Design Daddy

The life of a designer and dad of 3

[designdadddy]

Email Issues

Client - Now I know you don't host our email. But it's stopped working. Can you fix it?

Me - Erm... I'm not a religious man, but I'll pray for you.

[designdadddy]

Small-Small

So we ask the client what size they want their flyer designed in... apparently a size we're not accustomed with is known as "small-small". If anyone can let me know what the actual size is in "mm" I'd really appreciate it.

[designdadddy]

Logo in Powerpoint

Ahhh, the shame! It happened. We were asked to design a website & flyer for a client... of course asked for their logo in high res. They sent me a powerpoint document with the logo in it.

Me - "Er, do you have it in another format?"

Client - "Nope, this is our logo, we've been using this for 8 years, never had a problem before. I designed it and we are very proud of it."

It really is a monstrosity of a design, very offensive to anyone with an eye for design. I actually took the logo recreated it with better balance and style. They complained that I'd massacred their original design and wanted me to revert back to the original logo.

I gave up arguing and gave them what they wanted, however, I've since removed my company name from the bottom of the website, as I don't want to be associated with it. Hideous. It's killed the entire design. 

[designdadddy]

The weather in the UK is sucking so bad right now. I'm thinking of investing in a line of new clothing... I reckon this might be a big hit.

[designdadddy]

Not using it... not paying for it

Ok, so this has happened twice in a matter of weeks (through no fault of our own I might add).

1) Client One asked me to design a Christmas card, we spent 4 hours coming up with various samples, many emails, and a meeting (which took 40mins to get to, and 50mins to get back from). Christmas passed and they never actually got the cards made up. Now when they get the bill they respond by telling me "we didn't use it, so why should we pay for it???". WHAT? Are you serious? On what planet is this acceptable?

2) Client Two asked me to design a logo for them. So we did. And they liked. We sent the bill. They did not pay. 2 months later they get in touch, and say they need a new logo designing. We say, Ok, but you need to pay for the last. They tell us they are changing the company name, so no need to use OR pay for previous logo. WHAT???

Unreal. I can't believe how some people behave toward designers. What's so different about our industry?  You wouldn't get someone to build you an extension on your house, then change your mind. You wouldn't get someone to cut your hair, and then change you mind on the style a few weeks later, saying I'm not paying for the previous cut.

[designdadddy]

Shall I be the man of the house then Daddy?

The response from my 5 year old when I told him I was going back to work. Bless.

[designdadddy]

Poo poo poo poo... poo poo poo in a hole

Apparently this is "what the fox says" according to my 3 year old son.

[designdadddy]

Design is where science and art break even.

[designdadddy]

Too Much Monday... not enough Coffee

It's going to be a rough day. Two sites hacked over the weekend. Yippee. Turkish twats.

[designdadddy]

Facebook Updates : Another Dead Relative

So it's happened again, we've lost another elder statesman. This time a Facebook friend's Grandad.

My very special Grandad, such a handsome, hard working, caring and strong man all his life. I will always remember milky coffee, the biscuit tin, Marks and Spencer blue toffees, drambuie, holy vests, your secret bed at work, my 50p pocket money every time I saw you, the way you were such a tease and such great fun to play with when I was growing up. What I will treasure most though is the cheeky wink you gave me when I said goodbye last time I saw you, kept your sense of humour right to the very end. Now sleep well and go give mum a big hug from me xxx

Ok, once again, I'm really sad for your loss. But why have you posted this on Facebook?  Attention seeking?  Letting all your "close" friends know about the loss of a bloke they've never met.  I really hope they have Facebook in heaven so the old fella can read this. 

Please stop using Facebook to air your grief, attention seeking and generally bumming people out.

#RIPYourGrandad

[designdadddy]

Facebook Updates : Christmas is Over?

Ok, here's another ridiculous Facebook update:

You know christmas is officially over when sky movies christmas is now sky showcase

Firstly, it's a capital C. Secondly, NO. Just NO! Christmas is over when Boxing Day has passed.  Should Sky keep their channel as Sky Christmas just to keep everyone jolly and in the festive spirit. Stop writing twatty comments on Facebook and get back to work, rather than sitting on your sofa growing your arse and wasting time wanting to watch Christmas movies. You've added nothing to my day with this update... it has about as much value as this Tumblr post.

