A Good Rejection

As a graphic designer, illustrator, or artist you will have your share of rejections. 

Cherish the good rejections. "What? But they didn’t like my work and won’t use it!" I know it can be discouraging but a rejection can be used as constructive criticism.

No response doesn’t tell you anything.

Saying that your work is good or bad is uninformative.

But a good rejection will state what they liked about your submission and what didn’t work for their project. It means what you did was good but didn’t fit their vision of their project. That’s ok. You can learn what to improve if it’s for a specific genre and you still have something to add to your portfolio.

A good rejection that includes an offer to recommend you to other clients looking for a graphic designer or artist is also an indication that your work is good and it builds a working relationship and a chance for networking.

Thank the person, company, or organization for considering your work. Again this helps build a working relationship and they will see you as a professional. They will be more inclined to recommend you to other people and maybe they will consider you for a different project in the future. 

The image above is a piece of work I submitted recently for a project that was rejected. They said they liked the color choice and the humor. What they didn’t like was that it was too safe for what they wanted and wasn’t what they envisioned for their project. They also said that they would recommend me to people looking for an illustrator or graphic designer.

This was created in Illustrator based on a couple of sketches.

CFC Christmas Concert

A local singing group, Cascade Foothills Chorale, wanted a poster designed for their winter concert. Their theme was simple, "Christmas!" They wanted images that reflected what this time of year means for a lot of people - food, family, friends.

I found a couple of images on Flickr Commons that I composited to show a family exchanging gifts. One image was in color and the other in black and white that I colorized using Photoshop. The whole poster was created in Photoshop.

Parade Poster

Enumclaw's Christmas parade is going on 50 years. To celebrate this milestone they wanted a special poster that invoked the past, had gold tones, and a celebratory feel to it. I took a photo of the main street that goes through town and photo manipulated it so it looked more like a drawing. This image was used as the background. I used the traditional Christmas colors, green and red, as accents. The focal is a snow globe with gold confetti instead of snow and 50 years prominently displayed inside with the text treated to look like metallic gold.

The photo was manipulated in Photoshop. The rest, including the snow globe, was done in Illustrator.

Recycling and Graphic Design

In online discussions, I've seen people question the reason for retaining the copyright on one's own work. Besides the obvious reason that the work is yours there is the ability to reuse assets. Recycling saves time.

One of my clients sponsors two wine walks a year. Grapes, grape leaves, a wine glass, and sometimes a bottle are used in the posters. Many of these assets I have reused several times which cut down on time and labor. 

When I sat down and thought about this year's Fall poster, I realized I didn't want to have the same look. Sure, I wanted to reuse the assets but wanted a different design. Doing the same thing over and over again can be boring, the passion ebbs, and the work can suffer, get sloppy. This is a dangerous attitude for a designer. If you ever find yourself feeling this way about a design step back from it and Do. Something. Different.  

Everyone represents red wine in wine walk posters including me. Red is a commanding color and can easily be used as a focus. But the wine walks feature red and white wine. Why not use white wine for the poster? Why not white grapes and white wine in the glass? 

What about going for a different appearance? I decided to emulate one of my favorite art styles, Art Nouveau. 

I looked again at images of grape leaves and wine glasses. I especially looked at white grapes and white wine in a glass. And a lot of Art Nouveau posters were perused. 

The wine glass was first used in the Spring Wine Walk poster of 2014, again for the Fall, and again for the following Spring. I liked it quite well and decided to keep it but change the color. 

Note the grapes, grape leaves, and vines in the 2015 Spring poster. These I used in the new poster.

One of the grape leaves I blew up, changed the dark green to more of a yellow green with shading, and added more detail. One grape was copied into the new poster. The red was replaced with a yellow green and the highlight was blurred a little. Then it was saved as a symbol and copied over and over again. 

The wine glass was the most challenging. It needed to be clear yet show there was white wine in the glass. 

A lot of gradients and blurs were used overall in the design. The wine glass, grape leaf and grapes were outlined. A heavier stroke was used on the wine glass to help it stand out. 

The end result was well received. The client said it looked very elegant which is what they especially wanted for this Fall's advertising of the event.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Village Tutors is a worthwhile organization that helps youth with academics: reading, writing, arithmetic, spanish, and school projects. Grade K-12, teenagers and young adults can get help a couple of days a week.

A woman for which I did a business card design donated money to the organization so they could hire a graphic designer to rebrand their homework assistance program. She recommended me. They wanted to rename the program from Village Tutors to The Homework Club.

Although the majority of the kids, at this time, are K-12, they also wanted to catch the interest of teenagers. What would be the sweet spot for the various age groups? I started thinking about anime, graphic novels, and comic strips. Perhaps have the poster tell a story in comic strip style?

First I took several pictures of the interior and exterior of the building where the tutoring/homework assistance takes place. Then I spent a couple of days observing the comings and goings of the kids and tutors, and how the place operated.

I also had to keep in mind that they wanted 2 sizes: 8.5x11 and 11x17 for print and one for the web. When I design for print and web I always design in CMYK. Converting CMYK to RGB is easy. But converting RGB to CYMK has it's problems; one of which is the loss in color quality. There can also be problems with the use of mesh and gradients. 

I offered two options to the Village Tutors representative. One was a regular type of poster and the other was the comic strip style.

They loved the comic strip style. All the figures were drawn and added to the photos in Photoshop. The photos were placed in Illustrator where effects were added to make the photos look more like drawings. All the dialogue and information were added in Illustrator.

With any design offered to the client, there are usually changes. The final will often be different than the comp or draft. In this case the client wanted all the characters to be drawn instead of using photographs of people. The only photographed character was replaced with a drawing. They wanted the girl to be more upbeat rather than resisting help and they wanted the font size for The Homework Club information increased. One suggestion to accomplish increasing the size of the font was to eliminate a couple of the panels. I assured them I could increase the size of the font without having to eliminate any panels.

The two images below are the final products approved by the client. As you can see, there were slight adjustments between the 11x17 and 8.5x11.

11x17

8.5 x 11

I enjoy all the projects I work on but this one was one of the more enjoyable efforts I've done. Doing something completely different is exciting, fun, and can stretch your imagination.