I believe he’s a fellow layout designer, and lamenting how little respect/appreciating/understanding there is for what we do by the other people in the process. Like how long it takes, especially dependent on what we’re given to work with, and the amount of editing post-layout to the material that some people think is acceptable.
Just recently I was given something, *no* notice, in the evening, to go out that evening, with the understanding that all that was required was, I’m quoting, “put a bow on it.” I declined and it was given to a colleague. Nearly a week later it’s still being worked on, changes and new material is still coming in, and every day is ‘for real the last day it absolutely most go.’ Heh.
Absobloodylutely. artwork comes in, copy comes in... design goes out. That's the theory. What ends up happening is artwork might come in, copy might come in, design has to be done first with no concept of what the layout or look of the artwork is or the length of the copy. So changes happen, layout has be to redone. More changes happen, more layout has to be done - repeat, ad nauseum. If there is a deadline of say... 5pm, copy and artwork will come in at 5pm (if not later), artwork gets done in the mythical hours of time between 4.59pm and 5.00pm. Layout should always be last, reflecting artwork and copy. Not first, not inbetween and definitely NOT before all the changes and tweaks gets done to artwork and copy. Artwork might be all sexy and copy might be all the important information bits but unless you have decent and competent layout - it's all garbage. Also artwork has to be given time, cause it's never the fault of artwork nor copy... always layout when it goes sideways.
Here endeth the rant... for now :)