So, during a break during one of our weekly executive luncheons here at the Designosphere offices, an Assistant Art Director (actually, an Assistant to the Assistant Art Director) asked me, “So Bill, out of the millions of job applicants who would kill to work here, how do you tell if a candidate is truly a Designer or not?” After letting him know that he wasn’t quite ready to address me yet by my first name, I thought ”Hmmm, maybe this would be a more interesting first post than those laughing cats to place on our new corporate blog.” So here for the first time, I reveal some of the ways YOU can tell if you or someone you know might truly be Designer material:

You might NOT be a Designer if:

- You have ever used “Photoshop” as a verb, as in “I’ll just Photoshop that red-eye out…” or “I’ll just Photoshop that in…” I can assure you that I have never, ever, heard a “real” Designer use”Photoshop” as a verb. It’s sort of like hearing someone refer to San Francisco as “Frisco.” And if I ever hear anyone here use “Photoshop” as a verb, I will immediately “motion-blur” their a** out of our offices.

- You have ever said (or have even remotely thought), “I think Paintshop Pro (or the Gimp) is pretty good.” To quote Marlon Brando, “The horror…, The horror….” Wow, if there is ever a simple test to tell if someone is a Designer or not, just ask them what they think of Paintshop Pro (or the Gimp.) If it’s anything other than “That $10 (or free) piece of crap?”, then please start thinking of a diversionary tactic and look for the nearest exit…

- You have ever said, “Can we get rid of all of that unused space?” Man, if I could ever figure out how to do large format printing on our DesignJet, I’d create a huge sign above the entry to our breakroom that says “Whitespace is Your Friend” (right next to the evacuation map and minimum wage rules, but below the safety rules.) If you haven’t realized yet that those “unused spaces” are an essentially component to great visual/UI design (and coveted by Designers,) then perhaps you should choose a career that utilizes the golden arches as a major design element in your work.

So, after I went through about 27 more ways to tell if someone isn’t a Designer, the Assistant rudely interrupted me and asked, “So Mr. Design Expert, how DO you tell if someone is a Designer?” After returning from escorting him out of our offices, I spent the rest of our luncheon thinking about the telltale signs of “real” Designer material. Here’s what I came-up with:

You MIGHT be a Designer if:

- You have never used more than one type of type effect (bold, italic, underline, color, or size) to emphasize a particular phrase or word in a sentence. Believe me, the average human eye (and brain) can discern the slightest differences in type styles even at very low-res web resolutions, so please stop applying text styles like you’re demo’ing how many combinations of type effects are available in Office 2009 during your CES keynote speech. One is enough. Trust me (please.)

- You know what “Channels” and “Layer Masks” are in Photoshop and know how to use one (or many.) When I was first starting out as a designer, I think I was going through the “Photoshop 2.5 WOW Book” (yeah, when Photoshop didn’t even have layers yet - talk about Gangsta…) and after misunderstanding the “How to Emboss Type” tutorial for the 43rd consecutive time, it finally hit me what the heck a channel was AND the derivation of the name “Photoshop.” Kudos for anyone who can tell me why it’s called “Photoshop” (just kudos, nothing else.) Make Channels and Layer Masks your friend.

- You think Photoshop is a bargain even at it’s full retail price (currently $999 for CS3 Extended.) Yeah, pretty controversial statement, eh?, especially from someone who didn’t buy my barefooted daughter new shoes for school for $14.99 at Mervyn’s. Now I know a lot of you might be saying, “He meant $9.99, right?” or “These high-priced execs. Geez, I’ll bet he thought his Bentley Continental Twin Turbo (Versace Edition) was also a frickin’ bargain…” Even though the Bentley was, it still doesn’t change my opinion that Photoshop is one of the greatest software bargains ever created. How can that be? Because if you have actually used more than the Brush Tool and have used features such as Channels, Layer Masks, Levels (and really know what you’re doing with those slider thingies and eyedropper,) Select Color Range, the Plastic Wrap Filter (frickin’ awesome,) and so on and so on and so on, then you should thank Adobe everyday for offering such an incredible piece of software, that has singlehandedly launched an endless number of creative careers and industries (such as mine,) for such a low price. I’ll bet I earned back the entire purchase price of my first full retail (non-upgrade) version of Photoshop 2.5 on my first color-to-black and white icon dithering job (”The Horror…”)

So, how did you do? Are you a Designer or not? Let me know. I’ll bet by now, you’re wishing I had posted those laughing cat pictures instead.

Back to work…