I exchanged several e-mails with the person who posted the job and set up a time last Thursday to talk on the phone.  We talked, and of course, the usual questions were asked. “Are you good at ( insert Adobe Product here)?” “What do you want to do with your life?” et cetera, et cetera.

We talked about how I worked with the U-Haul Web Team on a variety of projects, and then he asked about banners.

Now I want you to think for a second, have you EVER seen a web banner for U-Haul? That’s right, you haven’t, because they don’t exist.  U-Haul’s branding mainly dictates that they operate on a name basis, basically like how we refer to every adhesive strip as a band-aid. It’s worked very well for them (well, not well enough, seeing they laid off a ton of people last year), but you get my point.

I went through school for  5 years, and have been in the industry for 3. I know how to make a banner, it’s just I’ve never had a client rely on one, or have a need to create one.

Fast forward to today. I haven’t heard from them since the phone call, so I shot an e-mail.  Here’s the response.

“I think they were looking for a more web graphics work examples.  (multiple examples of banner, landers)   Ideally they’d like an agency graphics person who has worked on several accounts across several verticals.”

Basically, someone with my talents & experience isn’t desired because I didn’t have any examples of banners and landing pages, which is absolutely bizarre, and makes me think that it’s quite possible that this HR person didn’t even forward my portfolio along, which is a huge bummer.

And this makes me think, should HR people really be in charge of hiring creatives? In my experience, the majority of them don’t really know anything about our skills, and just look for keywords & certain graphics. Am I wrong in thinking this?

Let me know.

I had a fun time, despite a few roadblocks, and I was able to walk away with some great work and experiences, which will be displayed on my new portfolio in about a week.

Last time I found myself without a job, quite frankly, I was a miserable S.O.B., which wasn’t really the best thing to do. But I’ve learned, and one thing I want to do is to give anyone who reads this some tips with how to cope with job loss.

First off, don’t let it get you down. Nothing, and I mean, NOTHING is accomplished by sitting back and feeling horrible about yourself. I did that, and all I did was get fat & pale.

Secondly, If you’re a designer, you’re technically not out of work. You can freelance, which means that you’re self-employed.  Go out there, promote yourself, contact your contacts, and get some work. Rework some old projects, re-launch a portfolio, make yourself known.

Third, help out the community, be part of the community. I’ve continued my PHXDW efforts by joining up with Sprawl & their projects, including Rapid Rebrand, which is a project designed to group-design amazing non-profits. I won’t get paid, but I will have the experience and the great feeling of helping out a great cause. Also, it doesn’t hurt to join up with your local AIGA, or go to Happy Hours/Meetups with local firms. Meeting people can be a great experience.

Fourth, remember to have fun, whichever way it is, from playing video games, to reading, to creating art/design, do something to let go, at least once a day. You can’t spend every minute applying for a job, take it a day at a time, & if bills become daunting, Starbucks is always hiring.

And always remember to have hope. Things will get better, you just have to go for it.

Last week, I decided to try  an “experiment”, or at least that was the official name. The truth was that I needed to get away from everything.  Recently, I have been living without things in my life that I have deemed as distracting, such as Video Gaming & Television. I had found that it had helped, I was feeling more productive, I started digging into my library of books (reading through Neuromancer, on my great friend Debbie Millman’s suggestion).

However, I still had one big distraction, and that was Twitter. The super amazing instantaneous “look at MEEEE” web application. As of this point, I have an almost 1:1 ratio with followers/followed,  and I have around 4773 tweets.

And most of those are probably funny, interesting, or just bizarre posts. However, in the past 3 months, all that I can remember is tired rants about how I’m unemployed/depressed/problems. And Phoenix Design Week, but that week was absolutely magical, but that is for another post.

Back on track, I find that Twitter is very accessible & thus, very easy to write on. However, it’s too accessible. It’s way too easy to post your emotions quickly, without thought.

One of my amazing friends, a designer named Sean Rice made a good point to me that I was being even more negative than normal, and that I shouldn’t be spreading those feelings around.

And he was right.

So, I took a break. No writing for a week, and I barely lurked, mainly to see if any of the firms I watch in Phoenix had posted any job information. And it felt great. Like a breath of fresh air, I instantly felt re-energized. I had time again, and I even pumped out some changes on my website (added a lovely font by the way), and even scored some Freelance work.

But most importantly, I felt much better about myself, and I realized that we attach ourselves to these web applications like Facebook & Twitter in the same way that a Drug Addict LOVES their poison of choice.  It’s a terrible addiction, just like Television, World of Warcraft,  Starbucks.

But I can’t put my dislike of Twitter entirely on the premise of that I needed to get away for my own health. A little over a month ago, I secured a small contract job working with a company performing social media work, and while I cannot disclose their clients nor will I disclose them, I will say that the job put a vile taste in my mouth in terms of what Twitter is and represents.

