Tad Carpenter
@TadCarpenter
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Designer, Author, NYT Bestselling Illustrator & Partner at Carpenter Collective 👉 @CarpenterCollec , a design & branding studio. New book, Sunday Suns out now!
Joined February 2009
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Pinned Tweet
Me to my computer: "Ok, let's make some good graphic design today!"
Narrator: "He did not make good graphic design today."
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So I accidentally attached this meme of Kelly from The Office in a client email discussing design revisions. The client responded with an LOL & said ok ok we get it, lets move forward with your design recommendation. I've never felt more embarrassed & empowered at the same time.
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Oh my bad I thought EOD stood for End of Da-Month. Sending asap.
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Design is easy.
You just write 100 emails a day, attend 6 or 7 meetings and then start designing at 4:45pm.
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The announcement of the new Mr. Rogers biopic reminded me of the below screenshot thats been sitting on my desktop for over 3 years. I reference it ALL the time.
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Client: tell me, what was the inspiration behind this design?
Me: the deadline
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Design is so easy.
You just sit down at a computer start drawing, clicking and poof 147 hours later you have one little kinda ok thing.
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Graphic design is one day doing absolutely nothing and then the next day frantically making a million silly little salad logos as fast as you can.
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Probably like 50% of graphic design is just aligning stuff, creatively.
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The
@Royals
won their first World Series in 30 years last week & my bud Brad & I were at both the 85 & 15 parades!
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A graphic designer being asked to make a powerpoint presentation is like a chef being asked to microwave a hot pocket.
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Design is easy.
You just have a hundred little meetings a day, write dozens of emails and then you sit down and design for like 15 minutes at 4:45pm.
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How people who say "typeface" look at people who say "fonts".
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WIFE: Why were you tossing and turning so much last night?
ME: A lot on my mind?
WIFE: You can talk to me.
ME: Why on earth is a finished building still called a building. That's dumb?! That’s like a finished cake being called baking.
WIFE: *walks away
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Probably like 80% of graphic design is just organizing someone else's mind dump.
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What a hard week for picture books. So saddened to hear of the passing of the legend Eric Carle. How on earth do you pick a favorite Carle? The stories. The art. The emotions in everything he created. I know one thing, we'll be reading Brown Bear tonight. Thank you Mr. Carle.
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Me adding a few more dots, stars and whatnot to my little graphic design before I hit send.
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Probably like 50% of graphic design is just searching for an ok script typeface.
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Graphic design is 70% being creative and 42% being glad there’s very minimal math.
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Hiring a professional, well-trained graphic designer is a very important decision.
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doing graphic design between 4pm and 5pm should be an olympic sport
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Choosing to be a graphic designer is admitting you don’t mind failing like 70% of the time.
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Probably like 50% of graphic design is just writing emails that start with "So sorry for the delayed response...".
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graphic design is scrolling twitter for 25 minutes then watching 6 videos on youtube and then drawing one little logo.
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So it turns out being a graphic designer is mostly just googling how to export stuff.
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Graphic Design is like a fart.
If you force it, it’s gonna be crap.
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Welcome to graphic design. Please share your work and someone will be with you shortly to tell you how you’re doing it wrong.
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80% of graphic design is just being mad about something
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Oh, you’re a graphic designer? Name every keyboard shortcut ever.
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Turns out being a graphic designer is mostly just googling how to export stuff.
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Graphic Design is art.
But with emails. And brand standards. And creative strategy. Oh and committee meetings. And gradients. Oh and sometimes fights over fonts.
Graphic Design is art.
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A DYNAMIC PRIMARY LOGO SYSTEM, 10 SECONDARY LOGOS, 50 SUPPLEMENTAL ICONS, 100 BRAND TOUCH POINTS, AN IDENTITY SYSTEM WITH HUNDREDS OF ASSETS AHHHHH GO GO GO!
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Graphic Design helps pay for all the stress eating I do because of Graphic Design.
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Few things in life are certain:
- death
- taxes
- design revisions at 5pm
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Being a designer is basically convincing yourself you can get one more thing done before you have to stand up and go pee.
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Friend: Being a designer looks so cool, just drawing stuff all day.
My Actually Week:
Sent 54 emails
Wrote 3 proposals
Dealt w/ water damage & contractors in our studio
5 meetings
Complained a lot
Oversee new sign install
4 new biz calls
Designed 1 thing so far ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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How to chose the right typeface:
- Look at fonts for IDK, 2 to 3 hours
- Place hands on your hips and approvingly nod your head
- Use that font you've already used 400 times before it's fine
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Graphic design is getting paid to be creative and then writing 400 little emails about it.
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A TYPEFACE IS A SET OF GLYPHS OR ALPHABET & ITS ACCESSORIES THAT SHARE A COMMON DESIGN. EXAMPLE, HELVETICA IS A WELL KNOWN TYPEFACE. A FONT HOWEVER IS A PARTICULAR SET OF GLYPHS WITHIN A TYPEFACE, THINK WEIGHT, SIZE OR OTHER VARIABLES. PEOPLE LOVE TO SAY FONT & ARE OFTEN WRONG...
