Really, there’s no need to introduce: Ryan (liquisoft) or at least I don’t think so. Ryan is an inspiration to any aspiring designer so we decided to ask him to tell us about his “day in the life” as a creative individual.

The following takes place from 7:30am – 5:30pm. This is the “day in the life" of a creative.


7:30AM: Wake up, eat some breakfast, get dressed, head out the door by 8:15

8:30AM: Arrive at the agency. Check e-mail, browse a handful of websites, and get into "working mode." Jason turns on some music, which bugs me a bit but is infinitely more palatable than the barbershop music that was playing the week prior.

9:00AM: Begin working on the 3rd conceptual web layout for a client. This layout is different from the previous ones, as we've adopted a sort of "web 2.0" style for it (notably the exact opposite of the other concepts we had). Although I'm not usually a fan of adopting design trends into my work, this client seems like he needs this particular style to succeed in his business plan. I'm also using Vag Rounded as headline type, which I've never bothered to use before (mostly out of fear of looking too much like TBS).

9:30AM: Have a little discussion with Jason and Kim about the poor design direction a client is trying to push us with a logo. We've made probably 100 different, conceptually strong logos and the client continues to try to push us towards a crappy and conceptually poor direction. In fact, the client "made" what they thought was a great logo and showed it to us. It was more of a business card than it was a logo, and so we attempted to make a compromise that sort of resembles Gumby. We also discussed a rich client of ours; an old man with a huge wallet and an ego to match. We've been building a book for him (a book about himself), and the printing hasn't been coming out the way we had wanted it to. So, we've been having to do some massive adjustments to the imagery in the book in order for the press quality to match what we want.

9:50AM: Print and mount some logos we built for a living community. These are older versions of the concepts we initially proposed. I'm not sure why we need these, but they needed to be mounted (probably to remind the client how much we've done for them).

10:00AM: Get back to that web design I was working on. I'm debating whether or not I'd like to insert photos into the photo placeholders. Oh look! I just got a nice spam e-mail! The day is already looking up!

10:05AM: Megan comes by and asks me to make changes to this e-mail design we're making for a client. It's sort of an e-mail invitation that needs to look nicer than typical e-mails, so I built the thing using CSS. I guess the text has changed, so I need to go and change that and send it over.
Jason realizes he needs Lucida Sans Unicode for a file he was sent, and it turns out I have it from another client who was using it. So, I send it on over.

10:10AM: Microsoft Word in Macs SUCKS! God this is slow. After it finally opens, I edit the email design. Why am I editing it in MS Word and not something like Dreamweaver? Well, the original design was built in Dreamweaver, but I open it in Word in order to be able to actually make it into an email that can be sent through Entourage just like a standard e-mail. Believe it or not, there is no other way to do this (that I have found).

10:20AM: Okay, back to that web-design. I show it to Todd (my creative director) and he has some suggestions. Change the headline colors from black to a warmer tone, change a flat icon to a more rendered-looking icon, and add some reflection to a button. Not too much work.

10:40AM: Have a discussion with Jason about web-related confinements, mostly in regards to resolution restrictions. He is trying to build a concept for a client's website, but has some questions about what he can and can't do. I'll be keeping track of what he develops so we can make sure it's actually plausible.

11:00AM: Back to that web-design. I spend some time altering the header colors a bit more. I was initially going for a gray tone, but it seemed a bit too cold, so I went with a gray-brown tone that works will against the greens and cyan’s of the design.

11:10AM: Spend a little while browsing the web, looking at websites. Most jobs would scold you for looking at websites, but for me it's job research. deviantART always somehow finds its way into my daily browsing routine.

11:50AM: I guess the brown headlines are out. Going back to a dark green, but a little more faded (got to stay within hex values). I'm printing out the 3 concepts that were approved, and now they're going to go around the company for proofing (just to make sure everything that needs to be on the design is there).

12:15PM: Printed everything out, but Todd wants me to change the bright red on one of the designs to a darker, brick red. No prob!

12:42PM: Getting a bit hungry, so I'm off to go grab some lunch. No idea what I'll get, but everybody in the studio is too busy to go out today. Looks like I'm eating lunch by myself, this afternoon. It's fine, though, since I usually surf the internet (which is a series of tubes).

