Are you a hardcore graphic designer and you don’t know it!

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The truth is that hardcore graphic designers are people lost in creation!

They don’t care for anything else except a computer, large collection of fonts, colors and design patterns (and a lot more – all design related) Hence, I’ve compiled a list of traits usually seen in hardcore designers and if you can relate with any of these, you are a hardcore graphic designer (or at least part of you is a hardcore graphic designer).

  1. You rip your hair when a free Photoshop brush you downloaded from a site is less than 1000px in size
  2. On a date, you’d be more interested in the design pattern on your girlfriend’s shirt rather than her impressive figure
  3. You bumped the car in front of you because you were busy analyzing the font on a billboard on the side of the road
  4. You use keyboard shortcuts at phenomenal speed even when blindfolded, but you can’t type a small paragraph without staring at the keyboard
  5. During work, you consider meals an annoying interruptions
  6. You ‘experience’ software nightmares when you’ve been working 20 hours a day
  7. You would spend hours upon hours searching for that perfect font! Every time!
  8. You would clean your keyboard twice a day; more often than you wash your car
  9. You have learned a lesson and stopped using the word ‘final’ in any filename when saving a design!
  10. You have, at last, given up trying to explain your projects to non-designers
  11. You would spend time organising your desktop rather than your sock drawer
  12. You see CMYK and RGB like a genetics engineer seeing genetic code!
  13. You nearly had a Design orgasm when you heard that Adobe acquired Macromedia!
  14. When you look at Album art, all you can see is grunge Photoshop Brushes. A few minutes later, you notice the Album art.
  15. You love Photoshopping a watermark for a mock-up
  16. You totally discarded a great design concept because the client thinks that he/she is a great designer. (Everyone thinks they are a great graphic designer)
  17. The amount of words you have written with sharp labeling burned discs total more than the amount of words you’ve read in newspapers.
  18. Without any affection, you have nicknamed the OSX spinning wheel of death!
  19. You’ve kept all your old ragged brochures just so you can scan it, later on down the track
  20. You never give the PSD file to your client (bad practice)
  21. You have an insanely huge list of bookmarks in you browser that takes 20 minutes to scroll to the bottom
  22. Whenever you go to a restaurant, you would spend time critiquing the menu design rather than talking to your girlfriend/wife
  23. You have more than 5000 fonts and a very short temper
  24. If you’d have been paid a penny for a mouse click, you’d have been a trillionaire 2 years ago.
  25. You hate clients that thinks they are better designer than you
  26. You have at least 3 additional 1 TB hard disks because you ran out of space on your first hard disk couple of years ago.

I would love to here about what you would add to this list…

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D. May 19, 2009 at 7:35 pm

Great list! I think I scored about 20/26…..76%!

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Casper May 20, 2009 at 2:19 am

27. While youre making a powerpoint (because they don’t have mac’s) with a co-worker you insist to create the entire thing, just to make sure it doesn’t gets a bad layout.

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Alastair McDermott May 20, 2009 at 3:24 pm

Great list! However, I have to question #20: “You never give the PSD file to your client (bad practice)”. Do you really consider it bad practice to give clients the PSD?

As a client, I always ask for the PSD, in case the designer loses it/hard disk fails/is hit by bus/goes out of business/etc.

As a supplier, I always give the client a DVD with PSDs (and AIs, etc).

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Tanya May 21, 2009 at 2:57 am

Papyrus makes me nauseous.
Book covers amaze me and all I see everywhere is fonts, layers, kerning and brushes.
Also, I highly depend on caffeine. Lots of it.

This is a great list, gonna print it and leave some around the office! :)

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curtismchale May 21, 2009 at 8:02 am

Ha that’s great. I’m totally guilty of analyzing the shirt my wife is wearing or the menu font or anything that is not just enjoying my time with her. The first step is admiting you have a problem.

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squareart May 24, 2009 at 11:23 pm

Good way to start on a Monday morning, I was smiling all the way: ) – what about adding, picking up business cards or the ‘odd’ good print work because you want to look at it ‘later’ – drives your ‘non-designer’ partner mad!

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The Pro Designer May 26, 2009 at 6:37 am

# D. – Nice, 76% you are in trouble I reckon
# Alastair – Very good point you rasie about the PSD… I actually always gave out the PSD to my clients, but of late I have found that no one really uses it. I done a survey of all my clients about this and 99% of them said they never actually use it because they don’t have the software to open it up. I do give them a large range of files, depending on the service (eg. .jpg, .gif, .png, .tif etc.) – But if they really want the PSD/AI then they can have it.
# tanya – Caffine I here you…
#Curtis – It certainly is the first step to realizing we all have a problem…
#Squareart – Nice, i am with you all the way…

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sherry May 26, 2009 at 10:11 am

The husband and I often play the “name that font” game when in the car- and mock those billboards/business vehicles we see bearing fonts we disapprove of… We’re kind of snotty little nerds like that.

Re: #9 … no. I haven’t learned my lesson yet! I still have hope!

Who’s brought Pantone swatches with them when shopping for bridesmaids dresses?

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Mahgol May 26, 2009 at 10:14 am

Oh! that’s so funny and so true!

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Becky Long June 1, 2009 at 8:57 am

Absolutely agree! I find myself doing alot of these! :)

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