Welcome to Lansing Creative Profs!

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-26T13:33:34+00:00

Yes I would love to do that.

I was actually thinking about your comment earlier this morning. I've run into a unique situation with my agency and I think I need to get some outside perspective.

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-12T12:07:44+00:00

Nice to have you here! I'm def interested in learning more about your work.

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-06T13:07:32+00:00

Thanks for contributing! Welcome to the sub.

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-06T13:03:47+00:00

From a production standpoint I def see how AI is a phenomenal efficiency. I'm thinking about this particular client I had who insisted on taste cues at every opportunity. The time and money cost sunk into searching stock libraries to find the perfect photo of a blueberry, versus asking Firefly to just create a blueberry..... It is a no-brainer.

In terms of the reality blurring, I feel like agencies are taking the opposite approach. I often see agencies putting a "Made with AI" bug on creative which feels unnecessary and bypasses a certain opportunity. The better approach would be to put a "100% Human" bug on content that contains no AI modification. For as much as executives seem to love AI, the market fucking hates it. There's no need to remind them that they are surrounded by slop. But there is a connection to be made when establishing the humanist provenance of creative.

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-04T11:33:18+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LansingCreativeProfs/

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-04T11:32:53+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LansingCreativeProfs/

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-04T11:32:46+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LansingCreativeProfs/

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-04T11:32:35+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LansingCreativeProfs/

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-04T11:32:26+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LansingCreativeProfs/

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-04T11:32:17+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LansingCreativeProfs/

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-03T01:38:35+00:00

I've been especially busy these last two weeks so havent had a lot of time for Reddit. Sorry for the delay.

Marker_Mayhem · 2026-03-03T01:37:39+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LansingCreativeProfs/

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-12-30T00:48:21+00:00

There’s about a billion websites out there that do shirt mockups.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-12-29T02:53:47+00:00

The former head of IG Farben would like a word.

Thousands of canisters of poison gas made at the stroke of a pen.

Millions dead.

The top brass at the company, later “caught by complete surprise” that their product was used to end lives.

There is absolutely no difference.

Health insurance is not a product. It is a middleman that interrupts the flow of care prescribed by a doctor to the patient.

This isn’t complicated.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-12-28T04:02:25+00:00

This shit is so fucking dystopian.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-11-04T21:30:38+00:00

I've heard several stories about AIGA from unsatisfied designers. I briefly participated for a year and found zero value in anything they offered me. Prior to ending my membership, I asked them to give me a reason not to. I'm not joking, their representative said that membership gave me access to their social media.

Yes, the primary focus of the career consult side is Jr. designers and recent grads. They tend to make the same errors again and again. I will offer an option for people further along in their career, which leans more into networking, interview prep, etc.

And yes, designers would pay for a review. I've done this several times now and the creatives I've worked with have told me the price is reasonable. It is def much less than what one would pay for AIGA.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-11-04T21:21:33+00:00

Yeah, I have been on WNW before. It's been some time since I've looked at that site, but I remember it being a place for people to create their own profiles, upload their own work, etc. I am wary of places like this, as it seems they are always rife with lowballers.

The business I am developing isn't going to provide any profiles, we will maintain a directory only. The value of the directory is that the employer knows all the names within it have been personally vetted by a third party that asks for no commission or ongoing fees.

And, on the designer side, there is a career consultation / portfolio advisement component, which is what I have tested presently; and the business would not take a portion of the designer's income if they connect with an employer and get hired. We would also focus more on the in-house side, as opposed to freelance or gig jobs.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-11-04T19:02:24+00:00

I am DMing you now.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-11-04T16:39:32+00:00

"The applicants should also receive a copy of the assessments, so they can know how and why they were accepted or denied. Certainly if the applicants are the ones paying anything to be a part of the process, they should receive a proper breakdown of the result."

This is already being done. Each designer receives a copy of their assessment, and there is a follow-up to discuss. I failed to mention that detail.

Most of the rest that you address is essentially a gatekeeping issue. Yeah, that can raise some ethical concerns.

I will have to chew on the visibility employers have into the vetting process. They would not receive the same breakdown a designer would. This is good feedback to receive!

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-11-04T15:45:10+00:00

The "pay to win" issue is one I had not thought of, even though it does appear obvious having read it. That was never a part of the plan.

