Monday, June 07, 2010
Anybody Care About Quality Anymore?
Is there anybody out there who still cares about quality photography? If I have to talk to another company who ultimately decides to shoot it themselves on their conference table, I think I'll go nuts. It didn't used to be like this. Previously, the professional Graphic Designer/Art Director acted as a gatekeeper of quality. They made sure that the images used in their designs were high quality, beautiful things. It made their designs look good. It made the company look good.
With the advent of easy to use design programs and web page creators, a lot of companies are doing their own design-layout for print and web page creation. Often the results are horrendous. If you are creating marketing material without the help of a real Graphic Designer or Art Director, (web site coders don't count), see below.
Facts:
- Your nephew with the great new camera is not equivalent to a trained professional photographer with 30 years experience in shooting products in the studio. Sorry.
- Buying design software does not make you or any of your employees a Graphic Designer!
- Customers do notice the difference. Quality images denote quality product.
Leave some comments about this rant. Anybody have any clients who don't care about quality?
5 comments:
As a graphic designer, I am on board with your rant! I too have seen clients 'take back' their business, with some pretty horrendous results. Anyone with a computer program thinks they are a graphic designer, and anyone with a digital camera thinks they are a professional photographer. With the belt-tightening, the half assed-ness proliferates.
So what do we do?
It gets worse. The problem actually gets compounded.
Long ago, employed for years at a prepress service bureau, I worked under many fussy folks. From our former CSR who used to be a long-ime drum scanner operator to all the big ad agency art directors, they all knew what they did and didn't like to see on a color proof. They made sure I learned not to trouble them more than once on any given issue. Even if the proof looked good, there'd better not be any trouble on press, either.
Now many of the old-timers are gone, replaced by people of strong digital persuasion. Your "conference table shooters" are also comfortable in Photoshop and see it as a replacement for skilled craftspeople and to further cut costs. Slowly lowering the bar even more. (Let's not even talk about current typography standards)
While you and I immediately recognize poor quality, for many it is just a subliminal message that makes someone want to move on, turn the page.
I thank the Almighty that there are still clients around who get it.
You go girl!
I've said it before about other things like food - people eat food every day. Some people know how to cook, and some people don't. But even those who don't know how to tell oregano from parsley can tell when a dish smells, looks, and tastes delicious. It's the same with design - not everyone is a designer, and even if they don't know what leading, kerning, or proper alignment are, they can usually tell the difference between quality work and sloppy work. Why they would want to go with the sloppy stuff when representing themselves and their businesses, though? Yeah... I can't tell you that, but too often I've had business owners with big opinions tell me when my work didn't meet their "style". Gotta' love 'em, eh?
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