1:50PM: When I finish lunch, I am greeted by a Project Brief for a new website we're building. I've already built up the wireframes for this website design, and they were approved (by the client) earlier today. This project brief now outlines more details about the design and the exact content for the site. It's a 13-page document written in Arial at 14pt, and I get to read all of it. Oh what fun!

2:00PM: Megan asks me to fix a typo in that e-mail design I adjusted earlier. Typo fixed, back to reading the Project Brief.

2:15PM: After I've finished reading and re-reading the Project Brief, which was worded in a somewhat confusing way, I speak to Todd about the direction we want to head on the site design. This site is for a non-profit that is an offshoot of a high-profit company. Basically the CEO is diverting some of his funds to give scholarships and aid to deserving and struggling students. Our communication direction is to reflect the nurturing, caring nature of the foundation and couple it with the no-nonsense attitude of the CEO himself (who is one tough cookie). Situations in which you want to imply caring/nurturing usually call for photography. After all, the best way to communicate that you are a caring entity is to show photos of you caring (or perhaps show happy people). However, I loathe using stock photography because it LOOKS like stock photography. In fact, I've seen some stock photos used on old projects show up in other publications, which is always embarrassing. Photography should be as original and unique as possible, but sometimes it simply doesn't fit into the budgets of clients, and thus we resort to stock photography. So the challenge here is to find some stock photography that evokes the emotions I want, and perhaps make a case for taking original photos of a similar nature.

2:30PM: Had some mail to respond to, and so now I begin doing some research. What do other foundation websites look like? How do they use imagery?

3:00PM: After going through the websites of foundations of all sorts, I have discovered that none of them have attractive websites. They all rely on what could be considered Web 1.0 ware, although some have a little bit of Flash tossed in there for "good" measure. The surf rider foundation has a pretty nice website, but they're not in the same range as the foundation I'm building a website for. I think I'll go play a round of pool by myself. I have to practice so I can beat Dean, the owner of the agency. He's a freaking shark.

3:15PM: Okay, Pool time's over. Now to start building some concepts for this website.

3:20PM: We got a quote back from a programming agency to develop a website based upon our wire frames, and so I need to go over it to make sure they've covered everything in their estimate.

3:25PM: But before I do that, some corrections come back via Julie regarding the earlier website (the one I was working on at the beginning of the day). I answer her questions and send JPEGS of the 3 concepts off to her and Todd for their presentation to the client tomorrow.

3:30PM: Okay, back to reading that quote.

3:40PM: Megan comes by and we discuss the implications of the quote, and how the specs are not meshing with the creative vision we're having for the client's website. Unfortunately it looks like we gave the client an estimate quite some time ago that is seriously low-balling it, and thus limiting what we can do for them creatively. Megan is going to setup a conference call between her, the programming agency, and me tomorrow morning so we can see what can be done without changing the price.

3:50PM: Back to designing concepts for the Foundation website.

3:55PM: More estimates come back from other companies regarding the development thing, so I need to read over those. Afterwards, I have a conversation with Megan regarding the estimates and which developer we should go with, and why they're the best bet. We also spend some time scoffing at the ridiculous estimates given to us by one developer company, who wanted 3 times the amount of money as was quoted by another developer (and for less work).

4:30PM: Now I'm back to that Foundation website. I spend some time working out different ways of communicating the warmth that needs to be on the site, and coupling it with the no-nonsense solid personality of the CEO of the company. Nothing is really flowing for today, though, so I'll pick it up tomorrow morning.

5:25PM: We're all sick of working, so Todd, Jason and I go out for some drinks after work. We officially get off at 5:30, but whatever.

End of Day: After drinks at a nearby restaurant & bar, I go home and have dinner with my wife. The remainder of the day is spent relaxing with the wife and pets. I hit the hay at about 11PM, only to wake up at 7 the next morning and do it all again.



Do you have any questions you’d like to ask liquisoft? Well, on August 13th liquisoft will be in a featured chat on dAMN in #designerscouch. Which is Today