Imagine hiring a gardener to clean up that mess you call a back yard. A young man arrives and you brief him on what you want.

“And if you could plant a row of dwarf camelias along that fence…”

“Sorry, I don’t do camelias.”

“What?”

“I don’t do camelias. I can plant rhodos for you. Or plum trees. but I can’t do camelias.”

How do you feel now? You thought that a ‘gardener’ was a ‘gardener’ right? That planting was planting, and there should be no problem getting your desired camelia bushes planted. But that turns out not to be the case. Apparently you need a ‘camelia gardener‘…

Does that sound stupid to you? Or farfetched? Let’s have a quick look at your own business then; you’re promoting yourself as a graphic designer, but what exactly does the great unwashed expect from a ‘graphic designer?‘ Have you ever said “sorry, I don’t do that.”

I came across a lone designer the other day who was terrible at Photoshop. She had to manipulate a photograph slightly for a brochure and she made such a hash of it that I was called in to ’straighten it out’ for the client. Not only that but this person does not do HTML or websites. It seems that she does branding and logos and brochures – so long as there’s no Photoshop involved. What’s more, this person is only in her ’20s (without the excuse of being set in her ways or unable to learn new technology).

Okay, you might say, what’s wrong with specializing? Well nothing, I answer right back. So long as you have more than enough work to keep you going! In this lady’s case, she’s short of clients and is actively promoting herself, but is alienating potential new clients by her limitations.

Take a look from the client’s point of view; you want their business, but if they give it to you, you come back with a ‘sorry but I can’t clean up your photographs‘ or ‘don’t do websites‘ or whatever.

I’m not advocating that everybody does everything, but it’s in YOUR best interests to at least have a modicum of knowledge in all peripheral knowledge areas. You don’t have to be able to create spectacular montages in Photoshop – BUT you should be able to adjust a photograph and resize it for a website. You don’t need to be a web designer – BUT you should be able to edit and replace a client’s web header, or fix up a few spelling mistakes on the site that the previous designer screwed up.

It’s all in the service you offer. And the better the service, the more likely you are to attract and retain clients.

Imagine that the owner of a company – it could be any company – meets a prospective customer at the airport. After a brief discussion of what the company does, she hands over her business card, promises to send a brochure and asks the ‘potential source of income’ to check out the company website when he gets the chance.

Now imagine that the business card is poorly designed and printed crookedly on cheap paper. The website was made by the woman’s 13-year-old son and the brochure was knocked up in Word using a standard template.

What’s the prospective customer going to think about the woman’s company?

Will he believe it to be professional? To deliver professional and accurate results?

I doubt it.

The fact is that a company whose ‘design’ presence is shoddy or poorly executed is also likely to be lackadaisical in its work ethic, produce poor products or be unmindful of customer feedback.

At least that’s the impression of most people.

Professionalism is an all-or-nothing concept. Nobody would fence off 90 percent of their prize bull field in the very best bull-proof materials and leave 10 percent of the perimeter unfenced. It’s not logical. The Titanic still had a ninety percent fully watertight hull when it went down. Most flat tires are only flat at the bottom.

And just like these obvious examples, a single instance of amateur presentation can sink a deal with the most professional of companies.

Yet so many smaller businesses seem to think they can design their own logo using WordArt, produce their own documents and print them on their home laser printer, or utilise a free-template host for their corporate website. It stands to reason that many of these businesses also have an email that reads something like nickybrownsflorist@hotmail.com. (Or worse, boomboompow31@hotmail.com)

There’s an old saying; you never get a second chance at making a first impression. When that first impression comes from a website or a brochure or a business card, what does shoddy design tell people?

I’ll tell you; that this person runs a cottage industry business from their spare bedroom, that’s what. And this despite the fact that some larger companies employing upwards of 50 people also fall into the same category.

If you’re reading this, what you should do next depends on what you are.