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Being a designer can be a lot like cooking with a Crock-Pot. You just start dumping stuff into it and hope something good happens in like 7-8 hours.
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Being a graphic designer means coming up with an idea and doing a million little versions of it until you cant see straight. Then you show a friend who tells you yeah the one you did like 3 days ago is by far the best one.
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Design is like going to Costco. Both take twice as long as you expected and generally end with me crying and holding an industrial size box of Taquitos.
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I’m just a boy standing in front of a pot of coffee asking it to bring him enough energy to respond to that one email where a client called my logo concept a "fun little cartoon".
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Client: (whispers into my coffin) The type still needs to be bigger.
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Sometimes it feels like my toddler doesn’t even care about all my graphic design deadlines.
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When a client says, "What do you mean fonts cost money?"
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A reality TV show where graphic designers are forced to watch high schoolers critique their work.
I would cry.
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Client emailed to tell us they can't approve the budget or overall scope of the project yet but do need us to start on it no later than tomorrow.
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My Artboards in Adobe Illustrator when starting a new branding project:
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From what I can tell, you pay thousands of dollars for daycare and in return your entire house gets sick every two weeks.
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It’s SUN-day!
SUN No. 416.
#SUNdaySUNS
To all those Momma Bears out there. Thank you so much for all that you do. See them all at .
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Probably the most dangerous thing I've ever done is not save an AI file for like 35 to 40 minutes.
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I don't care how many fancy degrees you have, nothing prepares you for someone asking you to place a QR code inside a logo lockup.
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Million Dollar Idea: A photographer and designer create a studio together to just document and design beautiful case studies for all us designers who can't find the time to do it on our own.
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Being a graphic designer sometimes feels like being one of those HGTV contractors that just found unforeseen structural damage to the house they’re trying to flip in 48 hours.
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Giant beard, beanie and spends all year judging you.
Is Santa a graphic designer?
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I got kicked out of a design conference for not having a single sticker on my laptop.
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*receives worst design feedback ever
Ok all sounds great excited to share revisions soon.
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50% of graphic design is just holding in having to pee.
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Me: I was just sent an InDesign file with 87 missing links and 11 active fonts.
911 Operator: Goodness gracious.
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Remember the first 10 minutes of the film 'Up' when you cried a bunch? Yeah, thats what the new Bon Iver album is like.
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I pretty much hate the "quick let's critique (crap all over) a rebrand on the internet" culture BUT this new Seattle Kraken brand system is so well done and deserves the opposite. Wow, this is so lovely. Anyone who has issues with it has to be "squidding" me.
The NHL's newest team is the Seattle Kraken.
Grade the logo and look.
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It’s SUN-day!
Actually no, it’s SON-day!
Because I became a Dad!!!!!
SUN No. 228.
#SUNdaySUNS
Meet Jessica Carpenter and I’s SON, Luca James Carpenter.
See them all at
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“ You coulda done better.”
- my 9 year old nieces review of a logo I designed.
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Graphic Designers out there using PCs opposed to Macs are cops.
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Being creative right now feels like trying to swim in a pool of mashed potatoes.
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Client: this looks nice. it's so simple and effortless.
Me: it took me like 50-60 hours to get it to look like that.
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Don’t cry because Illustrator crashed, smile because you get a 5 minute break while it relaunches to hop onto Twitter which inevitably turns into 45.
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According to my Fitbit I'm either a graphic designer or in a coma.
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I have a client right now that would make a terrible Spice Girl. They have no idea what they want what they really really want.
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Great news! The client loved your concept and only has 67 revisions for you to consider.
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Client: Can we get a little sneak peek of the concepts a week early?
Me: Can I get paid double tomorrow?
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Scientists please just tell us when the world's gonna end so we can stop putting our portfolios together.
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Thunder only happens when it's raining. Adobe Illustrator only crashes on a tight deadline.
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Things are so hard right now. Today though, my son and I dressed the same and you know what, it kinda helped. Big virtual hugs everyone.
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Design like nobody’s watching. Because they aren’t. Nobody really cares just go have some fun ok.
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graphic design is a lot like being a chef except imagine bringing out the entree and hearing, "great start, but we have some notes" and "if we remove all these almonds will this be cheaper"
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"?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!!!??" - Me when the perspective grid accediently turns on.
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Design is 10% skill, 25% luck and like 65% how much coffee you drank that morning.
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75% of marriage is agreeing on dinner and Netflix.
The other 25% is mostly just yelling "what" from the other room.
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Client: We don’t like any of these options.
Me holding a graphic design honorable mention award from 2010: Oh really, are you sure?
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Dream Jobs:
- Rebrand a sports team
- Rebrand a zoo
- Brand a hotel
- Design a food court & all restaurants within it
- Design the word mark for a new show
- Design a museum exhibit
- Become a professional dog nose booper
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Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws looks like every designer I know in 2023.
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Starting a new project is a fun way to remind yourself you have no idea what you're doing.
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Design school never taught me how to efficiently get donut crumbs out of my MacBook keyboard and now I feel unprepared for real life design challenges.
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Being a designer is 40-45% just googling how to spell hierarchy.
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