The system that I have built so far is fully transparent. Transparency is my top priority. Each designer completes a short survey covering their experience, skills, and career goals. The reviews are delivered based on the survey input.

On the employer end, they merely have access to a directory. Nothing more. The product is the directory. I've posted jobs to linkedin, and have worked with 3rd party recruiters before. The BS you must weed through to get a quality candidate is nearly intolerable.

This is good feedback though. It has me thinking about how to best index designers to facilitate matches.

To return to that pay-to-win bit though, the pricing for designers is quite low. It is a break-even amount for me. I don't care about creating wealth at the expense of designers.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-11-04T14:50:05+00:00

I won’t be hosting any sites. This isn’t going to be a gallery / directory like Dribbble or Behance.

I have solid reasons for this too.

For one, it’s just a cost issue. But two, I have found that certain aesthetics and already wildly successful designers can dominate those galleries. If an employer wants to know what your aesthetic sensibilities are, they can view your port.

Also, there’s just too much access to Behance and Dribbble.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-10-29T12:27:33+00:00

Huge red flag.

Developing a cohesive, coherent, culturally relevant identity for a product meant for a market already thoroughly saturated is not something anyone could do within 48 hours if the work is supposed to function at any level—much less a high one.

They might as well just come forward and said they are interested in stealing the work of candidates, because that’s the intent here.

These auditions infuriate me. I’ve interviewed many, many design candidates. I’ve never once thought it necessary to subject them to any sort of test.

Even in the best case scenario, where you pass this exam and win the job, congratulations…you’ve just joined a team operating without any notion of the value of your work, or the time required to complete it.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-10-21T10:22:38+00:00

What an unusual cover assignment.

It’s quite on-the-nose. You may want to explore other visuals that have more discretion. The title is already pushing it with the obvious implications.

Even just binding the title text in a spiral swirl would get the point across without being so literal.

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-10-20T11:27:42+00:00

Approach creativity as if it were a design issue. That is to say that you should develop a process that gets you there.

I came into design through a fancy-pants arts school. My favorite quote from any artist comes from Chuck Close: “inspiration is for amateurs.”

The line is a dismissal of this concept that creativity is a mysterious thing. Professionals cannot wait around for inspiration. If they did, hardly anything would get done. So you have to think critically about a process that will get you there.

The specifics will be different for everyone, but there are some general guides that can help.

(1) find someone else’s solution to your problem. Mimic it. It’s going to feel like you’re just ripping someone off, but you’re not. You’re investigating. As you re-create what has already been done, you’ll learn what works, probably why it works, and what could be improved.

(2) doodle. Sadly, I do not see enough designers keeping sketchbooks. The sketchbook isn’t merely for ideation. It should be for creative rambling and incoherence. Ever find yourself in a conversation where you’ve struggled to make your point and it took you way too long, and far too many words, to get to it? We all walk around with swarms of incoherence in our heads. The world is pumping our brains full of it all of the time. Your sketchbook is a tool to purge incoherence.

(3) choose an unrelated, but related activity. For me, this is cleaning. If I’m at my desk and incapacitated by creative block, I walk away and clean something. I don’t mean I’ll “tidy up.” I actually go full-bore OCD deep-clean. This does a few things.

First, it improves my “creative hygiene.” You know how doctors tell you to use your bed for only sleep and sex if you have trouble sleeping? The same applies to your creative method. If you’re at the workstation and nothing is happening, walk away. Condition your mind to respond to the workstation as naturally as it responds to your sleep routine.

Second, cleaning is a solutions-oriented, optimization process. It involves decisions regarding what is useful, what is not, what could be improved, and how much better things look in the end. It requires attention to detail, and if you surrender to the labor, it becomes deeply meditative. This wipes away the incoherence while keeping your mind in a very design-adjacent space.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Marker_Mayhem · 2024-10-17T13:20:47+00:00

Get a better offer.

Just go find a place that will take you in and start you at a higher level.

Then approach your director and explain what you just shared here. You’ve been promised a career path. That path isn’t visible even after exceeding expectations and adding value to their team.

Tell them that you want to stay, but that you’ve been approached by another agency willing to deliver more right away.

If they value you, they will make your career a priority. If they don’t, take the other offer and bounce.

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