That’s right. It stinks. It looks like some bad clip art got in a fight and animated itself. And what is with the filters? Just because they are in Photoshop, doesn’t mean you have to use them. I really don’t think that a glow, a bevel, and a negative filter are all necessary. If anyone tells you that it looks good, they are lying to spare your feelings. Trust me, I am telling you the truth. It is awful. You need some professional help.

It is with this sort of blunt response that I am approaching more and more people as they ask me for feedback on the awful websites and logos that they try to design on their own. I have stopped sparing their feelings and started being brutally honest. I am taking a stand as a designer and I am not going to gladhand people anymore. They need to know the truth, and this bad design epidemic has to come to an end. I know that I can’t cure the world of bad design simply by being brutally straightforward with them, but I am done pulling punches when people ask me what I think of their FrontPage/MS Paint hack-jobs.

That being said, there is one sentence that sums up my experience in the freelance design world. One string of words that, no matter how many times I hear it, leaves me speechless and cringing with pain.

“Why would I pay someone to make a website for me when I can just do it myself”.

Just typing it makes my brain hurt. I’m telling you, if I had a penny for each time I have heard that phrase, I would be able to retire comfortably and never worry about freelancing ever again.

Shortly after leaving design school I learned that design is like no other profession or skill in the world. It defies explanation and logic, but for some reason, design is the only talent that everyone thinks that they possess. How many times have you seen a random piece of art at a museum, or on tv, or in a park, only to hear some bufoon say something along the lines of “I could have done that!”. Now I will admit, that in some isolated cases that statement may partially hold true. There are in fact some forms of abstract minimalist art that seem as though anyone could have done them. But I am talking about the other 99% of art out in the world that exists outside of the museum and the park. The business cards in your wallet, the cover of the book on your nightstand, the layout of the website that you just came from, or are on your way to. Everyday, functional, commercial art.

Why does every restaurant owner, furniture maker, dentist, modelling scout, and landscaper insist that they have the skill and eye to create and design websites and collateral for their businesses that are both functional and aethsetically pleasing?

If I want a new t-shirt, I go to the Gap. It is what I do. Could I make my own t-shirt? Maybe. I could get some thread, maybe a book on sewing, some material, even a sewing machine if I think I am going to be doing this a lot. I could spend an afternoon sewing and make myself a shirt. Without really doing this, I can tell you that the shirt will look like absolute shit and will not be worth my time. Even if I get it done, which with enough motivation and time is not completely far fetched, I would look rediculous. Walking around wearing this shirt, I would more than likely get lots of funny looks and people would laugh at me and ask me if I lost my chaperone.

Get my point here? Of course I would like to save $20 and make my own shirt. It would make me feel like I was self sufficient and that I didn’t need the Gap and their damn symmetrical shirts with their fancy “neck holes”. But I would look retarded. And people would laugh at me. And it would be a giant waste of my time which I could be spending doing something that I am good at. And I care about my image (don’t call me superficial, you care about yours too). So I buy my shirts at the Gap, and I look good, and the world keeps on movin’ round and round.

Somehow, this simple and accepted logic applies to everything but design. Things like house building, transmission fixing, electronics repair, modern medicine, plumbing, and airplane fying are all things that I decide to leave to the pros on a daily basis. I am guessing most other people do as well. But each day, every jerk with a cracked version of Photoshop becomes a “designer” and sets out to create (or in most cases ruin) their corporate or personal identity online and in print. In the time it is taking me to write this post, hundreds of bad sites are being uploaded, thousands of hit counters are being installed, and midi files and clip art are being downloaded in record numbers. This needs to stop.

It boggles my mind that each time I sit down to sell my services to a potential client, that I am not competing against other designers. My ability or training is rarely an issue, and I am almost never asked about my portfolio or other work that I have done. No one wants to see samples or get references. What they want to know is, why should they pay for this service. They want to know why they should pay me when their cousin (who is a medical assistant) has a copy of FrontPage and said that he can do it for nothing. This is what I am up against and it drives me insane.

Here is a quick list of the top ten worst design mistakes that I see every single day. If any one of these applies to your website, we need to talk. And it won’t be nice.

1. Your site has a hit counter
2. You use scrolling or blinking text
3. You don’t know a gif from a jpeg
4. You use HTML to resize your images
5. You own and use frontpage
6. Your domain name starts with geocities or tripod
7. Bad MIDI music plays when your site loads
8. You use non-standard fonts as regular text
9. You belong to a web ring
10. You have your own domain, but your email address still ends in @aol.com

Before you ruin your image and embarass yourself and your brand, think about hiring a designer to create your corporate identity online and off. It will be worth it in the end. I promise.