// 24 Checkpoint Signs You’re Obsessed with Web/Graphic Design
// Apr 8th, 2008 & filed under Design
We designers, are a sad bunch in many ways (in the eyes of regular people). Particularly web and graphic designers. For us, ’socialising’ is hooking up with someone on Skype!
But hey, can you imagine the world without us? Without structure, function, and all sorts of eye-candy pleasantness?
Nevertheless, maybe you’re concerned about becoming over-the-top and obsessed, and that’s not something you want to inflict upon your loved ones? Here are 24 signs which will help you monitor your ‘design obsession health‘. You may discover you’re already over the edge!
1. You admit that you’d rather meet Jeffrey Zeldman than Samuel L. Jackson (or some other uber cool celebrity).
2. You know what a colour is just by looking at the hex values.
3. You continually point out to your partner which font it is on that packaging, or advertisement, and you just can’t help yourself.
4. You’ve actually watched the documentary film, ‘Helvetica’.
5. You want a daughter instead of a son, because it’s less likely they will be colour blind.
6. You change your name, because no matter what you do, your name just doesn’t look cool on a web site or business card.
7. You dream of the year 2027, when a computer and monitor along with a copy of CS14, will allow you to reach in and manually ‘emboss’.
8. Your kid comes home complaining about the exercise book he was given by the teacher, because there isn’t adequate leading for the size of their handwriting.
9. You keep business cards for what they look like, rather than for the business details.
10. You want ‘Gotham‘ for Christmas.
11. To you, Smashing Magazine is a drug.
12. The objects on your desk fit to a grid.
13. As much you may need a holiday away with your partner, and away from work, you know a week without Photoshop will be no less than agony.
14. You’ve read countless lists like this before, but you just can’t help reading another one because you want to know if your obsession is getting worse.
15. After you complete a household chore, you find yourself wishing you could cmd + S.
16. When you browse the web, you type in google.psd instead of .com
17. To you it goes without saying, that washing, eating, and sleeping are a waste of valuable time.
18. When you had a Dell, it was just a laptop, but since you’ve owned a Macbook Pro, it’s become a pet which you treat better than your partner; buying various outfits for it, and spending $$$ on products to ‘protect’ it.
19. You weep at the thought of having to organise your project files; they’re scattered in every corner of your hard drive.
20. You wish your name was Philip Simon Davis (or something else), so that your initials would be PSD. That would be ‘cool’.
21. You consider your bookmark collection as literally priceless; a limb wouldn’t pay for it.
22. Any time you see a cheap imitation of anything, you think Arial.
23. You’ve named your pet dog ‘Adobe’.
24. Being able to relate to this post makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside (rather than downright weird).
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What a wonderful and funny… and true list!
kremalicious - Thank you!
I checked out your site. You do some interesting graphical work. Nice!
It looks like I’m not too far along the track to becoming a designer, as only a number of these resonated with me. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing…
25. Writing lists showing that your obsessed with design,
26. You are pro-Facebook because 95% of the MySpace accounts burn your retinas
27. You publicly condemn Apple for using images for most of the type on their site, but also a little jealous at the same time…
Great list.
Karl - Keep reading here…the addiction will come
Jacob - Sad, but probably true.
Eivind - You know what’s amazing? Seeing the reaction of a MySpace user, when you tell them that MySpace is horrible. Try it, it can be quite interesting.
Sarah - Thank you.
It may come, but still no word on whether this is a good or a bad thing
Im only half a nut as I only do about 10 of those..
Bet your wife says “amen” to the list hey Armen??
Loving the point 11.
I am a newbie - I didn’t even know about Smashing Magazine
On the upside - I do now
Ticks one off the list…
My girlfriend officially hates hanging out with me after committing #3 several times within a few minutes.
Karl - I’m hardly going to condemn myself, am I? It’s a good thing of course!
Plus, now that you know about Smashing Magazine, you’re definitely going to become obsessed!
Jermayn - She read this list in honest dismay and disgust my friend.
Fubiz - Yip! There are thousands of us addicted. Maybe we should start a community support forum for ‘Smashing Magaholics’?
Pat - My obsession started after marriage, otherwise, she might not have married me because of things like #3!!
Nice site by the way.
I guess the listings above are taken from your personal experience….
Nonetheless, it’s quite entertaining and I have affirmed myself that I’m not really into graphic designing because I felt downright weird than feeling warm and fuzzy after reading it….
Link builder - lol
Well admittedly, some of the points are most humourous than factual.
It’s somewhat comforting to know that I’m not the only one with a grid-aligned desk…
Joe,
you’re definitely not alone there. I’ve had a grid aligned desk for as long as I remember. The iMac of course sits pride of place, with it’s squared off lines, and reserved appearance
Simply hilarious, LOL’d on some of the facts :))
Joe - lol, yeah. However, my desk is more ‘chaotic’ than aligned.
Nice site. Have you ever tried WordPress for your blog, instead of blogger?
Karl - You’re closer to design madness than you might realise buddy
Ivan - I know you’re laughing because you see them in yourself, correct?
Armen,
I know. I’ve been using Macs for a long time now (since the advent of OS X 10.1.2) and being from the more technical side of the ledger, had many people confused. Of course now that I’ve convinced many to switch, the calls for my institutionalising have decreased
haha.. I love you.
You wish your name was Philip Simon Davis (or something else), so that your initials would be PSD. That would be ‘cool’.
^ I just burst out laughing on that one, hahaha. LAME!
These are certainly different, thanks for sharing
mk - Thanks!
Steph - No problem. I’m just glad it gave you a laugh.
28. Writing unreasonable long articles about one single css property ;-):
Make cool and clever text effects with css text-shadow
Kremalicious - Keep them coming!
Nice article too.
Is there a 12 step program for designers?
DigitalScrap - Not that I’m aware of, but, if demand was high, I might initiate some sort of help group.
What do you think?
You’re right… warm and fuzzy is exactly what I feel… when the OCD isn’t exerting it’s death grip and making me add extra guides to my design layouts anyway. Thanks for the big grin on my face.
HERO,
I hear you!
Thanks for commenting, my friend. I didn’t know about your site, and I’m very impressed!! Nice work!