Editors Soapbox: The Trials and Tribulations of a Graphic Designer

The spinning rainbow wheel of death, carpal tunnel at 24, constant back pain and heated borderline existential debates on which font to use are just a few things that fill the soul of a graphic designer. Let me begin by saying this: I love art and design, or else I wouldn’t be doing it. But please let me have this column to express some frustrations -– it’s cheaper than therapy.

As the Exponent’s lead layout designer, full-time freelancer, owner and designer of a clothing company,  as well as a full-time design student, my days are filled with extreme highs and lows hinged greatly upon details such as whether that blue went with that yellow or if 11 pt font is better than 10.5.  I have to admit, I hate when people ask what my major is. Typically, after I respond with “my major is graphic design,” people respond with “Oh how fun.!” Inside I shrivel and die a little, but outside I give a small smile and say “Yeah”, not letting on the endless pain and un-funness this major can entail.  

Many of my gripes surround the holy Adobe Creative Suite — the main staple in every designer’s workflow. The Adobe Suite costs the general public $52 a month. Lucky for me, a university student, it costs $0 a month or however you want to divide my thousands of dollars of tuition into a mathematical equation to find out that I am probably paying more than that. I won’t be doing that — I’m a design student. I digress…

While the Adobe programs are incredibly powerful there are just a few things I would like to call out. Will this make sense to non-design readers? Most likely not. Are most of these likely user error or easily fixable through five minutes of research? Probably. I don’t have time for that but I do have time to complain. 

For example, Creative Color Libraries? The cloud actually syncing? Yeah, right. For example, one is allegedly supposed to be able to go Adobe Color and sift through community-made color palettes that will best fit your project. You are told to click the button “add to library” and then it will (allegedly) — show up in your Adobe programs for you to take swatches from. The last time this worked for me? 2020.

InDesign, the program primarily used for publication design (i.e. the paper you are reading right now) has its own set of confusing features. For one, a horrible spell check system. Nothing better than producing an entire paper without any form of reliable spelling or grammar check. The Exponent staff has permanent eye damage from scouring the screen and pages for mistakes.

I have unfortunately reached the end of my allotted word count, although I have now realized I can probably write a dissertation about my frustrations. But it’s all ok, I march on. Our professional advisor Bill called me cool at our staff meeting last week so that’s all I needed to keep going. Thanks, Bill. Future Katy: good luck fitting all of this into one column. You’re welcome. Crotchety designer signing off.