Tag: graphic design

A little bit longer in the making than I had hoped, but better late than never.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The following post was originally written on March 5, 2010. I told myself that I would not post this until I effectively gained full-time employment. The fact you’re reading it now means only one thing, which is excellent news: I now have a full-time job. The company in which I have been freelancing for over the prior eight months finally decided that paying contract rates for me was getting old, and that it was indeed fiscally more cost-effective to pay me 70% of they paid my creative agency instead.

It’s been a long, long time coming, but I am extremely pleased to be back on the path of stable employment. And with that, I present to you my swan song to the freelance life.

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PSA: Microsoft Word is not graphic design software

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WORD IS NOT GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE.

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So you want to be a graphic designer 101

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Where’d you go to school?  Savannah?  Parsons?  Ringling?  The Art Institutes of Blank?  Awesome, that’s a great start.  I assume you have mastery of one or several Adobe programs?  Excellent, that’s good to know.

Well guess what?  None of that means absolutely shit when you’re in the REAL working world, because 90% of the jobs you’ll be doing on a regular basis in working America will involve you primarily working with Microsoft Office products!  The holy grail of computer software, that can do absolutely nothing everything for absolutely nobody everyone!!!!!!!

Adobe InDesign may have trounced Quark as the standard within the Creative class when it comes to layout and publishing, but in the Corporate class, InDesign isn’t even worthy enough to take the soiled tissues that the almighty POWERPOINT uses to wipe its ass, and drop it into the toilet for it.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s the sad and unfortunate truth.  PowerPoint is the crown jewel of software greatness, as it’s WAY “easier” than Flash at embedding/playing video files, and so MUCH more “efficient” when it comes to creating forms and performing layout tasks!!

Adobe Photoshop may be an efficient tool amongst you nerds for making your memes and cheezeburgers, editing pictures of cats and putting esoteric jokes on top of existing graphics, but when it comes to true graphic design excellence, look no further than MICROSOFT WORD as the gold standard when it comes to getting shit done.  It only takes a genius level intellect to realize that none of the functions are decipherable without the assistance of Google to look up how the most logical of ideas are executed.  Word does everything.  Photoshop can only crank out lame jokes, while Word CAN WRITE.  Not only can it write, it comes with a library of pre-existing CLIP ART which are fail-proof when it comes to accentuating points and messages.  And you can drag and drop graphics from the internet RIGHT INTO Word, without needing to concern yourself about copyrights and photographic rights!

It’s cute that you guys went to art school or have a wealth of experience when it comes to using “design pro-grams,” but let’s get real, you guys.  If you want to make it in the real world, you got to be able to use the almighty Microsoft products in order to get there.

The masochistic art of the public decline

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The other day, I got an Evite from my agency, inviting the talent pool out to a local eatery for an appreciation happy hour.  Personally, I like these things, because it’s a good way to network with my fellow designers, as well as the occasional former client, who may or may not inquire about my working status, and make nice-nice with the agents that it does me good to be on their good side, and the hopeful off-chance that there will be some attractive like-minded snarky design nerd girl that I can shamelessly flirt with.

Looking at the Evite, which was obviously sent to well over 100 people, the ratio of yes/maybe/no was easily 30/40/30%.  The yes responses are fairly simple, people exclaiming their looking forward to the event, if anything at all.  The maybe responses are a little more snooty, with people obviously being non-committal to the event as a whole, and probably seeing it as a third-option, in the event that nothing better comes along to consume two pre-dinner hours of the afternoon.  But it’s the no responses that I find the greatest amount of amusement in.  Whereas a lot of people are pretty short and to the point when saying yes or maybe, when it comes to saying no, all these designers, grunt workers and other snobs really need to let everyone else know why they can’t make it to this pedestrian, plebeian happy hour.

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Fonts aren’t supposed to be sexy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For whatever reason, my work machine did not have Helvetica installed on it, I recently learned.  No big deal; all the fonts are housed on one of the many servers that this company uses, so I go to said folder labeled “Fonts,” only to discover that there are about 16 sub-folders, of equally ubiquitous titles.  While perusing through one of these folders, I scrolled past this file.  No, your eyes do not deceive you.

If this were a link to a website, I would most certainly have steered clear from examining this file.  But since whatever this is, is claiming to be a TrueType font, I couldn’t help but examine what the preview was going to generate.

Now I’m too lazy to go back and take a print-screen of the preview page, but I can assure you that it is indeed a typeface, albeit one nobody in their right mind would probably use.  Even sex sites and porn shops would have a hard time using such a typeface because as amusing as it is, aesthetically, it’s a pretty shitty font.  Google it yourself, if you’re curious.

You’ll never un-see it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m one of those guys who will often use his own vernacular around people, with the expectations that they should understand it.  A part of me derives pleasure from the random reactions I get from people, after I have to explain my choice of words to them, and it’s even better when they begin to integrate it into their own vocabulary for future use.  Such is one of those instances.

  • Barry Bonds’ home run record will always have a butthole next to it.
  • That’s not the final price, see the butthole next to the MSRP?
  • No, you don’t use the X key for multiplication, you use the butthole key.

If you haven’t gotten it yet, buttholes are a euphemism for asterisks, since in a twisted kind of way, they kind of look like them.  Starfish, pinwheels, or whatever.  I call them buttholes.  Look no further than the crown jewel of guerrilla marketing at its best.

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Dear world

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

PowerPoint is not graphic design software, never has, and never will be. If you wish for me to work on PowerPoint for your companies, I will do such since I am a slave to the rat race, but know that making me do such, I will harbor legitimate hatred for you and your company. Fuck PowerPoint and fuck you too.