Graphic Designers - From Hollywood to Uncle John's Flower shop

Graphic design is a multibillion dollar industry. You will find graphic designers everywhere.  From Hollywood studios to suburban concession stores, graphic designers work with almost each and every business you can think of.

Their work is diverse and there are many specialized categories of what a graphic designer can do. Some specialize in computer generated imagery (CGI used in Hollywood movies), some of them create graphics for TV and advertising industry, some of them design posters and banners, and some of them design logos and web or print graphics.

The skills required to do different graphic jobs have many levels. For example, a CGI expert would have a university degree and related experience in the research field to generate sophisticated visual effects. Designers working with Advertising firm might be college graduates with electives related to marketing. Designers working with small businesses designing websites or logos may not have a college degree but certification from some community college or specialized graphic design schools.

Working with graphic design is an artistic job, not only it requires knowledge to use advanced graphic tools, it also requires a certain creativity and innovation too. If a graphic designer is really talented then it matters very little what degree or certification he/she holds.

If you visit the websites of these graphic designers or the company’s they work for. You would see a section called portfolio there. This is where the company or the artist shows their talent by displaying the work they have previously done for the clients. Looking at the portfolio you can get an idea of how good they are and who their other customers are. You can then contact their other customers and ask them how they liked their services.

Graphic designers who work for small businesses should also have a little knowledge of marketing and brand identity. Artistic merits may sometime create a conflict of interest with the business interest of the clients they are working for. Most graphic designer realize the importance of this and keep themselves updated with the latest developments in the marketing. With the increasing competition faced from the graphic designers of other countries, these graphic designers also keep their prices lower and try very hard to satisfy the customer needs.

So even though it is a multibillion dollar industry, anyone can benefit from the services of a graphic designer. The real trouble is to find a good one. 

Logo Design - Creativity vs. Customer Satisfaction

As a design artist, more specifically as a design artist who designs other people’s brand identities, you might often face this dilemma when you kill your creativity for customer satisfaction. The symptoms of this dilemma might range from mild unhappiness to extreme frustration.

You will be asked to redo an extremely good and absolutely unique logo design idea just because your customer thinks it is girly, or masculine, too heavy on eyes or so easy to ignore. You would feel angry and you should. But, anger does not bring you any jobs. So you hide your anger and you redo the design keeping in mind your clients feedback and changing it to meet their needs. It kills your heart the way you are destroying an astonishing piece of work to satisfy some non-design person who does not even know what “tint” means. 

This half heartedness takes the focus away from you and the end product is something neither you nor your client can look at. 

They key is to take client input seriously and consider it as a creative challenge. For example you have done a logo with bright sun drowning in the horizon and your client asks you to decrease the orange and add more blue to the horizon. You can get frustrated and create a purple horizon, or you can take this as a challenge. Don’t get upset over how silly this sounds; instead think of ways to add more blue. If you put your creative mind to it you will definitely find out ways to use blue.  

To some very successful design artists customer input has helped them create some of the most memorable logos of all time. Raymond Lowey was considered father of the Industrial Design. Below is an example of sketches he did for the Exxon Logo. Most of his ideas were rejected and the one that was selected was not Lowey’s first choice. Below is a photograph of his suggested ideas and then the picture of the final logo.