# of projects i'm currently wrangling: 63.

Creative directors, art directors, and especially clients will perseverate on details like this, so make sure the details are there.... there's a wall on my attic bedroom with a paint job that'd make a professional painter cringe with horror -- i didn't feel like trying to perch my not inconsiderable weight on a very narrow ledge, just to fill a half-inch gap.... i cook meals like this, which is why i'm a lousy baker -- if the recipe calls for baking something at 500 degrees for 50 minutes, at minute 45, i'll open the oven, look at it, and say, 'ehh, screw it, it's good enough.'

But let's look at what goes into making someone a graphic designer, as opposed to a production artist, or your Aunt Mildred who loves to photoshop birthday hats onto photos of her cats.... They understand line, texture, color, shape, form, value, and size, and how to put them together to achieve contrast, unity, balance, rhythm, movement, and emphasis.... I ask them not to be an intimidating interviewer (though that doesn't hurt); I ask them because I want to weed out the people who are only cut out to be production artists.