A while ago, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails said in an interview that

“Twitter doesn’t give a shit, they just want numbers.”

which is exactly true, and my experiences in doing Social Media Advertising have solidified that. If you look back at my previous post, I make the mention that

Over the past few months, I have truly seen what social media can do. Twitter is faster than the news, everyone and my mother is connected on Facebook, Myspace has morphed from a pedo-playground into a free hosting service for music, Youtube, Vimeo & Hulu all provide entertainment/news/opinions.
And to me, a brand can reach out and “touch” their audience.

and the job that I performed was basically for “the numbers”, which was a big letdown for me. I used to have faith in Twitter, I was there with my green avatar for Iran, I supported Phoenix Design Week to a point where my friends and family were pissed off at me for being so into it, and I have made numerous connections to people over the service.

But now I look at Twitter, and all I see is a version of spam that I cannot turn off. A ton of people on twitter are either selling something, posting garbage, or wanting attention for their blogs.

Please do not think I’m being a negative nancy here. Twitter has done some great things, for example, Phoenix Design Week would not have happened if it was not for James Archer tweeting Mark Dudlik’s amazing letter about Phoenix and how there is no design scene (read it here). Also,  I have met some incredible people that I now consider to be friends.

And it’s because of the possibility of great things that I have decided to remain on Twitter, however, from this point on, I won’t be writing too much. Like I said earlier, it is a huge time-waster, and I could be wasting my time re-working designs and working on one of my three different design projects. Of course, I’ll reply to questions & observations, but for the most part, I am done.

I’ve been asked to write something about Phoenix Design Week, and the reason why I have taken forever is because I didn’t know what to say about it.

I know now. Phoenix Design Week has helped me become a better designer, by showing me a community of talented people, who have become great colleagues, and some have become friends, and has helped me reconnect to what I really loved about design.

When I was done with college, I was mentally drained, so I took a sabbatical from performing design work. That lasted a few months, and I had some small time jobs, working with print, and learning about the industry, and then I got my job at U-Haul, performing web design on a national scale. While the jobs were good, in some aspects, it wasn’t mentally stimulating. I had lost that passion that I had throughout school.
Then came a fateful night, I had heard about the AIGA showing off the Milton Glaser movie at ASU, and I had found out some people with a thing called “Phoenix Design Week” were going. So I decided to climb out of my shell and go. I met Mark Dudlik, Sunny Thaper, and Andrew Courdek, and had an amazing night, filled with sarcasm, hilarity, beer drinking, and most importantly, I found people who were passionate about design.
Needless to say, I signed up to help with PHXDW, and soon found myself elevated from being part of the volunteer crew to a member of the Promotions team, coming up with promotion ideas, drinking coffee, and taking on the role of Poster Czar, overseeing over 120 entries to the Phoenix Design Week Poster Contest, which has been deemed as a smash success for the movement.
And it was in that Poster Contest that I regained my passion, and spent 5 days constructing, shooting, and assembling my poster.

Phoenix Design Week Submission "Phoenix Design is Natural"

Unlike the majority of the work that was created for the poster contest, mine utilized the elements around my home. A specific type of stone, twigs, and hard desert grass all came together, and building it, and seeing the results was cathartic. It made me feel alive, and I wanted to design again, and I mean actually design, not just layout, but create functional art.

So, in that respect, Phoenix Design Week has re-awakened my desire to design and by extension, my soul. Since then, I have created an identity for myself, redid my portfolio, and I am pursuing some very exciting prospects for work.

Also, being Interviewed by the Arizona AIGA, Spicywebdesigners.com, and being showcased at Phoenix Design Week helps.

Things are looking brighter. And if you’re in Arizona, and a designer, and if you have no plans this weekend, please, I urge you to go. You will meet an amazing group of people, and if you’re lucky, like me, you’ll be inspired. http://phxdw.com/register

I start doing contract work for the illustrious Branding Strategy firm, Heasley & Partners. I will be doing social media work, as my work with promoting Phoenix Design Week, and my past with AIGA helped get me this position with them.

“But it’s not a design job! You wanted a design job!”. True, I do and still want a design job, and seeing that this is contract, I will still be looking. But this provides 2 things.

and

Over the past few months, I have truly seen what social media can do. Twitter is faster than the news, everyone and my mother is connected on Facebook, Myspace has morphed from a pedo-playground into a free hosting service for music, Youtube, Vimeo & Hulu all provide entertainment/news/opinions.
And to me, a brand can reach out and “touch” their audience.

Right now, I have a feeling that some people are going to call me a hypocrite, because I vehemently defend print media. As Sagmeister says, “print is like the electric guitar”, in the sense that despite the fact that we have keyboards & synths, there is still interest in using an obviously limited instrument, and what can be done with the guitar has only gotten more amazing as time goes on.

