I would suggest robbing liquor stores or banging nails. The work is hazardous but you get to be your own boss–at least if you do the robbing liquor stores thing.

I once went to visit a friend who works at a small high tech engineering firm. He introduced me to his boss who asked me what I did for work. I told him I was carpenter/handyman. He said that he always had work of that sort that needed to be done. I told him if he had about $25-30/hour that I was his man. I never heard from him, I was happy not to.

Working for nothing is a good way to make other folks happy.

Mysteriously, I received a call from one bank of which I have 2 cards with a balance. The call came on the day of the stress tests. This bank offered to cut my rate from over 25% to 5% AND they cut my monthly minimum fee in half. I suggest you call the credit card people and see what they can do.

I’ve reduced the first card, Citibank to half of what was owed. They also cut my APR rate in half. Not as good as the one previously mentioned, but it’s a good start.

I do think that we have let this happen to ourselves to a point. I think most of us have bid and lost a job to a newbie that’s trying to come out by charging $20 an hour – 90% of these Newbies came out of some hack skim program that takes people on wether they have talent, teaches them just enough to lower the collective perception of designers. These people are just around long enough to make our lives miserable. My main printer recently called to see if I could help one of these clowns with pre-press on a job – what!!!!! If this kid came out of a decent program he’d know what he was doing!!! Every other job where skills are important, have internships i.e. Architects – even Interior Designers – Where did we go wrong and how do we fix it! One: these Hack schools have to be exposed for what they are. Two: Every region needs to have a accreditation process for membership to the freakin club.
and the members have to attend monthly meetings where they can have it drilled into their f’n heads that you don’t work for free, and you don’t work for what you couldn’t live on once you get out of you parent’s basement!!!! otherwise get a job at Quick Copy!!!

Thanks! That felt awesome!
Mark from canada

For example, I was listening to a local podcast – the topic at hand was indie recording artists (I hate that term, FYI – “Bitch alert!”) and the interviewer asked a handful what they would do if a major label came calling. And more than half of them said they would listen to what the label had to offer, but more than likely would turn them down because of creative control. It’s the same thing with visual artists.

For example, in the past I’ve been asked to do logo design. A client comes to me with their company name and I go to work. Then after 3 -5 proposals, I’m usually met with “oh, can you do ____ and ____ and _____” — these are usually edits that totally wreck the logo and leave it devoid of any simplicity and/or elegance. BUT it’s not my logo and nobody will know I did it as my name is not on the logo.

Kat, you never ramble to me. You usually hit the nail on the head. Thanks for dropping in.

But I know what you’re thinking and saying. Along with part of that I have been thinking for the last while that the surest way to kill any spark of creativity is to do corporate design work. And I say that as someone who used to do corporate design work. It’s good training for basic layout and photoshop skills but it doesn’t really nurture the creative spark in the same way that Patronage used to.

And here’s where I admit that I know there’s a problem but the only solution I see to the problem involves trading up for a bigger problem. All of our most creative times in the arts were under some form of subsidy–church or private entity. We can’t get those days back unless somebody underwrites talent.

As far as economics go–I can’t think of a more worthless body of knowledge. It’s all theory. Any economist will tell you that. Much of our current crisis is in fact attributable to cabals of economists using the public as a petri dish to test their various theories. I have no doubt that the average plumber might have more common sense than the average economist.

Which brings it around to my other comment on your point. It is possible to overnurture “talent” and in so doing obliterate common sense. It’s the same with economists, climatologists, ministers and attorneys. Because we’ve created a society that esteems knowledge and derides labour we’ve managed to elevate a class of people that often has little practical worth to the community insofar as “can they make a tangible good?”

Boy, excuse the rambling. You just touched on a bunch of stuff I’ve been mulling over.