[designdadddy]

Inspector DesignDaddy

A client got a rather abusive message through their company website, slating their personality, to which the whole of the company would have seen. I've changed the names of the email...

What did you lot do to make Gina hate u so much? Is Amy really that bad a person? Is there anybody that Gina actually likes at *Company*; not from what I can make out? Watch your backs everyone, she has something to say about each and every one of you!

Love a bit of abuse and mystery.  The aforementioned client contacted me (on a Sunday via email, phone and mobile!!!) asking me to trace the IP Address to find out who sent the heinous electronic message. My initial thought was to tell the client "stop acting like such a twat and people won't write nasty things about you", she really is very rude on the phone to me and tends to blame me for anything that goes wrong, even if it's not related to her website/email (which I don't even host). However, I thought better of it. Just responded, with the following...

"Afraid, we're not the CIA, so don't do much in the way of IP Address tracing, but I'll get our best man on the job"

She has not responded.

[designdadddy]

Resolutions of a Design Daddy

Be more patient with children

Be less patient with shit clients

Spend more time with children

Spend less time with clients

Teach children how to ride a bike

Teach clients how to setup their own email accounts

Stop spending money on rubbish for children

Start charging money for rubbish jobs for clients

Drink more water

Drink less coffee

Do more design work for fun & blog more :)

[designdadddy]

Facebook Updates: Dead Nan

I'm going to make this a regular thing, highlighting the ridiculous updates of my Facebook friends. To kick us off I have this beauty... "Thinking of my Nan today on what would've been her 93rd birthday. Happy Birthday Nan. Miss you everyday xxxx" Basically, your dead nan isn't surfing Facebook in Heaven, so can't read this update. This update just bums everyone else on Facebook... and to make it worse, you've also changed your profile picture to that of your dead nan. Seriously, what are you trying to achieve? I don't understand.  It's clear attention/sympathy seeking. Stop it, stop it now. Your gran has just deactivated her Facebook account and moved to twitter because of this!

[designdadddy]

Did you even read the email?

I send a client the following email...

Subject: Live Hey A,

Thanks for payment.

Check out www.yourwebsite.com I got a reply... Subject: Re: Live Hi J, is the site live yet?

Seriously guy? You're going to make me reply to this? Either read your email... or try clicking the link. Some people are so stoopid.

[designdadddy]

Those in glass houses...

So we have a client, delighted with her website and logo we've designed for her. She's now approached a PR & Marketing company to produce the content for her website and showed aforementioned agency the designs we'd produced. And they had the following to say... "Coming from a print journo background, I'm pretty adept at digesting type-based design very quickly, and I have to say I was tripped up at 10-12 and again just now looking at your site. I'm spending far too long unravelling the elements and then reconnecting them, and if I am doing that there's unfortunately a chance that at least some of your audience will too. And anything that trips up a potential customer is not good news!"

No. No. Bad PR agency. Don't go bad mouthing a design to a client, certainly not after we've just printed 500 business cards for them. NO! And I'm sorry, who unravels logos?  It's a very simple elegant logo, 2 words, how much unraveling can be done????

So, I can take criticism.  Provided you either a) give suggestion on how to fix it (which this guy didn't) or b) you are more qualified in design than I (which he is not, as stated, he is a print journo, not a designer) or finally c) the collateral you use for your business is off the hook, sick, barn stormingly awesome, blows everyone out of the water logo and identity (which on viewing his 1 page, static website, with grainy text based logo it is certainly not any of that).

Rant over

[designdadddy]

Me and my colleague are literally in stitches in here (well, we were laughing whilst holding our noses as not to make a noise).  A gentleman visiting the other company at our building just locked himself in the toilet right outside our office, and couldn't get out.  He actually had to call the guy he was meeting to help him get out. All we could picture was the above scene from Dumb & Dumber. Thing was, he shouldn't have been using that bathroom, as it's ours. Karma is a bitch.