# The Design Studio



## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

Wow, Mac Pro's section.... do we have the resurgence of The Design Studio thread then ?!?!?!?

Where's my old mate MannyP ?
It's been a long time


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Hola, mi amigo!

It has been a long time, indeed. Time to resurrect an oldie.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

great idea


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

Manny, you're not in Ottawa anymore ?

How you doing Groovetube, business going well ?


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Hey Loafer, business has been absolutely smashing, I had some trouble as I had to let go a guy early spring and I went through some serious stuff with my mom's health over the summer. Thankfully I'm back on track these days.

How's biz for you guys?


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Loafer said:


> Manny, you're not in Ottawa anymore ?


Correct; last year the wife and I moved the brood down East to live closer to the parents and such. Honestly had no idea what I'd be getting myself into as far as work goes, but I can honestly say that I'm busier now (freelance + full-time employment = yay). LOL


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Good on you. Ottawa can be a bit of a funny town freelance wise.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

groovetube said:


> Good on you. Ottawa can be a bit of a funny town freelance wise.


Boy you ain't kidding. :lmao:


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

Good to hear everyone is good now.
I parted waves with my business partner... somewhat acrimoniously but that's a story for another time. I'm just freelancing on my own now and sharing an office with a bunch of girls who do interior design down on King St.
Working for yourself, throw in a wife and a couple of kids and I have, as you probably know Manny, a busy busy life.... all good fun though.

My next step is taking that freelancing and upscaling it to something where I can make money while I'm not working... exciting to see where things go.


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

So is there anyone else working in the design field here who wants to out themselves and maybe share examples of your work ?


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## acc30 (Apr 26, 2006)

Hey, I'm in the graphic and web design field! 
I'm freelancing, but want a full-time job so that I can take interior design course part-time. 2011 is sure to be another busy year


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## greensuperman32 (Mar 28, 2005)

I'm a 2nd year graphic & web design student. would love to see some work you guys have done. maybe I can learn a thing or two


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

well I'm not a graphic designer... I'm an industrial designer working in retail stuff.

Here's my website but I have been meaning to update it for about 2 years now, a lot of it is oooooollllllllllllllld stuff.....

Richard Mulley


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

it's hard to find time to update your own site.


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

urgh, tell me about it. I've also had this printed marketing piece I've been working on for more than a year now.... still not finished.

I guess when you're too busy to do things like that it must be a good thing.

Greensuperman32, you should post some of your work, there's some talented professionals on here who can give you some great feedback I'm sure.


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## JCCanuck (Apr 17, 2005)

*Graphic Designer...*

mostly in retail full time, the dull stuff, flyers and catalogues but it the most secure these days although I could be dropped anytime. Do charity work on spare time to quench my creative needs. Although I love computers and such, I miss the quality & respect of old school stuff, don't see much of that these days. Everybody who has a computer think they can be a designer or such.


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

JCCanuck said:


> mostly in retail full time, the dull stuff, flyers and catalogues but it the most secure these days although I could be dropped anytime. Do charity work on spare time to quench my creative needs. Although I love computers and such, I miss the quality & respect of old school stuff, don't see much of that these days. Everybody who has a computer think they can be a designer or such.


...and everything is easy to do because it's just a click of a button right ?!?


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I have this button on my keyboard, it says "design website" on it.

In fact, I have a whole bunch of other buttons too. At least, that what my clients seem to think sometimes.


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2010)

groovetube said:


> I have this button on my keyboard, it says "design website" on it.
> 
> In fact, I have a whole bunch of other buttons too. At least, that what my clients seem to think sometimes.


I hear you there. I often get requests like "Can you put up a button on my site that will do ______" where ________ is usually something insanely complicated, completely un-doable, or things that just make no sense. One of my old bosses was like that too with an insanely complex inventory management system I wrote that integrated with multiple warehouses, etc. He would call me at my desk and say "We need you to put a button in the database to make this new report" (which would be something insanely complex that would take a week or longer to program .. but of course it was always needed by the end of the day.

People that don't "do" these types of things don't "get" these types of things either.


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## steviewhy (Oct 21, 2010)

sudo rm -rf /


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

oooh I could use this right about now!


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## dyrnwyn (Nov 28, 2002)

I'm also a Graphic Designer (since '96), living and working in London, Ontario. 
By day I do graphic design and web design for a screen printing (t-shirts, etc.) company, and by night I do more web design, illustration, and traditional print design by freelancing.
I also teach continuing education classes at Fanshawe College (Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Adobe CS for Print and Effective Web design and Development).


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## JCCanuck (Apr 17, 2005)

*that's a good one..*



groovetube said:


> I have this button on my keyboard, it says "design website" on it.
> 
> In fact, I have a whole bunch of other buttons too. At least, that what my clients seem to think sometimes.


a one solve all problems on one key solution. For me that would be a key that sayz "24 page tabloid size flyer" which just got dropped on my desk given to me two weeks late.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

I had a client ask for the red in a design to be lighter. But not pink. After fighting with the client and going back and forth with multiple iterations they decided to take charge and asked for the files thinking that I was being difficult. After two weeks of radio silence they left it at red. Never heard from them again. (Thankfully)


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I've learned not to take crap form people. I know that sounds harsh, but when you have a few days filled with people micro-managing their projects turning them into crap shows, you lose your sense of humor altogether. I fired 3 clients in the last 6 months, and it was the best thing I could have done. 

Sometimes, you can waste a whole lot of time trying to please people who don't know what they want, but seem to tell you 6 times a day, when your time could be better spent cold calling going after and pitching new clients.


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

yeah, nothing like getting rid of an annoying client. Thankfully I've only had to do it once.... the guy used to haggle over costs before I even started the project, always asking for a 'special price'. I think it was around the time my 2nd kid was born so I wasn't sleeping much and didn't feel like being pushed about.

His ****ty little tinpot company hasn't amounted to much more since then and I've moved on to much bigger and better things.... cut the fat and you'll find the fillet mignon.


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## johnnyspade (Aug 24, 2007)

Nice to see this thread, I stumbled across it today by accident.

I'm an Emily Carr grad out of Vancouver, though living in Nova Scotia now. My girlfriend and I moved here 6 years ago for more of a balanced lifestyle. My education is actually in industrial design where I started out designing and building furniture but I began doing a lot of design for the web about 12 years ago. I worked for a web/dev company in Vancouver for almost 8 years before we moved out here. I'm technically a freelancer but I'm working on a couple of large contracts for the next 12 months or so. Most of my work these days involves helping clients build social networking applications through various forms of Wordpress, Drupal and Elgg.

So, there you have it, my bio in a nutshell. Pretty boring as I read it back to myself to check on my awful grammar.


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## johnnyspade (Aug 24, 2007)

Loafer said:


> yeah, nothing like getting rid of an annoying client.


Amen, though I have been lucky enough to maintain some great ones over the years. Some of which have been with me for a decade. What's nice about continual work for the same clients is that you need to keep doing the same client education stuff, over and over. Personnel changes happen on the client end but the relationship is already established. I find that at the end of the day it costs more money to get new clients than it does to maintain relationships with existing ones.


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## SnowX (Feb 16, 2010)

I'm a freelance graphic designer (part-time) and a Design & Print Project Manager (full-time). I try to do as much freelance as I can since moving up in the ranks really kills the creative work.

I do alot of web design but prefer print. My dream is to one day own a Heidelberg letterpress.... *drool*.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

Bump for The Design Studio love. :love2:

Where are all ehMac's designers at?


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