Being imperfect is part of being human. Even though an idea or a concept may be flawless, but its execution will always be full of mistakes. Similar is the case with graphic designers, who strive for perfection but seldom achieve it in their endeavors. But the truth is…if you don’t make mistakes, how are you going to gain experience? In the words of Oscar Wilde:

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.”

Particularly when you start as a newbie designer, the horrors of graphic design are uncountable. But as you progress in the field and experience the practical side, you learn from your mistakes. Here’s a look at some common mistakes that designers tend to make:

1. Deviate from Target:

You must have come across a website that is extremely attractive in appearance and look, but fails to highlight the product or service in focus. No matter how fantastic the appearance is, it will deviate from the point if it does not accurately emphasize the entity. Even in identity development, there are some logo designs that look outstanding from the outside, but fail to hit the target audience because of lack of substance. Consider the example of the identity below which was designed for Burnley City. At first instance, you might be amazed at the vividness of this logo, but with no particular meaning within, it deviates from the core purpose.

2. Creative Overdose:

"Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction." These were the words of the great philosopher Plato on the use of excess in everything. You must also have come across various designs and artworks that are flamboyant and creative, but just aren’t effective. This is because excess of everything creates a mess. Similar is the case with creativity. Sometimes, graphic designers make a mistake of indulging in creative overdose. In the process of showing off, they end up adding too many elements and spoil the beauty of the design. Even though you explained the core purpose of the design, it creates confusion and irritates the audience.

3. Working for Self Interest:

If you think that work should look good in your portfolio rather than for the client, it is time to re-think. These types of selfish designers seldom make an impact on their clients and don’t last in the long-run. When you design just for the sake of building your portfolio, you fail to fulfill the client brief in the right way. You must not sacrifice the success of client’s business just for the reason that your graphic design portfolio should look impressive.

4. Over-reliance on Inspiration:

In most graphic design endeavors, designers frequently seek inspiration to come up with concepts. This can be accomplished through various online resources, design books or discussions with others in the creative circle. Sometimes, designers are exposed to so many elements that it generates a bundle of dissimilar contradictory concepts. This happens when you rely overly on inspirational sources to generate concepts rather than use your own creative instincts. It also dampens your originality and ability to work independently.

5. Gaining Negative Publicity:

The job of a graphic designer is to perceive the facts of their clients and convert it into a meaningful visual representation. This can be accomplished when you accurately follow the design brief provided by the client. One of the biggest horrors for a graphic designer is to gain negative publicity for his work. Take into consideration the London 2012 Olympics Logo. Designed by Wolff Olins, this logo caught the attention of the world for all the wrong reasons. Because of its inappropriate references to several taboo subjects, it was highly criticized on the blogosphere.

No profession in the world is devoid of risks and fears of failure. You must be ready to face the shocks and setbacks that come in your way. Instead of crying over spilled milk, you should take lessons from your mistakes and prepare for future challenges.

Being a professional in the realm of graphic design, designers often tend to become egotistic and overconfident. Sometimes we become so selfish, we tend to forget who we are designing for. Designing for passion is a good sign but you cannot overlook the fact that clients are the real people you are designing for.

Being overly selfish in graphic designing can prove to be fatal since you are not in the business to satisfy yourself. On the other hand, being overly selfless can make you reliant on the client and keep you away from success. In order to be professional graphic designers, one must be impartial and objective in making all the decisions for a project. You must free yourself from any negative influences that might adversely affect your productivity as a designer.

Today, I think it will be interesting if we list the differences between a designer who works for self-satisfaction and a designer who works for client satisfaction.

Traits of a Selfish Designer:

In order to identify a selfish designer, below are some of their common traits and their way of thinking. If you hear the following statements from your designer, you can rest assure that he is self-centered and egotistic.

• “My previous design was a hit, so I’ll re-create it for you”

Some designers have a knack of bragging about their previous creations.  Without considering client needs, they would ‘recommend’ that since their earlier design was a sensation, he would re-create a similar one for the client with minor tweaks. This is a clear sign of a designer who just wants to please himself by repeating his earlier success.

• “I must create an award-winning design”

Some types of graphic designers work with the intention of winning awards rather than satisfying the clients. These designers, in the process of creating award-winning designer, undervalue the client’s perspective completely. Their soul concern is to create something that the design critiques will like instead of pleasing their clients.

• “I know precisely what the client wants”

The worst mistake graphic designers make is presume that they know everything. Especially when it comes to client requirements, one must never presuppose what the client wants. Just because you successfully gauged the needs of your previous client, you cannot measure every client with the same scale. Each client has different set of requirements that must be addressed.

• “The design should be cool”

For a client, the logo must be effective in drawing customer attention. If a designer that the design should be cool and decorative in appearance, it means he/she isn’t considering the client’s business identity. Selfish designers generally want to look cool in front of their peers and thus pursue a flash and showy design. But for clients, a cool design is one that is effective.

Traits of a Selfless Designer:

Having discussed the attributes of a selfish designer, let us take a look at how clients can distinguish a selfless designer.