So there, not a hypocrite.

I believe this gives me the opportunity to create unexpected promotions, and keep them on the right track with current ones.

It’s been a rough road, so this looks promising.

As for other developments, this week, I will do a case study on myself, and my current re-branding strategy. I believe that the old identity that I have used for 4 years has finally ran it’s course, and I have re-worked a new identity. I just need to prepare some collateral for it, and of course, finish the new website.

And of course, I will write about my first day.

However, when I got there, it was like something out of The Office. First off, I had been warned against using Craigslist in order to find work due to possible scams, rapists, general weirdness, et cetera. But I went for it, and applied to a random “We need a pt/ft webmaster” position.

Warning Signs:
1) No description of the job. But, I figured, “I can rock a webmaster position.
2) When I applied, I got an instant e-mail saying to call, however, when I called, I got number 3.
3) The people hiring don’t know what the job is for. More specifically “I only answer the phones and look pretty.”, said the receptionist. More on her later, and why I would hire her in a minute.

So, despite the warning signs, I decided to go. Besides, what if it’s some fabulous job that was trolling me?

So I went. When I got there, things were awfully different than what I was expecting.

Even More Warning Signs:
1) First off, the job wasn’t “marketing”, in the advertising or design sense. It was telemarketing. Bad telemarketing.
2) I’ve never had to sign an NDA for just walking through the door.
3) Every form had multiple spelling, grammar, and capitalization errors.
4) They were behind on interviews. 45 minutes behind.
5) Another person who showed up for the Webmaster position took one look at the paperwork, shook my hand and wished me good luck as he left in a hurry.
6) Any work that I do, even if it’s not used, is their property, not mine.

I sat with 2 other guys, one a .NET developer, the other some sort of Sales manager. They mentioned that online, the job was listed as a base rate, however, the paperwork we received stated “Contract only”. Also, I learned more about the position, which had apparently been turned down by others who walked through before us. Basically, I blindly design for people the telemarketers hound, and if we’re lucky, they take a website. Oh, and I would also have to perform sales, next to the guy with meth sores.

Definitely not meaningful or good design work.

And the big kicker? The job isn’t actually open for another 45 days.

So basically, the job was a bust. I grabbed everything I signed and put my important info on, and booked it.

But, there was one amazing thing today. The receptionist.

I would describe her as a fiery Vixen who was part New York Sass, part regal queen. In the short time I spent (approx. an hour after I was supposed to have an interview), she not only yelled at co-workers who were screwing with her, we danced in our chairs, talked about idiots, and I got to see her tear some Staples employee a new one.

And she answered the phone perfectly.

So what did I learn? If I search hard enough, I would say that Craigslist has, once again, proved to be home of the weird.

Today, I will talk about the subject of “Agency Experience”, which is an excuse that I have recieved several times over the past 2 months while looking for work.

For a year, I worked in-house at U-Haul, and what I did there consisted of what designers at Advertising, Design, and Publishing Agencies do, basically, we get briefs from clients (in my case, the clients were different program managers around the company), have client meetings where we would discuss “who they are, what do they do, and why does it matter?”, then (in my case in comparison to my co-workers), sketch out ideas, flesh them out as comps, show them to my team, refine,  follow usability and brand standards, and then have a meeting where the final design is presented to the client. Client approves/disapproves, and the design then goes to programming/back to the drawing board/recycle bin.

From that point on, I kept close tabs on the programmers, to make sure the look of the program came out looking right (some programmers liked to change the css, for some unknown reason, I’m guessing “Brand Standards” don’t mean much to some people), and if the design survived, I would do final testing, and the program would go live. Client is happy, everyone celebrates, et cetera.

Also while I was there, I did large format vehicle print projects that required me to go through someone else in order to contact the clients, but some clients I did meet over the phone, which did throw a kink into the design process.

I also do freelance work, which requires me to meet my clients, and repeat the processes that I’ve gone over above.

Flash-forward to now. I’m looking for work, and I see that people are demanding “Agency Experience”. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some fantastic people in the Phoenix Community, who have done work for Agencies, Freelance, and In-House, and I’ve explained to them what my process is, and the general response is “Yeah, that’s the same thing as Agency experience, minus the fact you work 60 hours a week and have the ability to get high”.

Ok, so the last part only came from one person, but I thought it was funny enough to include, but you get the drift, right?

So what gives? What is the secret that “Agency Experience” gives you? I understand the design process in full, I didn’t sit around in school for 5 years doing nothing. I do freelance, I have clients. I worked for an in-house “Agency”, how is that somehow not “agency” experience?

The way I understand is that:

Agency Experience: You deal with all aspects of the design process, play Video Games, and can totally drink on the clock. You don’t have to deal with design by committee, which really makes Agency Experience kind of rad.

