Dear readers, well um that's if you guys do exist and any angry berated designer is welcome to of course grace my little spot of fury on the interwebs. My chronicles of slavery working in The Agency From Hell from where the last post I had about the ever changing brochure has yet another interesting tale for you little devils!
It was one of those dreary mornings when you feel like you had to drag your hung over ass to work. As if the notion of having to listen to one of my bosses "I soooooo much more fucking superior then you as a human being" speech was bad enough I was introduced to a new designer, an addition to our already over worked slave labor creative department. Oh my you can imagine my joy, "yay an extra hand to lighten our load!!" What a bunch of bollocks.
Of course being the nice colleagues that we are, we showed the new girl around, did the perfunctory lunching together to welcome her to our team. Just as we were about to tuck into our cheap ass canteen meal, the new girl started to laugh. Not a tiny giggle or a hee hee but a real loud hearty laugh! Hmmmm as I recalled no one told a joke and neither of us were in a sparkly mood to tell one either. There was a unison of silence we stared at her, she continued staring into space and laughing. In that moment I thought to myself, "Is the pressures of being in the advertising and media industry that taxing on one's mental health that they'll go mad?!!"
That was just the beginning of her madness, not only did we find out that she is a freshy from college, her design skills is somewhere from 0 to abysmal. Now at that early stage in my design career I was no veteran either however most of us working there could handle at the very least 2 design projects plus 1 other pitching job on a daily basis. We even worked weekends for no pay at all just so to please our tyrant bosses, we all afraid of losing our jobs as it was during the time when the economy decided to fuck everyone in the ass with a cactus. So instead of helping us, New Girl (let's call her Kate from now on) added to our already taxing burden. On top of our own projects we had to correct and tutor her in ways of the 'aesthetic perfection'. She was a pain in the ass from the beginning to the end, when we delegated simple jobs to her she would look at us like we were asking her to perform blowjobs on everyone of us, or that the task is immeasurably tough. Now let me ask you, how tough is it to design a generic 1 color tshirt with minimalist graphics? I could strangle her. Grrrrr
One morning after Kate had joined us for a month, I found her curiously staring at a blank photoshop document and laughing at it as tho there was something funny in there. Now her laughing fits were starting to freak people out, does Kate have an imaginary friend telling her jokes? Was the office haunted with comedienne ghosts? (I worked in a really old antiqued factory building then).
Her strangeness continues to bug us endlessly, it was one Saturday while pushing for a pitching job, her madness went into over drive. I shit you not! Oh ho ho ho. Our dear Kate not only likes to stare into space and laugh at nothing she is unequivocally absolutely and ultimately A JESUS FAG! Now now folks before you think I am some Christian hating jihadist, church burning bitch, I am not. I have alot of well adjusted Christian friends to attest to that I'm not, but what irks me is when someone with a different faith impose upon another person's religion by saying that their own religion is better or their God is better or if you're a Christian already that your church is not as awesome as mine. Anyway back to our dear Kate, if memory serves me right, she started a conversation about the Christian faith with my accounts manager. I was busy with my work so I didn't notice it first but as the minutes passed, Kate was still plastered at my accounts manager's cubicle rattling on and on about 'OH MY CHURCH IS SOOO FANTASTIC YOU SHOULD COME VISIT, Jesus is yadda yadda yadda' to ad infinitum. My accounts manager was already giving me the 'come rescue please' look, apparantly unbeknownst to me kate had been plastered there for at least a good hour. Wow talk about religious propaganda. With haste I quickly turn to Evonne (my accounts manager), "Oh Evonne, hey could we go out for a smoke?! I have something to discuss with you?".
For a moment there, Kate had wanted to continue her religious tirade and follow us but on hearing the words 'Cigarette' and 'Smoke', the Jesus fag in her decided to not to follow us worshippers of 'sin'. Well you can't be an angel to work in this mean industry but hey as long as you treat your fellow human beings well and they treat you well in return, its all good and fair right? I sure hope so. :)
So anyway what become of Kate after that religious episode? Someone in the HR decided to kick her to a dead end department until she decides to resign. After all if we fired her we wouldn't want to be bathed in a religious hellfire. :)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Curious Case Of The Ever Changing Brochure
In the course of every designer's career we'll encounter a least a few clients with the perchant for changing and changing and changing.......you get the idea. With me its no exception. I remember when I just started out as a misty eyed youngling designer ready to change the world of shitty color mis management and horrible typography when I landed myself my first slave driver agency job. And guess what folks? This agency came with Account Executives (AE)s and a boss who doesn't know how to say NO to clients, but like any junior designer with 0 to none experience I had no other choice but to accept whatever client projects they threw at me.