1. If you’re a designer, go out and seek businesses like these and try to convince them that their very survival depends on competing with the ‘big boys’ and all their agency-prepared design
2. If you’re an employee of such a company, and it’s YOUR job to create the website/business cards/brochures etcetera, then for gosh sakes up-skill yourself – or convince your boss that you need professional help
3. And if you’re a business owner whose design ‘window on the world’ is letting your company down, engage a designer now. At the very least get some guidance

For professional designers this is a rich source of business, and so it should be. The desktop publishing revolution of the eighties, followed by the internet presence revolution of the nineties, means that a small, one-person business can now compete head-on with a huge corporation. At least they can where first impressions are concerned.

But are they?

Many have failed to grasp the huge boost that technology has given them. All it takes is a professional designer to pave the way.

This is a little off topic, but could be useful. (It’s also quite long, so stick to it…)

There are some occupations that require a great deal of training. Doctors, architects, engineers and space shuttle pilots come immediately to mind. You don’t want to find out, just as you’re being wheeled into the OR for vital heart bypass surgery, that your ‘doctor’ was self-taught from books.

But not all qualifications need to be so formal. If the good folk at Random House are presented with the next great novel, are they going to check up on the author’s tertiary qualifications before publishing? And if they discover that she never went to college and never got a degree, will that prevent them from putting her ground-breaking novel into print?

Or how about the brilliant young star of the latest Coen Brothers movie; will the Academy insist that before they award him with an Oscar, they need to see proof that he attended acting school?

I don’t think so.

The difference between actors and doctors is that with the former, the proof of their abilities is all out there in front of them. You can’t hide from having no talent. But a doctor, on the other hand, spends most of his time wandering around in a white coat, speaking in soothing tones and enunciating Latin phrases. Where’s the proof that he can make accurate diagnoses or cut flesh or disseminate life-saving advice? It’s not until he kills someone with a wrong diagnosis or cuts through an aorta that his employers will want to take another look at his credentials.

Therefore, with doctors at least, before they can gain a position as head surgeon in a big hospital, they must show proof that they did indeed attend university, proof that they completed a residency and proof that they have performed life-altering surgery before.

Whereas all an actor has to do is act. Which is why actors, singers, writers, song-writers, poets and all manner of creative people can sometimes pop up out of the floorboards without any warning.

Of course the operative word here is ‘creative’. For creative people, the proof lies with the results. Do you think if you were going to employ a singer that you’d do so without hearing them sing? What if they attended the best singing school? Had a degree in music appreciation? Would that sway your decision when it’s clearly the case that they can’t make a note to save themselves?

One area not mentioned so far is fine art. Once again let’s go through the process; as a gallery owner, if you were shown a selection of paintings that you knew, absolutely knew, with every bone in your experienced body, would sell for top dollar, would you first ask whether or not the artist went to art school?

What if the artist was a chimpanzee?

Which brings us to the vaguely defined and unnaturally broad area of graphic design.

Design is art - with rules. A fine artist can draw, but not necessarily design. (Some designers can design, but cannot draw!) Many vacancy ads for designers insist on a tertiary qualification. Some might couch it in words like ’suitably qualified’, but most cut to the chase. Yet some of the best designers in the world never attended college or university. How is that?

The answer is long and complicated, but the solution is relatively simple. Creative people are… creative. No degree course can give an uncreative person an injection of creativity. What’s the saying? You can’t polish a turd.

But what a four year degree course will endeavour to do is tease the natural creativity out from within a student and then show the student how to wield it to the best of its potential. In the case of graphic design or visual communication, the training will also instil a few theories and impart some of the rules that must be adhered to - such as punctuation, spelling and other written language devices.

But non-designers can appreciate good design and spot something that was created by an amateur or untrained designer. How can that be?

Design is visual, universal and all-encompassing. Which means it’s a natural occurrence. Teaching design is like teaching parenting skills or music appreciation. We all come to the classroom with a measure of ‘natural talent’, some more than others.

It might help to think of the design environment as learning to drive. You can attend classes and lessons and be taught by an experienced instructor, while learning the road rules from a book and being tested on your knowledge with an exam. You can then pass a driving test on the road and ultimately be awarded with a license to drive. You still, however, must spend a lot of time on the road and gain experience before you’re a competent driver.

OR you can steal the keys to your dad’s Ford, jerk down the road trying to avoid obstacles, stop for red lights because that’s what you’ve observed others do, and generally teach yourself.

