Graphic Design Work

[The People's Hero]

Morning All,

 

I'm looking for someone to do some design work around some graphic ideas around some branding; mainly including logo design work.

 

I wanted to post this in General Chat, but am still banned. If mods could move this there, that would be great; but I suppose then any replies would need to be by DM.

 

Its hardly going to be lucrative as its a personal project for a home bar we have had built which we've called 'The Fox and Quill', but in truth is the pre-cursor to a much larger project for the company I run and another couple I am involved with, as well as a sporting club. In short, I need a designer who is comfortable working with my ideas/objective and creating strong image/brand. Foxestalk is the first place I've asked as I've regularly seen some top notch graphic design on here.

 

I can only imagine this is going to either sink like a stone or see a lot of silliness (which of course I welcome as always) but if anyone can come up with something I'd be eternally grateful and of course we can sort out some consideration for the initial part as well as obviously engaging further on what will be larger projects quite soon.

 

If no one can help with the design, can anyone at least point me in the direction of the format I need any design work in that any signmakers/printers would want in order to produce hard copy stuff?

 

Cheers,

 

TPH

[Dorkingfox]

Most imagery is done in photoshop and illustrator, you need someone with the full Adobe suite of software (this is the most common). Most book design is done in using InDesign.

[danny.]

For signage and print items you’d generally send a PDF to the printers. 

[Stadt]

@RonnieTodger is a graphic designer 

[SemperEadem]

5 minutes ago, Stadt said:

@RonnieTodger is a graphic designer 

A very good one too.

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

1 hour ago, The People's Hero said:

Morning All,

 

I'm looking for someone to do some design work around some graphic ideas around some branding; mainly including logo design work.

 

I wanted to post this in General Chat, but am still banned. If mods could move this there, that would be great; but I suppose then any replies would need to be by DM.

 

Its hardly going to be lucrative as its a personal project for a home bar we have had built which we've called 'The Fox and Quill', but in truth is the pre-cursor to a much larger project for the company I run and another couple I am involved with, as well as a sporting club. In short, I need a designer who is comfortable working with my ideas/objective and creating strong image/brand. Foxestalk is the first place I've asked as I've regularly seen some top notch graphic design on here.

 

I can only imagine this is going to either sink like a stone or see a lot of silliness (which of course I welcome as always) but if anyone can come up with something I'd be eternally grateful and of course we can sort out some consideration for the initial part as well as obviously engaging further on what will be larger projects quite soon.

 

If no one can help with the design, can anyone at least point me in the direction of the format I need any design work in that any signmakers/printers would want in order to produce hard copy stuff?

 

Cheers,

 

TPH

 

As a graphic designer* the best advice I could give is to take the advice of a graphic designer you do sign up because they'll have experience in what is and what isn't successful. Talking about the larger future project, as that sounds more important. If you have an idea yourself, your best bet is to show it to people you know who will be honest with you, because you might think it's a great idea but there's every chance it isn't. The home bar isn't important as that's a personal project, but any future commercial needs are completely different

 

Please also bear in mind that graphic design isn't a hobby that many people think it is - most employed graphic designers/freelancers will have gone to college/got a degree, worked for years as an artworker while they honed their skills and learned from colleagues etc before they are positioned as a graphic designer. That or they are very talented and managed to get into graphic design at a young age, and will be really in-demand. If you are hiring someone, check their portfolio and see if you like what they put out. I wouldn't generally go on feedback too much from strangers, because a lot of the issues thrown up with graphic design is that the client has an idea which isn't great, the graphic designer sets something up which looks nothing like the client's idea, the client demands the idea/s be reworked, then are shocked when they get the bill at the end and can't figure out why they've been charged 20 hours labour (the designer probably will have written off several hours as well) when they were expecting a bill for 5 hours. If you are hiring someone to work on your home bar that later needs to work on the large project, a good graphic designer isn't going to half what they would normally charge for your home bar because it's a home bar - they will still be providing the same level of work and experience. Unless they're a friend of yours, or they're desperate. And if they're desperate, there's a good chance it's because they're not actually very good at what they do, or they have an idea on how to scam some money out of you at a later date.

 

If you just want something cheap and cheerful for your home bar, Fiverr is probably your best bet - a lot of overseas designers who charge very little money for some good quality work.

