Typophile - Design for yourself... - Comments

It’s my first post here on

presentday — Sun, 4 May 2008 15:08:24 -0700

It’s my first post here on Typophile so hello to everyone.

I’m really glad I stumbled upon this topic cause I’ve been thinking and discussing it a lot with my friends lately. I have rather web-design background so some of the stuff I’ll say may seem irrelevant to some of you. I’ve been struggling to come up with a good logotype and portfolio design for a few months now. I finally made it—at least I hope so—but the whole process was a pain in the neck. Here is what I realized:

Have a clear idea of what you’re design should be like
It may be so obvious, but many people find themselves acting to make a design not having even a slightly organized thoughts on it.. I see a lot of guys launching their design tools and trying to come up with some cool instant prototypes. Seeking inspiration is crucial here.

Make no deadlines
Of course, you have to have a deadline when delivering a project, but if you can afford to wait—do so, don’t rush it. Bad, fast decisions can cost you a lot.

Stick to the idea, but starting from scratch isn’t always that bad
Initially I wanted to design myself a nice graphic/web-design portfolio with some extensive usage of Helvetica, somehow I ended up having a vintage-like design full of sans-serif typefaces. I’m glad I changed my mind in the middle of the designing process cause I’m pretty much satisfied with the result, but abandoning work on half-finished project is not what everyone can do.

It’s awful unless you really think it’s beautiful
If your not satisfied with a button or a small element of the whole you may want to work on it but if you’re having second thoughts on the whole design line you should consider changing it. That’s what I did with the Helvetica-based theme.

I hope you’ll find some of these useful if not obvious.

Kind regards,

Piotr

@Ricardo & mili: same in

rubenDmarkes — Sat, 3 May 2008 16:16:40 -0700

@Ricardo & mili: same in portuguese! We say “em casa de ferreiro, espeto de pau”, which means “at a blacksmith’s house, the spit is wooden”, but since it’s understood, we end up just saying the first part, “em casa de ferreiro…”. That’s pretty interesting! Though probably it shouldn’t be that amazing; it would probably be really amazing if we found something similar in an asian or african culture.

Anyways, yes, definitely, totally, designing for ourselves is tough. I have no suggestions and I like – and have tried – some of these, but they’re really hard to follow. As a designer, we kind of have the totally unrealistic job of summarizing entire personalities into one little piece. We rarely fully achieve that, but we still keep on doing it.
It’s a lot easier when it’s all about someone else, as it is a lot easier to give advice to others than to make decisions about our own lives. It’s a bit about perspective. It’s also about us not wanting to oversimplify ourselves and our lives – as someone already mentioned –, since we, human beings, like to think of ourselves as quite complex, and that’s really a good thing. I think that we should probably try working for ourselves much more often, and I think that the day you fully understand yourself, your own thoughts and ideas, your personality, what you think matters, what you really want… that day you become a MUCH better designer and, more importantly, a much better YOU (in a sense that you’ll probably become much more yourself than ever). Which I think is also rare. :P
I think that’s the ultimate challenge. This is actually an internal fight between the person we truly are and the person we would like to be and/or the person we would like others to think we are. It’s really us trying to choose what’s more important: appearances or true essence. And that’s probably the only time we realize that, when we do stuff for other people, we are, in fact, putting this dilemma aside in exchange for money.

So, heck! This should be hard! No suggestions for you! :P

ruD

Thanks for your thoughts

Eric_West — Thu, 1 May 2008 07:52:16 -0700

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. Magnus, those business cards are hot.
Christian, my target audience could be someone from any industry that utilizes designers.

I’ve recently started some sketches of something that may have potential, so maybe I’ll post when I have something substantial to show...

Who is your target audience?

Christian Robertson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:55:03 -0700

Who is your target audience? You are not designing for yourself, you are designing for them.

Same here. I agree totally

missgiggles — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:35:33 -0700

Same here. I agree totally or even more so. You know you HAVE to get it right for the client but for yourself...well...you could be happy with as much or as little work you do for yourself as you aren’t doing it for others. You could be easily satisfied haha. OI changed things over night. I’m in my bed, about to go to sleep and i’ll have another idea. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to go to the loo and i’ll have a better idea just sitting on the loo. Haha. Even funnier! That’s the time when I’m ACTUALLY really thinking straight. How weird and wonderful.