In House Experience: You deal with all aspects of the design process, except many times, you have to follow a set of Brand Standards, you work a set amount of time every week, you get insurance after 6 months, and you can’t drink on the clock, but boozing with the Boss on Friday is totally cool.

Freelance: You deal with all aspects of the design process, wear pajamas, and could drink/get high, but you’ll be too busy doing work at all hours of the day and night. You don’t get health insurance, but soon there may be a Public Option.

My last little bit on this subject is that, yes, by their definition, I do not have “Agency Experience”. And if everyone is asking for “Agency Experience”, then how do I get it?

I’d love to open this up to discussion, mainly because I feel that I may be missing something from the equation, and I like to take every chance to learn.

Next post: Years of Experience vs. Knowledge, and why the kid who has been ripping off tutorials for years gets a job before me.

I have been without a steady job now for over a month, slowly creeping up on two, and I have been told that I should write about my experience of looking for work, and how frustrating it actually is. That being said, there will be a lot of venom in the following paragraphs, and most likely with some rude language, but nothing too bad.

They want me to write from my heart, and to be completely truthful to myself, and to you.

I have actually decided to write this in parts, this first part is about applying and not hearing back, a constant problem and issue for people who are unemployed.

2 months ago next week, like many people in this country, I was laid off from my job at U-Haul. Unlike many people, I’m not angry about it. I loved my job. For those who don’t know, I worked there as a web and graphics designer, working on internal and external websites, along with large vehicle print advertisement, brochures, flyers, and all sorts of promotional materials for sub-companies within U-Haul.

And since then, I have been applying like a madman, sending out resumes and cover letters every single day. Honestly, I have lost count of how many companies I have applied to, but I know by now it has breached 100.

And out of that, I have had 1 interview. 1. And sadly, a fantastic job that I lost simply because the other candidate had built a website for a school.

That hurts a lot, but that particular cloud actually has a silver lining, more on that later.

On that subject though, it’s aggravating that out of 100 or so cover letters, I have heard back from maybe 10% of those companies. Now, out of that, most of the e-mails were “sorry, but…” letters, which honestly, I don’t mind. It’s kind and simple to sit back and write a tiny “thank you”. For the companies, firms, agencies that do that, you are the good ones, and I know that some of you will be reading this blog, and you know who you are. Thank you.

Now, for the rest, you all can bite a bag of dicks. Especially after I send you three follow-up e-mails about the position.

But to be honest, it comes with the territory. You should expect to not hear from many companies, but it’s a pain in the ass when you spend 3-4 hours crafting the perfect cover letter for a company, only to never hear from them again. It destroys you, and breaks your spirit, even further than when you initially lost your job.

I can see why many people in the country have simply given up looking for work. It is incredibly hard to be constantly turned down, or to have no correspondence back at all.

However, I am not one of those people. I keep applying, everyday, to multiple firms and companies across the country, even including snippets that say that I want the job so badly, I didn’t need re-location assistance. I tap into everything that they want in a job, and I include samples, my resume, links to my site, everything that proves that I would be an excellent addition to their company. I’ve even called a few companies, but most of them don’t “want phone calls, please.”.

So what do I do? I continue.

Next post will be about job searching, and the myth of “agency experience”.

I will be writing a post about my experience in Corporate design, and the future for me.

Brandon is an interesting sort of person. I’ve known him since I was roughly 14, and we’ve pretty much stuck together our entire lives. Recently, he entered a “job transition”, that will hopefully be all cleared up by August 10th, but in order to pass the time, he has decided to embrace his artistic side, which I find completely awesome.

So he has a list of projects, some of which he has invited me to come work on, these include:

• painting a 4′x6′ panel
• him getting a car for under $500, and us doing graffiti on it
• taking the same car and either glossing it super white for White board markers, or
• (better) painting the car with chalkboard paint

All of these are incredible creative, and awesome. So I started to think to myself ” I have a ton of crazy ideas, why not get these down?”, so here’s my list.

• Re-do a font I created in college, add ligatures, change the name, and release it to the League of Moveable Type, an organization that seeks Open-Source fonts.
• Join the board of AIGA Arizona. I feel that joining the board will give me some awesome connections, and the ability to share creativity in a greater arena.
• Try to do at least 1 creative project for myself a week. I started this week with that “What The Fuck” poster I made earlier. I figure, I can do something like this every week.
• Screen Print. First thing, the “What The Fuck” design, because I think it would look totally rad.
• Customize more toys, including a big Munny. I’ve got three 4″ Munny’s done, and I think I can move onto a larger one.
• See what I can do with Augmented Reality. The concepts and what people do with it simply astound me.

And that’s it for now. I’m sure there’s more, but for now, that’s good.

Later.