After two years of driving, is there any difference between these two drivers?

Of course big-time design at agency level is like a race track with twitchy, seriously powerful cars and narrow, tight corners. But neither of our ‘learners’ will go straight into this environment.

UNLESS they had natural talent in the first place.

You can imagine that natural driving talent, Scott Dixon, who won national karting titles at 13, going straight out onto the race track and winning. It’s possible.

But did that ‘natural talent’ have to go through the driving school? Chances are that this prodigy was one of the ’steal the keys’ types, and has never had a lesson in his life. In fact, lessons from ‘lesser mortals’ can screw up some of a ‘natural’s’ innate abilities.

Four years of design school, for a natural talent, is nothing more than a waste of three-and-a-half years. They can see the design of the world and replicate it with ease. All they need is a few small lessons to prevent them from make some fundamental errors in the beginning.

If we go back to the singer, we wouldn’t employ her without first listening to her sing, but neither would we demand paper credentials from someone with a voice like Dido or Mariah Carey.

I’ve never heard of a graphic designer who has fronted up to an interview, presented a photocopy of their degree and gotten a job WITHOUT presenting some form of portfolio. But I HAVE heard of designers with fabulous portfolios gaining jobs without degrees.

It’s all in the proof. An actor can act, a singer can sing, and a designer can design. If you can present a portfolio of work that you have created yourself, and it is good enough to sway the interviewer, a lack of formal training, or the fact that you dropped out of college to have a baby, or were headhunted by Saatchi & Saatchi before you graduated, shouldn’t  have any bearing.

I say ’shouldn’t', because one or two design companies may hold the lack of a degree against you - for no other reason than pique - but most will be captured by a great portfolio.

The only fly in the ointment is… getting that perfect portfolio without going to college. It’s not easy. But it IS possible.

This isn’t a treatise on avoiding formal training. Far from it. But I have seen too many brilliant talents who have wasted years of their lives on training when a few months of ‘apprenticeship’ to a veteran would have given them the boost they need. I’ve also seen very talented amateur designers told that they have to go to college if they want to ‘make it’, and consequently give up on their dream.

And finally I know of many, many talented people who never went to college, and who are on the precipice of greatness - but who just need a little bit of polishing in order to make the portfolios grand. (And no, they’re not turds!)

So to answer the question posed at the start, no it’s not necessary to have a degree to be a graphic designer. But you had better have a lot of natural talent, and find your necessary training elsewhere. The proof is in the results. The portfolio. And the proof doesn’t lie.

If you liked this theme, there is more in my book; Get a Job in Design, available from 

http://www.graphic-design-jobs.com

In this economic climate of recession and retrenchment, it pays to remember one major fact;

The economic situation affects EVERYONE.

You might be hurting because you’re losing business and new business is hard to find, but you’re not alone. What’s more, if you open your eyes, you may actually be able to take advantage of this climate and improve your position!

How? I hear you ask.

Here’s an example;

The other day I lost a major job. My client-to-be was about to leave his company position and strike out on his own, going into business against his former employers. I was to create a logo for him, complete the branding of his new company, create some brochures and magazine advertisements and then build him a website. That’s great!

Except that he’s shelved his plans and now decided to stay put until the economy improves. Brilliant!

I’ve also had another client decided that this year’s annual report (which is an annual $2000 job for me) will this year be compiled in Word by the receptionist.

Once again… brilliant.

Things could have been getting pretty dire for my small design business… until I picked up a new client.

The job is a national advertising campaign for a major corporation. Their usual agency would have charged them between $10,000 and $15,000 for the total job – I charged them $3500.

You see, everybody hurts, and just because you’re losing business doesn’t mean that the people higher up the food chain aren’t too. If you raise your sights and aim higher, there’s plenty of business out there for the taking.

In this case my low overheads allowed me to offer the same service (98% at least) as my inner city counterparts, but for considerably less drain on the client’s budget. And there’s more where that came from. If you normally target companies with annual turnovers of $300,000 to $2 million, go out and see some larger corporations in the 10 million and over range. It can’t hurt.

