Toot! Toot!*: Jeff Fisher offers advice in newly released "2011 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market"

Jeff Fisher, the Engineer of Creative Identity for the Portland-based firm Jeff Fisher LogoMotives, shares career advice for industry professionals in an article published in the recently released book 2011 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market. In his piece, "Getting the Gig: Find Work and Develop Business Relationships Through Planning, Perseverance and Patience," the former art director and creative director offers numerous suggestions of how designers, illustrators, artists and others can best market and promote their efforts.

The new volume, published by North Light Books and edited by Mary Burzlaff Bostic, is the 36th annual edition of the Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market. A resource for artists, illustrators, designers and cartoonists who want to establish careers, and make more money, the book provides readers with contact and submission information for 1000+ markets, publishers, galleries, art fairs, ad agencies and more. In addition, purchase of the current edition includes a free annual subscription to the companion site Artist's Market Online.

The featured article by Jeff Fisher is illustrated with examples of his internationally recognized identity design work. Logos displayed include images for Jeff Fisher LogoMotives, Chameleon, Cat Adoption Team, the Holocaust Remembrance Project and DataDork (shown above).

Fisher, a 30+ year design industry veteran, is the author of Identity Crisis!: 50 redesigns that transformed stale identities into successful brands and The Savvy Designer's Guide to Success: Ideas and tactics for a killer career. Other book projects are currently in the works.

The designer has received over 600 design awards and his work has been published in more than 140 books on identity design, self-promotion and the marketing of small businesses. He often travels – nationally and internationally – to present courses, seminars and workshops on design, branding, marketing and social networking. In addition, Fisher is a nationally-recognized speaker, making numerous presentations each year to design organizations, design schools, universities and business groups.

More information about Jeff Fisher, and his design and writing efforts, may be found on the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives blogfolio.

(* If I don’t "toot!" my own horn, no one else will.)

© 2010 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

design:related offers project and inspiration gallery

I have previously mentioned the site design:related™ several times on bLog-oMotives, including referencing the resource in my list of portfolio site where I post and promote my identity design work. The site has offered community members the opportunity to create a portfolio, post inspirations, comment on the work of others, share industry-related news, establish a network and more.

Now design:related™ offers a growing gallery of selected projects and inspirations as eye-candy for site visitors. Featured items included book covers, architecture, product designs, illustration, typography, identity design and many other images presented on the site. The Jeff Fisher LogoMotives identity (shown above) and the link to a gallery of my real imaginary friends are included in the gallery.

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

The unimaginative and not-so-bright "designer"

It bugs the hell out of me when a so-called "designer" claims as their own a design concept, or actual work, of a true design professional. I'm not writing about situations where existing work is used as "inspiration" for new work. I'm referring to blatant rip-offs.

Years ago a local Portland designer, when interviewing for jobs, actually included printed pieces of my work in the portfolio she was showing potential employers. Fortunately, in this pre-Internet case, she made the mistake of presenting the portfolio to a creative director who is still one of my best friends - and the "designer" was busted big time by my friend recognizing the work. In another situation, I almost drove off the road one day (here in Portland as well) when I saw signage for a building represented by a logo I had designed for a client in an unrelated business. The typeface hadn't even been changed on the sign. Yet another "designer" was caught red-handed due to their own stupidity.

Recently I was informed of a situation where a theatre company had "borrowed" a logo I designed for a play. The identity, now being licensed by the Theatre Logos Agency, had simply been copied from the TLA site and pasted into the theatre company web presence - complete with the "©" watermark of TLA. In other situations, I have been informed by eagle-eyed design professionals about examples of my work being included in the online portfolios of other "designers," or displayed as submissions on so-called "logo mill" or "logo contest" sites as the original work of someone else.

More and more often I am reading online forum posts about designers' identity creations, web designs, or code being blatantly stolen by others. The good thing is that a knowledgeable and vigilant online community of designers is often catching the rip-off "artists." I think my friend, designer and illustrator Von Glitschka, has got to be one of the most often ripped-off professionals around. Luckily, with his highly recognizable style, others in creative fields have discovered and reported the stealing of his work by individuals around the world. The Internet seems to have made it a bit easier to catch the unimaginative and not-so-bright "designers."

