Just in case anyone thinks I’m unfairly maligning old, stale designers, today’s comic was actually meant to follow this one. Then Bierut had to go and redesign Guitar Hero and throw my shit off track, but here we are again.

It’s been a while since anyone’s accused me of “not getting it,” but I can admit that last week’s strip about DriftCreate went over about as well as ordering a hamburger at a Hindu wedding (try it sometime). The only thing I really want to say here is: let’s not confuse searching for a punch-line with not getting a thing. Believe me, I get the thing. I do. But the thing has a bit of a dark side to it, even though it may not be immediately apparent. Anyone who reasonably thinks that $200 is a good price for a logo design is either a.) Playing Graphic Designer the way children play House, because they obviously aren’t running a full-time business, or b.) a part of the fabric of everything that is wrong with our industry.

I do not think those guys fall into the “B” category, for the record. And the flip-side of “A” is that, by-and-large, most designers running full-time businesses don’t want to work with clients who only want to pay $200 for a company logo. Most of those clients don’t respect what we do as a profession. So, in a way, doing that kind of work quickly and then hitting the open road may be the perfect way to deal with them. If you’ve moved on to a new city or town, you certainly won’t be around to deal with them next week when they want a website for $50.

The very specific point where the thing becomes dark is in the offhand situation where a small, local designer would lose a paying job that he or she made a reasonable bid on because someone showed up and offered to do it for way, way less.

That being said, I present you with the work of the very two guys who totally get the thing, in response to the previous comic:

Well played, Drift. Cheers.