or licensed? I doubt that very much.
After more than 20 years of working in graphic design I think I can say with some qualified authority the average standard of graphic design in the United States has definitely declined a great deal.
Two decades ago it usually took an art degree and a good amount of hands-on graphic design experience in "old school" analog studio skills to even be considered for a decent staff job doing graphics work anywhere. Local newspapers, small magazines and fledgling ad agencies all wanted people with degrees, solid portfolios of work and good knowledge of analog paste up skills. You couldn't publish squat without any of that back then.
Today, it takes nothing more than some guy claiming he knows how to use Photoshop or PageMaker since he pointed and clicked around a few times in a pirated copy he downloaded. Hardly anyone even asks to see a portfolio these days. They figure if the candidate can get the job done in at least some kind of a half-assed way, and be willing to work for shit pay, they have the job.
Business people believe the computers are making the art. Why pay extra to hire a talented person to do the work when the secretary can do it for $6 an hour? The digital tools are often used as a crutch to cover up lack of qualification.
It seems like I'm spending more time these days fixing amateur hour artwork someone wants to use on a sign, or in a brochure or something else.
Currently, I have a nice thorn in my side type of sign design project for a bank chain. We've made signs for this company for many years. But a lady now working there, one with little knowledge of graphic design, has taken it upon herself to redesign the company logo using a downloaded copy of Photoshop. The finished design is very insipid, with lots of gradients and shading -but in a pixel-based only design at a resolution so low it works only as a web page graphic for a computer monitor.
As I have done many times before, I'll have to take this amateur's work and spend hours fixing lots of problems so it can work in high resolution large format printing and a variety of outdoor sign applications.
I rarely ever run into these kinds of problems when I get artwork from graphic designers who actually know what they are doing. But it seems like their files are making up a smaller and smaller percentage. There's more of this DIY design happening.
But it takes a little more than just the purchase of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to qualify someone as a graphic artist. It's like someone going out and buying the same kind of golf clubs Tiger Woods uses and then expecting to play just as well.
The problems I describe are not unique to my profession alone.
There's lots of threads in this forum complaining about the lack of professionalism in film projection. The business people get rid of the professionally trained, skilled projectionists. Managers and assistant managers take over their tasks. Routine maintenance is jobbed out to a tech who visits the theater rarely. Then the box people or counter help hired at minimum wage is threading movies. The end result is declining presentation standards. And then there's the push for 2K digital projection to fix the problem.
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Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester
Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004
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posted 11-15-2006 05:18 AM
I could mirror Bobby's sentiment with regards to the music world. The art of sound and recording once required experience and knowledge that now has been reduced to hacked programs and pull-down menus, which require no ingenuity. Going back further, actually composing music no longer requires years of education, practice, and hands-on dealing with what it is to WRITE music, orchestrate it, and conduct it. I'm all for ease of tools, and advanced technology, but there's a school of discipline behind every endeavor which is not only taking a backseat, but which is disappearing entirely.
But we were talking about typos ...
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