The design business is not exclusive in this either; if you sell Nissan 350Z sports cars – target the Porsche buyer.

In other words, raise your sights, and feed your family!

It generally doesn’t take long for the work-from-home creative to become disillusioned by the small space allocated for his/her workstation, the mayhem emanating from the kids when they arrive home from school or the sudden extra attention one receives from the household pets.

It’s about this time that an OFFICE FOR RENT sign appears in the commercial center only a few minutes down the road, and thoughts of leaving behind this bundle of problems for the sanctity of YOUR VERY OWN OFFICE begin to surface.

Just imagine… you can meet and greet clients at your own premises, seat them in a comfy leather couch and offer them real coffee from the Starbucks across the road. You can play your music as loud as you want, without risking waking the baby. You’re not faced with the constant reminder that the lawns need mowing whenever you look out the window.

In short, you can escape the many drawbacks of working from home.

But before you rush off to sign that lease, consider the following;

1. Why did you decide to work for yourself in the first place?
   
2. Why are you at home, rather than in a corporate office? and
   
3. What are the real benefits of working from home?

Let’s look at the first question. Why are you working for yourself? Is it solely so that you can keep all of the profits? Or make all of the decisions and have no one telling you what to do? Or were there other attractions, such as leaving behind the daily commute, or choosing your own hours of work, or even so that you could spend more time with the kids?

Now ask yourself this; do your original motivations gel with moving back into an office? Your decision to work for yourself from home likely had many overlapping benefits which may be compromised by shifting out of that cramped spare bedroom. But only you know this.

The second question asks why you’re not still in a corporate office. Is it because you got sick of office politics? Or do you like the idea that you can work in your pajamas?

And the third question looks at the advantages of working from home. Before you throw all of these away, I suggest you take another look at your original pros and cons of choosing to work from home.

That office will not only cost you in rental, but there’s power and telephone to consider, a separate broadband account, another coffee machine, and the specter of insurance premiums, smoke alarms and all the other paraphernalia that goes with setting up at another location.

Also, what about your computer, printer and other gear? Do you wish to retain the ability to work from home on occasion? Or will you transfer it all to the office? If it’s the former, you will need to duplicate everything, including software licenses (not cheap). But if it’s the latter, you will be forced to travel to a cold office every time you want to work – which includes checking emails, phone messages and re-sending a file that got lost in translation.

Personally, my work hours are not set in concrete. I start at 7.00am and sometimes don’t finish until 11.00pm. But along the way I might have lunch with my wife, go for a run on the beach or take time out to watch a son play sport. Regularly I will return to my office (which is a converted bedroom) for an hour or two before bed just to read emails or finish a project or take down some notes on a blog I’ve formulated while at dinner or lazing in front of the TV. I won’t ‘commute’ to an office to do this.

In the end it’s your choice, but I know many work-from-homers who have succumbed to the lure of an office only to miss being able to work while stuffed up with a cold, or in their tatty tracksuit, or without makeup, and do so in five sessions of 90 minutes rather than a great chunk in the middle of the day.

It’s your choice… but I know which I choose.

As an illustrator and print graphic designer (from a time when there was no ‘web’ version of the profession), my first interest in creating web pages arose when I realized I could slice up a page-sized Photoshop image and carefully place all the slices into the cells of a table.

Alas, with dial-up internet hovering around the slow to incredibly slow mark, such pages were a novelty only, and had no place in the real internet world.

So I spent ten years learning HTML and CSS, and was soon creating fast loading – but graphically anaemic – sites at 640×480 or 800×600 resolutions, forever following the adage that the entire front page, graphics and all, should never exceed 32kb.

But now, with the spread of speedy broadband connections and screens larger than the door on a toaster oven, I see the ‘sliced-up-Photoshop page’ format returning. Not only that, but with a proliferation of ‘PSD to HTML’ services around to take the load off code-wary designers, there’s no longer a need to learn any code whatsoever.

Or is there…?

I liken creating a graphically rich web page in Photoshop and using an online service (or a plugin like SiteGrinder) to convert it to XHTML/CSS, to buying a modern car with the engine bay encased in resin. It’s all very well if everything performs perfectly, and you never have to ‘pop the hood’.

But what if changes have to be made? Or something falls apart?

Have you seen the code for some of these ‘SiteGrinder’ pages? 200 Div Tags with descriptive names like ‘12’ and ‘44’!

I guess it comes down to this; there are quick web page solutions, and there are those with longevity and adjustment. In a way it reminds me of modern computer peripherals. Several years ago I had a colour laser printer. It cost the earth, but whenever it broke down it was fixed. More recently I bought a much cheaper colour laser which had pretty much the same output quality. But when it decided to make a whirr/click/click noise and refused to print on one side of the paper, I was told it’d be cheaper to buy a new printer.

That, I believe, is the issue with cut-and-paste websites. If you have to make a whole bunch of changes, rather than wading through all the CSS and images and div tags, just do it over again.

All programs crash. Today’s applications and operating systems are considerably more stable than their counterparts of a decade ago. But they still crash. Files will also corrupt.

It’s a fact.

These applications are extremely complicated, and the files they create have so many variables that perfection is still a long way off. And it’s not always the fault of the application either. You may have saved the file over a bad sector on your hard disk. There may have been a minor power fluctuation during the save. The moon could be passing Uranus. Anything.

Imagine that you’ve been creating a 40 page catalogue in InDesign for the last two weeks, and are almost ready to output to PDF. But this morning, when you double-click on the file name, you get a message along the lines of;

CANNOT OPEN FILE, or FILE DOES NOT EXIST, or FILE IS CORRUPT.

What do you do?

Well, once you’ve finished screaming and throwing things at the wall, there’s really only a few things you can do.

1. Try opening the file on another computer.
2. Try opening the file on another platform (Mac for PC or vice versa).
3. Go to your last backup and open that file, saying goodbye to the changes you’ve made since that backup.

What? None of the options work and there is no backup? Or the backup is also corrupt? Then I’m sorry, but you’re screwed. The only thing to do is start again. All that work.

Is there any way to prevent this?

Ever since working with Pagemaker 3 in the late ‘80s, I have always saved a procession of files. Pagemaker was prone to becoming the victim of corrupt libraries (the BAD TABLE INDEX message caused many users to lose their hair) or fonts. This is the habit I got into;

I’d work on the file for a day (or whatever) and save it, perhaps as JUMP_SPRING_CAT (short for Jumper Spring Catalogue). The next day, or the next time I open the file to do some more work, I would SAVE-AS JUMP_SPRING_CAT2. By the end of a long job, I might be up to version 12 or 13. Then, when it’s all finished, I’ll call it JUMP_SPRINT_CAT_FINAL or words to that effect.

It might sound like a lot of extra effort, but it’s nothing. A few seconds a day at worst, and some additional storage space. But it’s preferable to having a disaster.

Oh, and I backup my Data files every day. Without question.

The first thing one realizes when becoming a Lone Designer is that you really are… alone. Whether you’ve come out of a corporate environment, or just graduated from college, there comes a single moment in time when you’re sat down hard on your backside and faced with the realization that…

Wow, the buck really stops with me!

No longer do you have a corral of fellow designers or art directors, or that friendly design tutor who always smells of mint, covering your butt. If you don’t know how to do something – you either learn to do it yourself, or you fail.

No question about it.

There’s two types of working people; there are those who can’t stand being without a support network. They have to stay with the herd, surrounded by protective elements such as family, employer, church or community groups. Then there are those who enjoy the challenge and excitement associated with going it alone, and thrive on the sense of achievement that comes with pulling something off that most people wouldn’t attempt.

Chances are that if you’re a Lone Designer, you’re one of the latter variety. Where the ‘safe’ people choose to holiday at big-name hotels, in places like Waikiki or Rome or Las Vegas, you’re buying a one-way ticket to Kathmandu with all your possessions bound up in a single backpack.

It’s people like you who sailed off the edge of the world seeking something no one else had ever seen before. And for that I salute you, for I’m like you. Not for me the cotton-wool smothering of a salary and stable employment. Instead I take my chances with my skills, my cunning and my knowledge. And I’m usually happy to be on my own.

