In-House Designers: 37 Ways to Get Fired

ADOPT BAD DESIGN HABITS

30. Pay more attention to the brand than your audience.
It’s all about the logo and the brand style guide. Who cares if the design resonates with your company’s customers or not?

31. Don’t worry about whether the piece is printable or not.
That’s the printer’s problem.

32. Don’t be concerned about whether the design meets the client’s objectives.
Focus only on whether it will be a good piece for your portfolio.

33. Forget about marketing materials compliance—or any compliance for that matter.
These inane policies are a waste of your time and take the fun out of design. If the company gets sued, the lawyers will handle it. That’s what they’re paid for.

34. Abuse your vendors.

35. Don’t stay current on your design software.
Fall behind your peers in your understanding of the applications you work on every day. Your co-workers can always open your legacy files and, if the fonts and images convert incorrectly, well, that’s their problem.

BE ARROGANT AND APATHETIC

36. Always, always make everyone else wrong and let everyone else know that you’re right.
This applies to your company, your co-workers, fellow designers, managers, upper management and clients—and for an added effect, apply it to your family and friends, too. Nothing you can do is more effective at angering people and making you a pariah than asserting your rightness and everyone else’s wrongness.

37. Be apathetic.
Have absolutely no passion for your craft, your peers, your company or your job. Know you should be someplace better than where you are right now.

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