Low Expectations

I remember the first shirt I designed. It was for a non-profit organization that was building cabins in the mountains of Georgia for teens. They were having what they called a "Quick Build", this event was a weekend where they had a lot of the local builders, churches, volunteers, etc., helping with building the cabins, trying to get it done in a weekend. I was friends with one of the staff members, so naturally they asked me to design a shirt for them. It was going to be one color on white. So after much back and forth and finally ending up with a hideous design that the project manager was happy with, I sent the design off to the printer. I had included a mock-up of what the design should look like on the shirt. I was never really involved with the printer, so when I finally got to see the shirt the day of the Quick build, I was surprised to see that the design was small on the front of the shirt, unlike my mock-up. I'm not sure where it went wrong. It could have been the screen printer, the visionless project manager or even the set-up of the file. The excitement I had, quickly turned to disappointment.

Now, by nature, I am a recovering perfectionist. What does that mean? Well, I've learned to live with an imperfect world despite my wanting it to be perfect. Maybe you could say that I've lowered my expectations. Some of this comes from living in a computer operated print world - what you see (dream) on the computer, is never what you get. I've actually learned while working on files, how to expect it to look when it prints. Now I'm not trying to sound depressing, I actually see the glass as 3/4 full, hoping that when I go to drink it, it is really a full glass. I still push myself to be the best, whether I am or not, and to get the best job done possible. It's just that I lower the bar with what I expect from other people and machinery. If they go higher, then great, if they hit it, then good. Now this doesn't mean that all of life sucks and that what I see is crap, it's just that I have learned the strengths and limitations of the field.

Sometimes with customers, or designers, they expect something to look one way, and then get it another. It's our job to understand the strengths and weakness of our equipment, software, etc., even ourselves, to design around it, and relay that in an understandable way to the customer.

By-the-way, I still have that shirt, I use it when I mow the grass.