I agree. There has to be a

Rez Oo — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:15:43 -0700

I agree. There has to be a cut off point when working with projects for yourself. Where you have to say ’it’ll do!’. Otherwise you end up working with your name set in the finest characters, or so you think at the time, and move it about for an hour to find the place where you think it works, only to want to move it a week later...

_____________________________________________
Rez

Ya, I think everyone has

picard102 — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:34:51 -0700

Ya, I think everyone has this problem. I recently did myself a new logo and website and a week latter I was ready to change it. Never mind that I’m still in the process of adding my work into the new site.
It’s hard to be objective even when I set my own brief. Add to that my usual neurotic perspective while working on client work and it’s a bit silly. So I just do myself “good enough” and call it a day.

When designing for oneself.

Luey franco — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:24:33 -0700

When designing for oneself. . .

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler”
Albert Einstein 1879 - 1955

If only it was that simple!

I had a client that grew up

jupiterboy — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:20:51 -0700

I had a client that grew up under me and really dominated my time. That went on for many years (like eight!) and nothing I did for them really was interesting—blah, blah, blah. When it came time to do cards and web and all the pieces associated I did some illustration just to inject a bit of myself and add some flavor to the whole thing. It was my attempt to say, yes I’ve helped these clients achieve what they wanted, but I am capable to doing something more interesting as well.

I’ve always avoided having a signature look or style because I thought it would be in and then go away. I also see so much same. Now I really question that. Who knows? Looks like I’m about to move so I’ll have a chance to rethink everything again.

I am redesigning my business

kidcranium — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:12:39 -0700

I am redesigning my business cards now. I had an idea where I will show a bit of my work on each card, a total of 5 or 6. The reason is that I have had some nice clients (well known) and some less known but I was able to be more creative. I am weighing up whether to do a unique card with graphics, or show my past work. The reason is that I illustrate as well as design, so I have some collage work, vector cartoons, and fashion illustrations. I also caption each side with small sized type to say who the client is and which country the project is from...

What is your view on this?

I like designing for myself

magnus_rakeng — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:16:13 -0700

I like designing for myself but I agree that it’s a challenge. Being your own client means that you have no one to blame if the result is not as good as you want it to be. A few times I have designed the logo and the corporate identity for the design studio where I have been employed. It’s a good opportunity to push yourself forward and to show your clients how great a designer you are, but at the same time it’s a place you really don’t want to do something mediocre. For a graphic designer the business card has a quite unique marketing value. A space where you can and should show what you can do. That is probably why so many designers think it’s difficult and a bit scary.
Here is the logo and the business card I did for Melkeveien where i work today.

Design is always easier when

The Don Killuminati — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:15:09 -0700

Design is always easier when you know who you’re talking to. So imagine a scenario whereby Prospective Client A says to Delegating Authority B, “I think I’ve found a designer.” Delegating Authority B is going to say, “Oh really? Who?” Design all of your own materials to impress Delegating Authority B.
Or, said another way, every prospective client has somebody they want/need to impress; when you are designing your own identity that somebody is your real target audience.
And knowing that you are addressing a fictitious, harried, socially higher-ranking third party who is responsible for the decisions and actions of subordinates and who’s daily function is to stand as a symbol of their own skills in coordinating the work of others should make things a whole lot easier.

Yes, Mike, I thought there

dezcom — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:29:31 -0700

Yes, Mike, I thought there was an echo in here :-)

ChrisL

Another secret is to do

Mike Jarboe — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:58:50 -0700

Another secret is to do duplicate posts when replying to threads.

I’ve found you have to

Mike Jarboe — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:32:23 -0700

I’ve found you have to work twice as hard if not more, with twice the timeframe. It helps to step away from your work and give yourself distance and time for reflection, more so than with typical client work. It does help to give yourself the same style of brief a client would give yourself and treat the process similarly. Clear objectives, a list of key attributes to define, an outline and some level of constraints are important to consider as well. (Although it’s easy to abandon any structure when it’s your own work/project)

Design for yourself...

Eric_West — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:12:13 -0700

Hi all.

Been away a while. I have the hardest time designing for myself. Does anyone else have that problem? I’ll like it, for like 2 seconds, and it’s gone. The creative juices flow when I’m working on project for other people, just not myself, to show my work (ie a portfolio site showcasing my work).

What’s your secrets? Fellow designers...