Well, I finally watched this movie. I wanted to see how they actually portrayed a graphic designer in this movie. The timid designer turned super hero wasn’t a great portrayal, but not as damaging as one of her lines in the movie. If think her answer is in response to someone asking “Patience” if she is happy. Her reply is something on the lines of . . . What do you think? I am the practical application (graphic design) of my passion(art) . . . She is an artist not a graphic designer. The movie has been misrepresented in the previews. I am an artist and graphic designer, but I do not see graphic design as the practical application of my art. Of course they cross over, but they are two different things. In the end Patience is a painter who is supporting herself through graphic design. I couldn’t imagine a worse portrayal of a graphic designer. I have worked with artists who just do graphic design to support their art, but I think they are in the minority and usually not that successful. Thank you Catwoman for perpetuating the myth of “Commercial Artist”.

The only good thing is that it would be hard to take this movie seriously. The characters are hardly developed and the plot is week. Luckily the movie didn’t do to well and critics blasted it.

Although people don’t directly work in practices that resemble professional graphic design daily / regularly, I know the mass public is far more familiarized and attuned to marketing / advertising concerns and has been logoed so steadily that they also have a general sense of what does and doesn’t strike them very much.

I’m sure if each of us had a nickel for every DIY card with a homespun logo on them we’d have a healthy side income going – it’d be nice to see some of those urges promoted in truer / better directions than the Apprentice competitions or something similar.

Not everyone wants to design a logo and looks at a blank piece of paper all day.

Just food for thought.

We’re only ever going to find the “what people kind-of think something is like” version of a profession in any of this programming – even the interior design that’s displayed on most of these is fairly surface-level at best. Anyone really worth their salt in terms of engineering an interior is probably looking at most of this with the same eye of disdain that we keep viewing the graphic design moments with…

Not having seen enough of the show to adequately use the reference, I wonder how “Monster Chopper” any graphic design feature would become – and as much as all of our hearts might glow a bit to see some major PMS number dropping and serious typographic consideration pop-up on ABC primetime, how long would it be before the novelty wore off for us and for the viewers…All of that is interesting to those that pursue the craft and seemingly overly anal and inconsequential to many outside of it (regardless of how much people are truly affected by the outcome of those processes).

For everyone who’s willing to give up a half-hour to watch big-personality “designers” slop paint on the walls of a homeowner just begging for a makeover, there’s likely only 1 in 25 viewers that would make the same time to watch Charles & Ray Eames draw the schematics to their home or decipher the tension points on a plywood chair…The former experience will always and only be a facsimile of the real thing while the second will fully be that thing – and who wants real when “real” is so much more expedient and colorful?

On a positive note, at least the final products sucked… which is no surprise when suits try to art direct.

The wheel idea was at least somewhat original… but again… how do you make something look finished in 24 hours?

In a word: LAME