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Professional artists, designers and illustrators eventually grow weary of the client Xfactor. The Xfactor, a predetermined intellectual quotient formulated by combining capacity, exposure and education, becomes the grease or grunge of client interface. It’s grease if they have the stuff required to communicate what they need and what they want. It’s grunge if it clogs up communication pores and impedes progress. Even sixth graders know about “constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth.” Those are the clients who prefer to play the game, “Can you guess what I’m thinking?” Eventually creatives wonder if civilians are worth the trouble.
Let’s take Joni Mitchell, a good example of an incredibly gifted, well-rounded creative. She paints, she writes, she sings; or at least she did until the bullshit of money infiltrated her dealings with those who sold her creative product. She made an interesting comment about changing her artform of choice: "I believe a total unwillingness to cooperate is what is necessary to be an artist—not for perverse reasons, but to protect your vision. The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music. That's why I spend my time now painting. When money meets up with art, there is a lot of pain, and it's the pain of ignorance, and I don't want to meet up with that ignorance again." (Los Angeles Times, September 5, 2004) Douglas Eby is my source for that wonderful quote--he's got a site that celebrates creativity so we shouldn't count him as a civilian.
Hold'em, like life itself, has its defining moment. It's the flop. When you see the flop, you're looking at 71 percent of your hand, and the cost is only a single round of betting.
Lou Krieger
"Boy, have I got an awesome opportunity for you! My band needs a logo and we're inviting you to submit designs for consideration. If your design is chosen, there will be more work than you'll know what to do with. If you come up with the idea we're looking for, your work will be used on all our products, you'll get a free t-shirt and if you think you need it, a CD of our unknown band." How can this offer get any worse? An experience designer would hear the spiel differently: We don't want to spend any money because we might flop, so we're looking for some sucker to do this stuff for free. It's our money, but only time for you. In fact, we heard graphic designers are all suckers, so we're throwing out a net to catch a few to work for free. If we like what you do for free, we'll give you more work to do for free. If you realize we're taking advantage of you, we'll throw you a free t-shirt. If things get ugly, we might have to give you a CD. But, hey, it'll be fun.