Where this approach falls down though is if you want to use them again for the larger project you mentioned - without employing someone, you can't guarantee their turnaround time, if there's any confusion regarding formats you could end up getting hit with bills for reprints that you weren't anticipating etc. Whatever this larger project is, you're probably best off scoping out some freelancers and giving them firm timescales beforehand. Good ones won't necessarily cost the earth but will generally need dates sticking to - if you tell them they'll be working April-June, then April comes around and they're not needed, they won't work for you unless they're desperate. Another tip is - if you find a good freelancer, don't piss them off and they'll keep working for you. If you end up sacking someone off after you've paid for their design work/branding that you did like, getting another designer in who has to carry on your existing branding is going to mean re-paying someone full whack to re-setup assets**, and there's every chance that the new assets will have inconsistencies - ones you may not notice at first, but the wider public might, and it can look pretty unprofessional. Where I work we have a team, and because of management issues we occasionally have to outsource work to agencies. We have a really thorough set of brand guidelines but so often the agencies mess everything up (wrong fonts, wrong colours, wrong templates used) - sometimes their work is so bad we have to re-work it in-house, but it's still cost us £1,000s with nothing to show for it

 

*The shit I post on here is throwaway stuff that takes me 5 minutes and doesn't reflect what I actually do day-to-day!

**Re-setting up assets? Why can't I just demand the original designer supplies the working files? You can (although a contract from the original designer might specify that they will not supply working files and only the PDFs are what you are getting with the price), but there are a lot of tricks in the book to make working files practically unworkable, and a designer will use these tricks if they feel like they've been let down

 

 

TL;DR:

- If someone on here doesn't want to do the home bar work, use Fiverr

- Hire a good freelancer for your future project, depending how big it is you might want to consider a full-time employee - circa £30k p/a. If you were employing you'd need to supply a Mac (£3k-ish) plus Adobe CC (£50 per month)

- If you want someone to do both your home bar and the future project, you'll probably be looking at £30-50 per hour from a good freelancer. If someone agrees to work for much less than that, it should set alarm bells ringing

Edited 19 January 2022 by Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo

[RonnieTodger]

Above post covers everything and more really.

 

A lot will depend on the scope of work that you want creating. I think you’re making a wise choice by wanting whoever creates the logo to have a longer-term input. 
 

Generally, files are quite universal now and if printers want things sent in a specific way, it shouldn’t be too difficult. They should have their own artworkers that are able to get things ready to print properly or at least advise on how they want it setup. 

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

9 minutes ago, RonnieTodger said:

Above post covers everything and more really.

 

A lot will depend on the scope of work that you want creating. I think you’re making a wise choice by wanting whoever creates the logo to have a longer-term input. 
 

Generally, files are quite universal now and if printers want things sent in a specific way, it shouldn’t be too difficult. They should have their own artworkers that are able to get things ready to print properly or at least advise on how they want it setup. 

Also good advice

 

PS I definitely agree about how universal everything is. I don't miss the days of being called into the print workshop because the green on screen has printed out brown on a 30ft railing banner (that someone has to pay £300 for), or having to set all text to outlines because their decade-old printer can't figure out Frutiger so has swapped it for lots of white squares instead

[Babylon]

Be careful with any "do me a deal on a logo for other potential work" stuff. As a designer myself I would usually tell someone to f*** off when they say that, as having heard it about 1000 times in the last 24 years, I can count on one finger the amount of times doing a favour turned into more work. 

[Babylon]

Oh and if someone says they are doing your logo in photoshop, run a bloody mile. Accept a vector graphic (illustrator) and nothing else.

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

38 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Oh and if someone says they are doing your logo in photoshop, run a bloody mile. Accept a vector graphic (illustrator) and nothing else.

 

The company I work for recently outsourced a map to be artworked. The designer did it the whole thing in Photoshop. So not only did it look bloody awful when it had to be printed at A0 size, future edits require hours of work rather than minutes. Mind-boggling

[Saxondale]

Also there are graphic designers and graphic designers. 
 

I, for example, was trained in designing newspapers and magazines, so I’m shìt hot at page layouts, typography and so on, but you wouldn’t really ask me to design a logo. At the other end of the spectrum, there are the arty type who can draw anything you like and come up with amazing images and original concepts, but they’d have no clue how to layout a brochure or a magazine.
 

Sounds like you’re after somebody in the middle!

[Saxondale]

24 minutes ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

The company I work for recently outsourced a map to be artworked. The designer did it the whole thing in Photoshop. So not only did it look bloody awful when it had to be printed at A0 size, future edits require hours of work rather than minutes. Mind-boggling

That is shocking.

Edited 19 January 2022 by Saxondale
.

[Babylon]

3 hours ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

The company I work for recently outsourced a map to be artworked. The designer did it the whole thing in Photoshop. So not only did it look bloody awful when it had to be printed at A0 size, future edits require hours of work rather than minutes. Mind-boggling

I suppose it’s better than “my niece has designed a logo in Microsoft word”, which I’ve probably had a dozen times over the years. 

[Babylon]

3 hours ago, Saxondale said:

That is shocking.

It’s not, I mean I’m not shocked by it. There are a huge number of people who don’t have the first clue about cmyk, vector, bitmaps and Pantone’s etc. 

