Last year I designed a post card for my Dad's mobile home park down in Florida, Lake Marian Paradise. Working with Pop's is a headache. He's never understood why you would pay someone to put text and photos on a page. Aside from knowing the programs anyone can do this stuff, right? Well, just the other day I got this years postcard design, shown here. I think he created this in MS Publisher or even MS Paint. Which by the way, Adobe refuses to recognize a MS Publisher file worth opening cause I tried. Anyways, he sent this around to all his friends and evidently they preferred last years design better. So what do you know.

I suppose graphic design is becoming a generic term. It can mean you work for Pentagram in NewYork or simply the night shift at the local Kinkos. Even my pop's at home can be a graphic designer! Everybody "does graphics". So what do we do? Change job titles and sit at a different lunch table and hope people will think we are cool now. I actually like that my dad attempts his own projects before coming to me for help. What it does is make my job more valuable to him. It seperates the men from the boys! The more he values what I do, the less of a headache working with him will be.

So what do I do with everyone else. How do I make design more valuable. Obviously, I cant have every client attempt their own projects. But I should to be able to explain why I do what I do. I think that's where you become something more. Its not just whatever you felt like doing, there is a purpose. If their is a lot of white space or type going off the page, there needs to be a reason why. Lord knows all my dad can see is wasted space and unreadable words. If you cant explain it in plain english, you probably dont have a good reason and my dad is going to see right through you. In the end even the best designs have to be sold. Not always do they speak for themselves.

MS Paint Video

Back to Blog