Originally Posted by: faith83

This. I've done a lot of top-level creative work, mostly in Hollywood, but also in other areas, and I've discovered over the years that the only stuff that's really "good" (whatever that means) is the stuff that I do from my heart. The stuff I did because I thought someone else would like it, or because I wanted to make money or feel important, etc., was not my best work. It's hard, though -- because the market drives us to think about whether something is commercial or not.

A good number of years ago, I used to do frellance graphic design for CD/DVD packaging, logos, event posters and movie posters (and some charity stuff too).

When you work for someone else and their vision, it can be a challenge. You're trying to bring someone vision to life. Sometimes they know exactly what they want and sometimes they 'know it when they see it'. What I've I've found is that the smaller the artist, the more control they tended to have.

I'd never worked with anyone 'huge' but I worked a good bit with, for instance, artists who had a career on a major label some years before and maybe even sold a few records. The people who had 'been there' generally seemed open to a little more freeform creativity. When I had to conform to another's vision, it was a negotiation but that's also the nature of the beast.

You also had to have a clause that any design can have 'X' number of alterations or changes. If you don't, you end up in the cycle of a band doing the 'I don't know what I want but I know it when I see it' deal. I learned quickly that if you spend time talking to the band/artist, that takes care of a lot.

The first question I asked them was 'What's your favorite color?'. That either got them to say the color and using that thematically would be cool, or they would tell you a color they really preferred. It's kind of a psychology.

I really only ever got work by referrals so someone that came to me had something of an idea of what I did. If you need an illustration, not me. Sure, I can draw stuff but I'm not an illustrator. I was more in the vein of a Hugh Syme. The guy who did all the Rush records amongst many other.

Anyway, the point here is that when people let me just roll with it, I did better stuff. I rather like a visual play on words. As an example, there was one that I worked on (but never made it anywhere cuz the release never happened), was a release called 'Hung'. The cover was a sephia toned field (near my house) with a tree in the near distance. So I photoshopped a noose hanging from the tree. Not clever? From the nose was hanging a coat hanger. It was a somber looking cover with a little joke within it.

I'll stop rambling now...it got me all going down memory lane.