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

Just now, Babylon said:

I suppose it’s better than “my niece has designed a logo in Microsoft word”, which I’ve probably had a dozen times over the years. 

 

I had to deal with this absolute bitch once who was so proud of her poster she'd knocked up in Publisher, but of course it didn't anywhere near adhere to our brand guidelines so I set it up properly. She hated what I'd done so as a compromise I tried to bring in the "feeling" of her poster, you know, brighten it up a bit, make it look like it was for a younger audience but keep it looking at least a bit professional. She was still incredibly upset that I'd somehow undermined her, so she complained to my boss's boss (who couldn't be arsed to reason with her), so my boss said "just take what she's done and put the high-res logo on it". It looked RIDICULOUS when it was put up

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

4 minutes ago, Babylon said:

It’s not, I mean I’m not shocked by it. There are a huge number of people who don’t have the first clue about cmyk, vector, bitmaps and Pantone’s etc. 

 

Yep, and a worrying amount who actually work in the industry. One of my former colleagues, lovely bloke and a great designer of many years, could not get his head around image resolution. Used to export Facebook feed images (which should really be 1200x628px for landscape for best clarity) at 400x200px. You could absolutely not read the text once output, and they looked really pixellated, but he was so stubborn when I mentioned it his argument was "I've been doing this job a lot longer than you, pal"

 

That may be true, but just because what you've been doing wrong for a long time doesn't make it right

[Babylon]

5 minutes ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

I had to deal with this absolute bitch once who was so proud of her poster she'd knocked up in Publisher, but of course it didn't anywhere near adhere to our brand guidelines so I set it up properly. She hated what I'd done so as a compromise I tried to bring in the "feeling" of her poster, you know, brighten it up a bit, make it look like it was for a younger audience but keep it looking at least a bit professional. She was still incredibly upset that I'd somehow undermined her, so she complained to my boss's boss (who couldn't be arsed to reason with her), so my boss said "just take what she's done and put the high-res logo on it". It looked RIDICULOUS when it was put up

Ha... I wouldn't have even bothered. 

 

A swift "Publisher isn't industry standard software... sorry (but not sorry)".

[danny.]

3 hours ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

The company I work for recently outsourced a map to be artworked. The designer did it the whole thing in Photoshop. So not only did it look bloody awful when it had to be printed at A0 size, future edits require hours of work rather than minutes. Mind-boggling

Maps are quite a specialist subject. I used to create loads of them - ended up with a really complex setup/bespoke workflow that took data from OSM and then ended up with a vector version that could be stylised, which saved a lot of time. If you are literally drawing roads etc. it takes a long, long time to draw maps. Why anyone would draw something that clearly should be a vector in Photoshop is quite baffling! I assume they were not qualified to be drawing a map!

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

2 minutes ago, danny. said:

Maps are quite a specialist subject. I used to create loads of them - ended up with a really complex setup/bespoke workflow that took data from OSM and then ended up with a vector version that could be stylised, which saved a lot of time. If you are literally drawing roads etc. it takes a long, long time to draw maps. Why anyone would draw something that clearly should be a vector in Photoshop is quite baffling! I assume they were not qualified to be drawing a map!

 

Yep, I think it was someone where I work had a friend's nephew who was a "graphic designer" and had a nice Instagram account, or some bullshit along those lines. Definitely not a cartographer. The end result didn't look particularly bad on screen but it was obvious they didn't really know what they were doing

[Babylon]

9 minutes ago, danny. said:

Maps are quite a specialist subject. I used to create loads of them - ended up with a really complex setup/bespoke workflow that took data from OSM and then ended up with a vector version that could be stylised, which saved a lot of time. If you are literally drawing roads etc. it takes a long, long time to draw maps. Why anyone would draw something that clearly should be a vector in Photoshop is quite baffling! I assume they were not qualified to be drawing a map!

Maps are horrific to do, bloody hate them. 

[Smudge]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Maps are horrific to do, bloody hate them. 

 

1 hour ago, danny. said:

Maps are quite a specialist subject. I used to create loads of them - ended up with a really complex setup/bespoke workflow that took data from OSM and then ended up with a vector version that could be stylised, which saved a lot of time. If you are literally drawing roads etc. it takes a long, long time to draw maps. Why anyone would draw something that clearly should be a vector in Photoshop is quite baffling! I assume they were not qualified to be drawing a map!

This kind of thing makes me see #FF0000

[Countryfox]

2 hours ago, Babylon said:

There are a huge number of people who don’t have the first clue about cmyk, vector, bitmaps and Pantone’s etc. 

Count me in ! ..  

[Babylon]

3 minutes ago, Countryfox said:

Count me in ! ..  

Hopefully you aren’t trying to be a designer