C O N V E R G E

So I’ve been trying to post at least one thing a day at the new blog over at www.tomsrisook.com (and if you read this, I would love it if you got involved and commented there! even though no one really comments here either :( ) which is essentially now my inspiration/professional blog. So any cool shit i find goes there, weird funny shit probably goes here, I don’t know. I guess this will be for writing and being mopey while I keep everything lively and exciting over there. Although if potential clients or employers were to google my name, they would find this blog first if anything so that idea is really out the window.

Lately I’ve had two major freelance projects I’m working on: the website for Jon’s company The Shirt Lab whom I did some branding and flyers for. Then I will be doing the website for Yamashiro Restauraunt in Los Angeles (specifically, the Hollywood Hills.) Kind of big, kind of fancy I guess. I’m excited to be working but it’s always hard to do anything else when your work is taken home with you. Sleep is fairly rare these days. Seeing as I am unemployed though, I’m happy to be doing these jobs and getting paid – eventually. Of course while these jobs are on the table, other potential project started to arise putting me in one of those situations where I may have to decline just to be realistic about getting it done. I have to keep reminding myself that if I can’t get it done, I won’t even get paid. Its better to let the job slip by I think, than let all my other ones suffer. Yeah, that’s what I’m telling myself.

Although I’m glad I’m getting work, as with the past, its usually web design work – which I don’t like to particularly do. Mainly since its kind of time consuming and I’m never really that up to date with all the standards the web comes up with from time to time. I don’t know much about making things SEO-friendly or how to optimize them or make them compatible across several browsers (sometimes.) All I know is eventually I can do all of those things but it takes days and nights for weeks of googling just to figure it out – its not really cost-effective. Unless its a really simple website. Obviously, I don’t mind doing this kind of work on my own site (see: www.tomsrisook.com) because there are other benefits and frankly, its easier to please myself than clients at times.

That’s one thing that always makes me weary about where I plan on going with graphic design once I graduate, I find it all too consuming to communicate with clients, I feel like I’m wrestling my design ideas all the time. Like I’m always trying to sell them what I want – in truth I’m not always positive if my decisions are the best but I guess it comes with experience and more education. Lately though these jobs haven’t been the most professional, partly due to my mistakes and generally how its being presented to me. But I’ll get through it, its just after two hour conversations on the phone, I just can’t think straight. This is why I feel eventually my setting would be best done under the wing of someone else: be it an art director or creative director – someone that can whip me into a mode that’s focused on solving a design issue instead of trying to communicate it to client, that just doesn’t seem to be my thing. I feel like I’m always trying to defend myself when that kind of raises red flags about my own decisions. So this really isn’t a complaint about clients but rather how I haven’t gotten that process down just yet and I don’t know if I ever will.

Speaking of which, I need to talk to some people about, of course, a website. I will most likely decline the project as I was told it was needed “ASAP.” I simply don’t have the time frame to do it properly without letting my other projects fall or my school work trailing. I’m not willing to do that at this point in time. There’s all kinds of red flags with this project, but I’m going to hear these people out and see what’s up. Wish me luck.