• “I need your opinion on this one”

For a designer who works for the client rather than for self-satisfaction, obtaining opinion from client is imperative. A selfless designer would place the client’s requirements before his own opinions and creative thoughts. He would pay heed to their each and every detail and try to adjust their way of designing according to those perquisites.

• “I must satisfy the client”

For a selfless designer, winning awards is secondary to pleasing their clients. Unlike selfish designers, who work just to please the award critiques and win laurels, selfless designers’ main purpose is to satisfy the client by fulfilling the requirements. For me, pleasing the clients is an award in itself.

• “The design must be effective”

As discussed earlier, selfish designers focus on creating designs that are visibly attractive and ‘cool in appearance’. But for designers who work for clients rather than their own pride, their focus in on making effective designs rather than ornamental ones that will influence the target audience.

Graphic designing is not just about using design skills and aesthetics. In order to succeed as professional graphic designers, you must also possess business sense and interpersonal skills to deal with clients. Those designers who are devoid of these skills are usually bullied around by clients. Being in the professional world, you cannot afford to be a pushover.

Most of us generally assume clients to be harmless and unknowledgeable people who can cause no trouble for graphic designers. But there are some bad client types that have the ability to take undue advantage of graphic designers who are vulnerable to client trickery. Hence, you must be aware of how to avoid being ripped off by shrewd clients.

Here are some common ways that clients try to dupe designers into going the extra mile. Also explained are the ways to avoid them.

1. Asks for Excessive Revisions:

Some clients use a shrewd approach to take designers for a ride. After having completed the final work, they will ask you to “Make Slight Adjustments”. Design revisions are acceptable to a certain extent, but when these requests keep piling up, you can be sure that you’re being ripped off your time and energy. The time that you could have spent in making money elsewhere is exhausted by the client who takes you for granted.

2. Demands Outright Plagiarism:

Copying someone else’s work is one thing, but to be forced by a client to implement an exactly similar design is downright wrong. Some would find it hard to believe, but I have myself encountered some clients who provide a sample design (mostly a famous one) and demand that I imitate it with slight modifications. Believe it or not, this happens and if you don’t stand up against this, you might end up creating a copied design that will eventually stain your graphic design portfolio.

3. Stipulates Unreasonable Deadline:

Another shrewd technique employed by clients is to give unreasonable deadlines to designers. Their trick here is that they will pay for a day’s worth and get work done for a month’s worth. Some designers who are subdued comply with this unreasonable demand and end up messing up their work. You simply cannot let the designer set an unrealistic and unfeasible cut-off date for the project.

4. Reluctant to Pay:

Some swindling clients tend to delay the payments with lame excuses. This happens mostly with newbie graphic designers who are desperate on earning from a design project. These clients take undue advantage of the designers who are pushovers and eventually end up absconding away with the design work without paying a cent.

5. Unwarranted Threats:

Blackmailing is one of the most despicable and contemptible acts by a client. When a dispute or serious issue arrives and it is the client’s fault, he will resort to hurling unwarranted threats at graphic designers. They would also threaten to take legal actions and demand that whatever they say be done. Those designers who are not aware of how to do business dealings bow down in front of these scheming clients.

Tip: How to Avoid Being Ripped Off by Clients

Some designers have a soft corner for clients and just cannot refuse the endless revisions. Others are simply inexperienced with the trade of business dealings and legal documentations. In order to save designers from being taken for a ride by these deceiving clients, a simple solution is to lay the ground rules before taking on a graphic design project. Sign a contract that stipulates the design brief, time, budget and number of revisions on the project. This will spare you time and energy trying to refuse the client for undue revisions. Moreover, it will also protect you from any legal complications with the clients.

Minimalism in graphic design is a creative and highly innovative art form. The best designs are ones that convey optimum message through minimum design elements. This is because most of the viewers have limited power of understanding the information revealed to them. Hence, this task of saying more with less proves the creativity and aptitude of a graphic designer.

However, the issue with the concept of minimalist design trend is that, if not used correctly, can leave ambiguity and vagueness in the minds of audience. It should not be used as a method of saving time and procrastination. Rather, it should be applied by graphic designers to add clarity and clearness to a project. My today’s collection accurately reflects the notion of minimalism through creative minimalist movie posters. These funny but precisely designed posters explain the entire plot of blockbuster movies using only one or two relevant elements.

For those of you who have heard of these blockbuster movies will interpret these minimalist posters instantly. Regardless, you are going to enjoy these 25 funny and creative movie posters:

1. The Karate Kid

2. Alice in Wonderland

3. Star Wars

4. Batman Begins

5. The Godfather

6. Titanic

7. The Butterfly Effect

8. The Dark Knight

9. Jaws

10. Iron Man

11. Two Days in Paris

12. Paranormal Activity

13. Up

14. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

15. The Shawshank Redemption

16. Pretty Woman

17. Lord Of The Rings – The Two Towers

18. The Terminator

19. Slumdog Millionaire

20. Snow White

21. MONSTERS Inc.

22. Invisible man

23. The Usual Suspects

24. Silent Hill

25. How to Train Your Dragon

The first thing that pops up in graphic designers mind, when they get a project is how to get started? Should they start searching the internet for ideas or grabbing a paper and pencil will be a better way to kick off? Should he solely rely on inspiration to start with a graphic design project or should he work hard from scratch to conceive an original idea?