In reading the How Design Forum this morning I came across a thread about yet another so-called "logo contest" site, where "clients" post design requests, with ridiculously low possible payouts, for speculative logo design work from obviously not-so-bright individuals, in a quest for the ideal identity created by "the most talented designers in the world" (the site's claim - not my personal opinion). I'm not going to even bother including the site's name or URL in this bLog-oMotives entry. I don't need to do so all; Steve Douglas, HOW Forum member and Creative Director of The Logo Factory, did that for me in his own blog post "Why logo contests don't work" - documenting the fact that two of his own company's designs were ripped-off by two different "designers" making "logo contest" submissions.

Douglas' blog, and a HOW Forum mention that someone using the screenname "LogoMotives" was posting submisssions, piqued my curiosity enough to make a visit to the "logo contest" site myself. Sure enough, someone is posting "contest" entries as "LogoMotives" - which I assume is nothing more than an attempt to ride the coattails of my 30 year career as a logo designer.

Then I saw the unimaginative work of submitter uptowngirl92 - her rip-off of my award-winning Seacoast AIDS Walk identity (above). As I mentioned in a HOW Forum posting "I'm not sure what is worse, being ripped-off exactly, or having your original concept ripped-off and executed incredibly poorly (I think you can tell which design is mine)."

In marketing and promoting your design work, you need to put it "out there" for potential clients to see. My work is on numerous portfolio sites, in profiles on other online presences, published in over 100 books, and featured on the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives blogfolio. Such Internet promotion brings a great many clients my way and the benefits far outweigh the negatives. I also appreciate the many kind comments received from students and professionals who see my work as inspiring in regards to their own efforts. However, I'm far from a fan of the unimaginative and not-so-bright so-called "designer" who feels they have the right to use and abuse the work of others, and then claim it as their own. In fact, it really pisses me off.

I'm thankful that the design community does such a good job of finding these rip-off "artists" and calling them on their unprofessional and unethical activities.

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

design:related™ features Jeff Fisher

Jeff Fisher, the Engineer of Creative Identity for the Portland-based firm Jeff Fisher LogoMotives, is currently the Featured Designer on the homepage of the creative industry networking site design:related™. A social-based website, design:related™ brings together creative people from different disciplines (and world locations) of the design world. With the integration of portfolios, inspirations, job postings, and community, the site serves to motivate designers to share ideas, inspire, and be inspired.

Designers are able to create a professional and personal profile, upload a project portfolio, post a resume PDF, share inspiration resources, link to news items, create a network of designers, and interact with others through private messages. Employers are also able to create creative industry job postings.

Designers should take the quick tour of the site's capabilities, posted on the homepage, and consider participation in the social and professional network created specifically for creatives.

© 2007 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

Jeff Fisher LogoMotives featured at LogoPond

For some time I've been working on putting together a bLog-oMotives piece on the variety of online portfolio and directory sites available to designers - especially those working in the area of identity design. LogoPond, a logo design inspiration and critique site, was one of the resources to be included in that future piece. This morning my blog was getting a great deal of traffic from LogoPond so I thought I would investigate what was going on.

It turns out that my logo design work is the new "Featured Showcase" on the site. Over the past couple months I've been adding examples of my identity efforts to my own LogoPond showcase page. In fact, later today I plan to spend a bit of time adding a few more examples.

LogoPond allows designers, of all experience levels, to upload samples of their work at no cost. Some logos are works-in-progress for which designers specifically request critiques from site members (although members often seem to provide criticism whether requested or not). Other examples, as in my case, are finalized designs being posted as a source of possible inspiration for design students or those already active in the profession. In addition, site members may create their own profile page.

One of my pet peeves about the site, and many other online design critique venues, is that LogoPond allows individuals to post criticism anonymously while hiding behind a screenname with no public profile displaying any credentials to back up their supposed expertise. Posting of random comments, with no constructive design-related value, is of little use to a designer who may be requesting legitimate input. I actually had a cowardly anonymous poster refer to me as a "homo" in a recent personal attack masquerading as a "critique." Such comments reflect poorly on the design profession in a very public way. It felt to me as if a very professional design industry web presence had been reduced to little more than a middle school playground.

With my individual logo uploads I include a brief description of the specific logo project featured, list any awards the design may have received and mention books in which the design has been published. I then post a link to a bLog-oMotives entry, Creative Latitude article, or other online resource related to the logo.

LogoPond also has its own online forum for the discussion of identity, or design, related topics. Recent online discussions have hinted at a future LogoPond book and the possibility of a similar site focusing on illustration. The web presence also provides a page of additional related resources.

More on other Internet design portfolio sites and directories in the future.

© 2007 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives