Paying Your Dues

Interviews from the Edge, Epiphanies and Wake-up Calls that Beg You to Ask “How Did I Ever Make It Out Alive”.

I’m a little excited as I try to recall the most forgettable moments of my art career. It’s a bit like reminiscing late at night with friends and laughing over a few beers. Now that I work so much, I don’t have any more friends, so I’ll just share these gems with all of you.

I recall some very dark days searching for jobs and trying to make a living as a graphic designer. In light of current economic conditions, some of you may be having a difficult time finding full-time (or any-time) employment as a designer and will no doubt be discouraged; thinking you’re a no-talent wannabe. Well, I hope the following true accounts of my most depressing experiences might inspire you not to give up. Can you top these tales of woe?

• You’ve Got to be Kidding Me: There was a time when I told everyone that I was a “freelance artist”, but I was actually jobless and destitute. Just out of art school, I was living in a house with seven guys and managed to scrape together $165 a month for rent by doing odd jobs, one of which was working for my roommate’s cleaning business. He paid me $4 an hour to help him clean offices between 2:00AM and 6:00AM. A low point for me was when we showed up at one of his client’s offices which was the home of a well-known ad agency in town. Instead of working at one of these art director’s desks myself, I was vacuuming their floors and emptying their trashcans (I hope nobody sees me). Stealing chocolate-chip cookies from the kitchen morning after morning made me feel a little better.

• Just Shoot Me Now and Get it Over With: One of my first “design” jobs out of school came about when a creative placement company hooked me up with a production job at a “magazine publisher” that paid slightly above minimum wage. I arrived my first day at work and found the organization to be a sweatshop in someone’s garage where people put together a real estate rag… you’ve seen them, catalogs full of house pictures with captions underneath. It was a typical hot and humid summer in Fort Lauderdale, no air conditioning and nobody spoke English. I was there less than a week then went back to stealing cookies.

• Interview from Hell: I was interviewing for an art director job, when to my detriment, I did not really understand what an art director actually did (though I knew it had something to do with art). The interviewer looked at my portfolio and asked me “How long have you been designing?” I said “About five years”, and he said in the most polite way possible, “I’ve seen people with less experience than you show much better work than this”. After confessing that I just moved to Boston and really did not know what I was doing, he kindly directed me to the storyboard department where he thought they could use me as an illustrator. They did not. The studio director seemed like nice guy, too, but I’m sure they convened shortly after I left to blaspheme my likeness with hand-drawn caricatures.

• Interview from Hell Reprise: After giving up (temporarily, of course) on finding a design job in Boston, I applied for a busboy position at a national restaurant chain that I had worked for in Florida. Confident I would easily get a position with my hot “45-second table turn-over” skills, I mentioned to the interviewer I was really a graphic designer. He laughed and said, “Oh, my entire line of cooks are graphic designers, too!” I thought to myself, “Oh, great… losers just like me… only they had an income”. Boston was tough on designers at the time, but I did not even get a callback for a busboy job.

• Client from Mars: One of my first freelance clients was a well-to-do owner of a “design studio” with offices in her home. She would always greet me at the door in her bathrobe and had me do personal errands (perhaps another story for another time). My last project for her was a logo design for a commercial builder. I submitted the final art, which she and her client loved. I also submitted my invoice. Six weeks later, I submitted a past due notice. Another past due notice went out a month later. In the end, I never got paid. I decided not to pursue it and wrote it off as a loss. A few years later, I bought a copy of “The Artist’s & Graphic Designer’s Market”, a popular directory of freelance art buyers. To my astonishment, one of the publication’s featured designers was my deadbeat client, and what was her showcased piece? My logo design… credited to her. God bless America’s privileged class.

• Interview from the Edge: I was called in to interview for a senior book designer position at a prestigious university publisher in Boston. The design director was very impressed with me. I dressed well, I had a great book that showed my experience in educational publishing and I talked the talk. I mentioned my desire to grow with the company and advance in the ranks when the interview took a weird turn. She looked disgusted at me and asked, “What do you mean by ‘advance’? … (awkward pause)… that would mean taking MY job!” She was visibly shaken and already curious to know how much I wanted to make. I proposed a salary figure that equally shocked her. She smugly responded, “Apparently, you are not that familiar with the educational publishing market”. I left the interview completely dazed… skewered for doing everything right and not wanting to work for free. Sometimes, I guess you just can’t win.

But, all turned out well in the end. After a few temporary setbacks, I eventually found work as a designer and built a very rewarding career. In the face of these discouraging experiences, I just never imagined myself not having a job as an artist.

I’m sure everyone has their “worst career moments ever” stories and I would bet they are even scarier then mine because it’s such a jungle out there… please share.

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