But no matter how independent I am, there will always be times when I wish I had somebody nearby who knows exactly what I’m going through. Even if only to bounce ideas from. The thing is, there’s no shame in this. All great adventurers and explorers went through the same experience; moments of self doubt, periods of melancholy brought about by isolation. Like when you first step off the plane at Kathmandu and ask yourself “what have I done?”

Which is why even the bravest of Lone Designers sometimes needs to reach out and touch somebody. Even if it’s just to ask ‘what do you think of this design?’ or ‘is it worthwhile purchasing this software?’ or ‘how can I convince my husband to give me another six months of this rather than going back to the old firm?’

There are tens of thousands of us in this situation. So even when you wake up one morning and think ‘Oh God, I’m alone!’, you’re not. 

Creative Suite 4 is about to be released. But from what I’m reading of it, I think I’ll stick to CS3 for a while yet. Those lucky enough to have received early BETA releases (alas, not me) have reported a few minor improvements, as you’d expect. But with Adobe’s hefty upgrade bill, it hardly seems worth it.

Which brings a whole new angle to the upgrade/not upgrade argument. When is it advisable to upgrade, and how long is too long to wait.

One of the biggest expenses for any lone designer is software. Creative Suite, although there’s a great saving by buying the bundle, is still not cheap. But unlike spending money on plant or equipment, which can pay for itself over the years, there seems to be a major software upgrade almost annually.

Every time a new version comes out, there are many emotions running through my head, usually tempered with more pragmatic considerations.

For one thing there is the eagerness to find out what’s new. Then there is the urge to be up with the latest innovations. Nobody likes to be saddled with an ‘old model’. Finally there is the feeling – if an upgrade is delayed – that others are enjoying benefits that you, yourself, are missing out on. Or in other words, while you’re still toiling away for half an hour performing a regular function in your software, your opposition can do it in five minutes because… she upgraded!

But the reality is different.

Take Photoshop, for example. The tools that I use daily have all been there for years. Sure, some of the new CS2 and CS3 innovations are handy – such as the Refine Edge tool for selections. But did I miss it back when it wasn’t there? Not really.

Let’s face it, most of us are happy with what he currently use, and when we do upgrade, we continue using the tools we’re used to, and only a fraction of the new stuff that comes in the box.

So why upgrade at all?

For one thing, if you are in the position to receive files from others, there is a credibility danger in having to tell people ‘could you please save-as version such-and-such?’ Then, if like me you’re a trainer or a teacher, you have to be up-to-date, or risk losing clients.

But for most applications, the only real motivation to upgrade is to avoid falling too far behind. Every day I receive emails from people wondering if my tutorial (created in Photoshop CS3) can be completed in Photoshop 7, or some such.

Then there is the job aspect to consider. If you’re happy plodding along with Indesign 3, but then apply for a job at an agency which is right up-to-date, you risk a black mark against you. Sure it’ll only take you a day or two to come up to speed on the new version, but there’s that credibility thing again.

Finally, if you get too far behind, there really is that fear that you’re slower or less effective because (who possess the latest software) have an unfair advantage over you.

So it’s really up to you. My advice would be to wait until a new version is out, and then upgrade to the next-to-latest version. For the past year or so I have seen sealed versions of Creative Suite 2 available on the online auction sites for some hefty savings.

Oh, I’d just like to point out one major gash in the side of the upgrade/not upgrade argument. It’s called InDesign. Unlike Illustrator, you cannot save an InDesign file in an older version, and no version will open a file created in a newer version. There is an EXPORT option called InDesign Interchange. Recently I received a commission to create several InDesign templates for a company. But I was on CS3 and they only had CS2. Worse, as I’d upgraded from 2 to 3 and changed from PC to Mac at the same time, I didn’t have the option of reinstalling the old version (license allowance notwithstanding). So I had to EXPORT these templates for this company – and what a disaster. Only later did I read the Support files and the forums, all of which told of countless problems inherent in the exercise, not the least of which was the total collapse of Paragraph Styles.

The lesson learned? As this company owned several hundred licenses for InDesign and was unwilling to upgrade, it was probably up to me to ensure I maintained a workable older version somewhere.