Based on the process of accomplishing a graphic design project, there are three major types of graphic designers. The first are the ‘Lazy Workers’ who directly scavenge the web for ‘inspiration’ and try to pass off the work as ‘original’. The other type is the ‘Hard Workers’ who toil and sweat to drain out original ideas from their brain. The last type of designers is what I would like to call the “Smart Workers” who combine the effects of both inspiration and hard work. Which type of graphic designer should you avoid being?

But before you reach to a conclusion, let us analyze the dual outcomes of both aspects… ‘inspiration’ and ‘hard work’.

• Outcomes of Inspiration in Graphic Design:

Each day, more and more sites are evolving that provide access to graphic design inspiration. No doubt, these sites provide graphic designers a lot of help to get their creative juices flowing, but they also pose some disadvantages. Following are the positive and negative effects of inspiration on graphic design.

1. Saves Time and Effort:

For those graphic designers who are looking for a quick guidance for their graphic design project, inspiration is a wonderful tool to save time and efforts. Although it is not prudent to rely solely on inspiration, nonetheless it does save your time on brainstorming and conjuring up logo design ideas. For those designers who like to procrastinate or run short of time, it is a shrewd way of getting the job done.

2. Limits Creative Power:

As said earlier, inspiration has its advantages but also yields some drawbacks too. When you become overly reliant of ‘inspirational sites’ to give you design ideas, your creative and thinking power becomes restricted. For any graphic designer, it is not a good sign and also limits your ability to grow as a designer.

3. Higher Chances of Plagiarism:

On the downside, using inspiration can cause serious issues of copyright and plagiarism. Since you are just amending some aspects of an already existing design, there are chances that your design will look similar. One of the biggest personality types of graphic designer is uniqueness. This cannot be achieved by solely using inspirational material.

4. Learn About New Trends:

Regardless of the fact that inspiration limits your creative thinking, it gives you a lot to learn as well. Since thousands of creative designers upload their design concepts and ideas on inspirational platforms, it gives you a diverse spectrum of graphic and logo design trends to learn.

5. Causes Distraction:

The thing about using internet for ideas is that it causes a significant distraction. Considering the myriad blogs and websites that offer design inspiration have chains of ‘related stuff’ on each page, graphic designers are bound to keep on clicking one after the other. Moreover, the social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook will always be a constant waste of time.

• Outcomes of Hard Work in Graphic Design:

Having discussed the dual effects of inspiration, let us now turn our focus to the other side of the story. Those designers who work hard using their brain to generate a concept from scratch also reap various benefits. But there are a few drawbacks to this as well. Following are the dual outcomes of only using your head in graphic design:

1. Generate Unique Ideas:

Firstly, when you don’t take aid from any source, you are bound to generate ideas that are unique, fresh and distinctive. The concept that you create using your head will be something that hasn’t been done before.

2. Boundless Creativity:

As I highlighted earlier, inspiration bounds your ability to think as a graphic designer. Hence, by working solely on the basis of your own intellect you can employ boundless creativity and ingenuity. Since your thinking is not limited to the designs you search on the net, you will have freedom over your creative though process. You can brainstorm for novel and fresh ideas, which is an important stage of developing a creative design idea.

3. Sense of Pride:

4. Create Your Own Trend:

Design inspiration is all about following already existing trends and movements in graphic design. But when you use your intellect and brain power, you create an entirely new trend. Instead of being a trend-follower, you will become a trend-setter.

5. Requires Relatively More Time:

On the downside, relying solely on your intellect is relatively more time taking. Since these types of designers follow a comprehensive process, it involves more time that the designers who directly take inspiration from various sites and finish off the project.

Until few years back, the design community was not very vast and offered limited options. But soon after the advent of crowdsourcing, the field of graphic design has literally burst with endless alternatives for business owners and grphic/logo designers. With companies turning their attention to design contests, several crowdsourcing sites have come into existence.
Not everyone has the mettle to withstand the challenges of the design world. However, MycroBurst has once again proven its dominance in the crowdsourcing field by successfully achieving the landmark of 400 active projects. From a client’s perspective, it shows the growing confidence of customers which they have on the services provided by MycroBurst. From a designer perspective, it is a great opportunity to cash in more than $120,000 worth of prize money.

• MycroBurst Reaches New Heights:

I recently blogged about the Obama campaign t-shirt design contest held on MycroBurst. This clearly showed the budding popularity of this fast-emerging site in the design community.

• An Imminent Leader in Crowdsourcing:

Considering that all giant crowdsourcing sites have been in the business for a long time, MycroBurst has achieved so much in less time. It is a clear sign that the rankings of the crowdsourcing world are bound to change once again anytime soon. The entire team of GDB congratulates MycroBurst on their splendid success.