I Got Printed

One of the most interesting aspects of working at a startup company is the way employees are pressed and expected to be multi-faceted. Wearing a different hat everyday is something fairly unique to web development, and something that has definitely kept the field interesting for me. So imagine my lack of surprise when the boss commissioned me to create a full-page print advertisement for the American Marketing Associations’ Marketing Management publication.

Working in the print world is something I have very little exposure to. I appreciate the pixel-precision you can achieve when working in this medium, something you don’t get to experience much in the world of multiple browsers and user environments that is web design. With that said, allow me to vent my frustration with what is quite possibly the most difficult program in the world to use: Adobe Illustrator. There is something completely unnatural about the way I work in this software. I am sure if I sat down with some manuals for a couple of hours I could figure it all out, but I am really a plug-and-play guy these days. I just want it to work how I think it should work!

Update: I upgraded to Adobe Illustrator CS2, and I take back every bad thing I said about it. This new version is absolutely flawless.

Anyway, I never considered myself a particularly strong designer. I have a good sense of what looks nice (the designer’s eye), but I have trouble sometimes coming up with truly creative, non-derivative visual ideas. This is something I am working on slowly by exposing myself to truly amazing visual artists such as Chuck Anderson, AntiGirl, or Jon Hicks. Coming from a programming background, I find it frustrating that the programmer/designer communities are so disjoint. I think the experience I gain in both camps will help me bridge the gap between design and technical aspects of projects which will ultimately rely on the harmonization of both.

So, the print ad that I created was published in the July/August issue of Marketing Management on the inside of the back cover, full page. The magazine has a relatively small distribution of around 40,000, so I doubt you would find it on newstands anywhere. Plus, who wants to read about marketing management anyway?

Click here to see the ad that I created. Although a bit scary, this was a great excercise for me and I hope to do more print work in the future.