1. No Matter What Masterpiece You Produce, Someone's Gonna Rip It
Opinions are like a**holes. Everyone has one. - Dirty Harry Callahan, The Dead Pool
Everyone has an opinion. In the old days, it was mostly carried by word of mouth and letters to the editor of the local newspaper. Now its presented for the world to see on the Web, through the medium of Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Emilys List, and hundreds of other review sites. Some sites (like this one) have commentary sections right below their content, where reasoned discussion is invited and encouraged. Unfortunately, reasoned discussion is rather hard to come by. The ability to remain anonymous on the Internet has enabled everyone with an ax to grind to spout their venom for all to see. Or, as the popular phrase has it, haters gonna hate. And they can do so, knowing that its very unlikely that they will be held personally accountable for their angry outbursts. You may have busted your butt getting a project ready for a client. You may look at it as one of your proudest moments as a designer. You may be posting links and screencaps to your own website, showing off your work. And then some mouth-breather posts a comment that relegates your hard work to the level of whale crap. If it only stopped there. Thanks to social media, that mouth breather can post his opinion to hundreds of places, some of which might contain potential clients, but who are now wary of contacting you for potential work. All because one idiot's praise mechanism was broken when he didn't get what he wanted for Christmas when he was a kid and now he feels the need to piss over everything someone else creates. What do you do? You repeat Dirty Harrys mantra and continue on. What issues have you come across when designing products for clients? Let us know in the comments!