One particular project was cast onto my desktop (Mac no less) because the last 2 art directors and designers gave up on it and seeing I am the new guy they thought ok, lets throw it to her. I took it with gratitude, hook, line and sinker, it was a BIG ASS hotel chain after all. The job was 'simple' enough, follow their corporate identity which was about half the thickness of the yellow pages and keep the layout minimalist. So off I went and designed 3 visuals for presentation. AND THEN I found out the last 2 designers had already designed at least FIFTY versions of that 'simple and minimalist brochure'. Ok something's wrong here right. Who the hell presents 50 versions of a brochure to a picky client? At some point the AE should've said the magical NOOOOO, but NOOO they hadn't the balls and they were glazed by the immensity of the client's spending power. Assholes...
Presentation day came, Picky Anal Client was like 'Oh um could you combine design 12 with 24 with maybe some of the new graphic elements from design 52 (the one i did)??. Also we're not very sure but we like the color and shape of design 15 but there something about the cover art could you use the one from design 42?'. No balls AE was like 'Oh sure anything you want! Would you like gold trimmings and diamonte with that as well?? Oh we'll say yes to everything you ask for cos we have no balls to stand up to your spending might!!'
Months passed..i shit you not MONTHS DID PASS for a simple brochure design it was only 8 pages with saddle stitch by the way. If you add the time taken to complete this project from the other 2 designers and me, it would have come up to 8 months. When the client finally decided to OK the design I was on the brink of sending in my resignation letter, I have spent almost the entire year in the agency working almost exclusively on this brochure. However as fate would have it after printing all 30,000 copies of the brochure, we realize on the backpage the logo was missing. Picky Anal Client refused to pay a single cent for the printed brochures and bullied us into printing another 30,000 for FREE and of course No Balls AEs said Yes we are soo sooooo sorry.
Now everybody point your fingers at the designer its all HER fault even after she pulled 24hr shifts (no joke) on a regular basis and having to fight blind spot syndrome when checking the FA. Oh and yeah since Picky Anal Client refuses to pay a cent my boss took the payment out of my salary. When I think of it. it's still a miracle i manage to survive another 3 more months in that no balls agency. :)
One particular project was cast onto my desktop (Mac no less) because the last 2 art directors and designers gave up on it and seeing I am the new guy they thought ok, lets throw it to her. I took it with gratitude, hook, line and sinker, it was a BIG ASS hotel chain after all. The job was 'simple' enough, follow their corporate identity which was about half the thickness of the yellow pages and keep the layout minimalist. So off I went and designed 3 visuals for presentation. AND THEN I found out the last 2 designers had already designed at least FIFTY versions of that 'simple and minimalist brochure'. Ok something's wrong here right. Who the hell presents 50 versions of a brochure to a picky client? At some point the AE should've said the magical NOOOOO, but NOOO they hadn't the balls and they were glazed by the immensity of the client's spending power. Assholes...
Presentation day came, Picky Anal Client was like 'Oh um could you combine design 12 with 24 with maybe some of the new graphic elements from design 52 (the one i did)??. Also we're not very sure but we like the color and shape of design 15 but there something about the cover art could you use the one from design 42?'. No balls AE was like 'Oh sure anything you want! Would you like gold trimmings and diamonte with that as well?? Oh we'll say yes to everything you ask for cos we have no balls to stand up to your spending might!!'
Months passed..i shit you not MONTHS DID PASS for a simple brochure design it was only 8 pages with saddle stitch by the way. If you add the time taken to complete this project from the other 2 designers and me, it would have come up to 8 months. When the client finally decided to OK the design I was on the brink of sending in my resignation letter, I have spent almost the entire year in the agency working almost exclusively on this brochure. However as fate would have it after printing all 30,000 copies of the brochure, we realize on the backpage the logo was missing. Picky Anal Client refused to pay a single cent for the printed brochures and bullied us into printing another 30,000 for FREE and of course No Balls AEs said Yes we are soo sooooo sorry.
Now everybody point your fingers at the designer its all HER fault even after she pulled 24hr shifts (no joke) on a regular basis and having to fight blind spot syndrome when checking the FA. Oh and yeah since Picky Anal Client refuses to pay a cent my boss took the payment out of my salary. When I think of it. it's still a miracle i manage to survive another 3 more months in that no balls agency. :)
And so it begins.......
Oh hell hath no fury like a graphic designer scourned!! I've been contemplating about creating a blog solely for raging at the clients that make my life unbearable. Fortunately for the internet and the invention of blogging, within the next few weeks if anyone should be reading this blog, I will chronicling some of the most ridiculous experiences I've had working in the advertising industry and also any stories I have heard from my professional peers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
