Designing

Something that has been really interesting about this job is seeing the way different designers design their products. And when I say interesting I mean its more like "what the crap were you doing??" For example. Clipping masks. I'll be completely honest, before I started this job I had no idea what a clipping mask was. Now I do. But I am also beginning to think that most people don't. I mean I will get a design in and it will have 4, 5 or more clipping masks on the file. Not a problem right? Except when I release the clipping masks nothing happens. Basically I am pretty sure that the designers are putting on random clipping masks for the heck of it. Quite annoying actually. You see when I need to add bleed to a design there are a couple different ways to do so. One it to increase the vector image if its a solid block of color, or take it to photoshop and content aware it or clone the image. My favorite option is when the client has already included the bleed, or when they have the bleed but have created a clipping mask so they can see what the finished image will look like. This option is great because I just release the clipping mask and boom! More picture becomes available. This brings me back to the fake clipping masks. Nothing makes me more excited than to click "release clipping mask" (or delete the clipping mask) five hundred times just to discover that there isn't a hidden image for me to use. I am far from being a great designer but I am definitely going to be paying attention to how I organize my files from now on!