In-House in the House!

A while ago I looked for articles, blogs...anything, about being an in-house designer. I found very little. While there are probably a lot more in-house designers than those working for an agency or firm, you rarely hear anything about them.

My college education had a strong lean toward agency work. There was an assumption that we would all go work for agencies where we would be able to bring our dog to work, and yet fur would never mar the polished concrete floors of our pristine workspace. We'd wear black rimmed glasses and jam out to our favorite song while working on a new line of tea packaging. It was always something cool like packaging for wine or beer, not packaging for screw drivers or adhesive tape. And yes, at this agency, the sky was the limit. If you wanted a wine bottle that was pointed on the bottom and had to come with its own hand-carved wooden stand, hell yes there was enough money in the budget to develop that.

Crazy fantasies aside, I've found something similar. One catch. I don't work for an agency. I work as part of an in-house team for a financial institution. I haven't had a chance to work my wine bottle designs into it yet, but I have been able to develop several things from the ground up. Some silly sketches of weird looking characters have been turned into a childrens' site. A kiosk that will hopefully be spread state-wide bears the name and logo that I created.

I think there are some obvious overlaps among freelance, agency, and in-house designers. I say, "I think" since I've never done two of those things. Sure there were a couple failed experiments into the world of freelance. But not enough to qualify me as a freelance designer. More like an eager kid who thought she could do design after her 9-5 job.

It may be that there is no need to make a distinction among the different types of graphic designers. I just don't know since I've never heard or read anything saying otherwise.

I'm not sure if designers working at an agency get little random requests from coworkers, like I do. Probably. It's the nature of our work. We make stuff. A freelance designer, if working at home, can likely avoid that.

For designers, there is an assumption that what we do is fast, and perhaps easy. I know I certainly don't go up to my non-design coworkers and ask them to start a little program or coordinate a few people for one of my pet projects that is due in a couple of days. It's laughable, and yet I get these requests all of the time. Sometimes these projects are a lot of fun. Even when they are, most times I can't justify dropping my other projects for a few hours to work on them.

This is just another day in the life of an in-house designer.

A Comment on Conan

I'm so glad I got to see Conan in New York before he moved to California. I'm still not sure how I feel about this change. Will the show lose its edge?

Update To My Disappointment

Back in September I wrote about how I entered a design contest, got in and had my work credited to a coworker in the show's printed catalog. This morning a new catalog was sitting on my desk. They had reprinted it with the corrections.

This is cool. Although not so cool is how no one actually replied to me or my coworker's emails. And also how they sent the new catalog to my coworker and not to me.

It is little comfort three months after the fact. But it was a pleasant surprise, nonetheless.

Chancery Must Be Changed

I have just discovered a subconscious dislike for a typeface.

This is different than my distaste for Comic Sans, Curlz MT, Times New and Papyrus. I am fairly certain those typefaces are available and activated on my computer, but I'm not sure since I've never used any of them. Times New is pretty neutral and inoffensive. Though it's a little bulky and boring for design work. Papyrus seems to be a popular one for packaging of "spa" items like candles, lotions and whole wheat pasta. I can't even count how many times I've seen Curlz used for tweenaged items. It tends to be used as a logo for stores with names like "Schmoopies" and "Whirl-a-Girl". It's highly decorative and curly and cute, I give it that. I just don't see myself using it. And Comic Sans. I'm sure it was revolutionary when it was designed. It's sans serif but still round and soft. But I really can't get past it's background. In my experience, Comic Sans is a favorite of school teachers making signs. It just looks goofy. I can't take it seriously.

But the latest typeface I've realized is on my computer is Apple Chancery and I loathe it. It's really not fair to say I loathe it. But I do know that when I see it used, or Zapf Chancery for that matter, my brain responds like a robot. It's automatic. A little alarm goes off, "Typeface bad. Unprofessional. Must be changed. Change to anything else. Anything. Anything."

This happened a few weeks ago when I was at work and acquired a file from a sister organization. I was tasked with adjusting the design and changing phrasing so it applied to our company. Right on the front of the design was the friendly phrase, "A gift for you" set in a typeface that I couldn't put my finger on when I saw the printed piece. I thought it was going to be Lucida Calligraphy. All I knew is that the design could be vastly improved if that typeface were changed. I opened the file and saw it was Apple Chancery. I don't kow why, but I was somewhat incredulous. I couldn't even believe that someone would seriously use this font for real professional design.

Maybe it's because Chancery looks so much like the caligraphy that I learned in second grade. Maybe it's because, in my head, Chancery looks like one of the first fonts ever designed for a computer. I envision it being used on one of those old tiny black and white Machintosh all-in-ones, about the same time April Greiman was making that poster of herself. Even if Apple Chancery is a spot on replica of an olde time handlettering, it looks cheap to me.

You can't blame the font of course. It's been villified in my head because of how people use it. People see this font on their computer and it's kind of fancy, but not too fancy. You know, it's scripty but easy to read.

In an article I recently read about an ad campaign, someone commented that Zapf Chancery is better reserved for Kinkos wedding invitations. I think that summarizes it perfectly.