What We Hate About Design

It’s great being a freelance designer. Working in a creative environment, being your own boss, getting paid for putting your imagination into practice. A dream job, right? I do love my job, but it’s still a job, and that means there’s still parts of it that drive me crazy. I’m sure I’m not the only one, and I took a few moments to email some of my favorite designers and bloggers with a simple question – what do you hate about design?

It was good to see that the same frustrations I come across when I’m working seem to be widely shared; the annoying waiting and delays, clients who seem to want mediocrity over flair, problems with payment. Not that I’d really change a thing about my profession, but it shows that even in a great creative job it’s not all rosy.

Sneh Roy

www.littleboxofideas.com | @LBOI

Sneh Roy is a designer and developer who runs the awesomely colorful and creative Little Box Of Ideas. Oh, and promotes some mouth watering recipes at Gel’s Kitchen Blog. I love the life and vibrancy in her designs, how she can combine elements to create really bold and memorable work.

I really enjoy all aspects of design right from the early planning, conceptual phase to the eventual implementation and then tweaking, adjusting and fixing. But there is one part of design that makes me very impatient and I wish I didn’t have to do. And that is waiting. When I am designing for myself, that problem is no issue at all. When I am designing for clients, sometimes I have to wait a few days before I get feedback [which I totally understand, because everyone has their own time constraints]. I wish though I didn’t have to do that because it breaks my rhythm and creative process. When the waiting is over, I have to actually take a few steps back to get into the same frame of mind and workflow. Often, while I am waiting for feedback on designs, I am also tempted to meddle with them and change them, which I cannot do obviously because I still have to hear from my client. So yeah, waiting is what makes me really impatient.

Danny Outlaw

www.outlawdesignblog.com | @DannyOutlaw

Danny Outlaw is a freelance creative consultant who runs the eclectic Outlaw Design Blog, a great design resource. Awesome podcasts, too. Danny’s style is bold, creative and clear, with an earthy and genuine feel. I really appreciate his approach to design and the efforts he makes to interact on his blog.

I hate when the client insists on my doing things that are cheesy and just bad looking.  Sometimes I can talk clients out of these lame designs ideas of their….sometimes not.  I can usually pick out clients that have this lack of style and try to steer away from taking on work from them.  But every once in a while I get one and am forced to design things that I am embarrassed to show anyone.

Grace Smith

www.gracesmith.co.uk | @gracesmith

Self confessed Apple fan girl Grace Smith is a freelance web designer. Her top quality blog is full of great links and design insights. She’s a great writer and desiger, with a passionate and engaging voice. I love her original ‘Show Me Your Dock!’ series. It’s made me want to switch from PC to Mac properly for the first time!

I don’t think there is a single part of the actual design work that I wish I didn’t have to do because each stage in the design process is important.

However If I had to remove one area of work it would be the research stage. It’s pivotal to establishing a connection with the project, getting background on the specifications as well as the client goals and expectations but it can be time consuming. I just want to jump into the design and get creative but I know that would be pointless without proper care and attention given to the ‘pre-design’ stage!

Still in a perfect world….

Grant Friedman

www.colorburned.com | @colorburned

Grant Friedman is a designer, author and blogger. I love the grungy style of his site, and it’s packed with great graphics resources and tutorials. I take a lot of inspiration from his work, and his appreciation for retro design too. His site is usually one of my first stops when I’m looking for some insight or inspiration.

I would say that my least favorite part of my job is tracking down payments from clients. I’ve had some clients in the past try to weasel out of their obligation to pay before and I have had to be quite aggressive in collecting the funds. I believe that it is important to treat my clients with respects o I take it very personally when a client doesn’t hold up their end of the bargain.

And Me…?

I share the frustrations of all the writers above. My biggest hatred is the detail work. I love the grand sweeps of design, laying out the concept and appearance in both artwork and in code. Pinning down all the small flaws in that design can be infuriating. I feel like the last 10% of the work takes as long as the first 90%. Of course I want my design to look like my vision and be as solid as possible across all browsers and setups, but I wish it were a little quicker to achieve! It’s a problem that’s exacerbated whenever I need to include third party applications in my design setups, overcoming erratic coding or inline styles (Joomla plugins are particularly frustrating).

One thing that definitely isn’t a frustration is the sense of community that exists among freelancers online. This is the first time I’ve directly approached other designers to contribute their thoughts for an article. These guys took time out of their schedules to write back within a day or two, and it’s very much appreciated.