Mr Carmack Just Pissed Off A Lot of People with Harsh Criticism of Graphic Designers

There are certain unassailable rules in the service industry. “Don’t mess with the people who make your food” is a prime example. One that doesn’t exist yet in dance music, but should, is: Don’t piss off the people who design your art.

Art in this case can be as broad as track art to live visuals, but the message stays the same. Yesterday, Mr. Carmack violated that rule with the below tweet.

To all you graphic designers charging 50$ every change you make, you need to rethink why you started designing in the first place

— MR. CAR/\ACK (@mrcarmack) January 18, 2019

There are a lot of ways to begin addressing why this tweet is so absurdly wrong, but this response from @sarahxcarr is a good start.

Most designers don’t even make modifications unless they’re asked to by the person who hired them. And most of the time the designer has stated how much they charge for edits or how many edits they will include with their service before even being hired. Soooo…..

— (no subject) (@sarahxcarr) January 18, 2019

A graphic designer generally isn’t some kid in their mom’s basement who does this on the weekends. It’s a real person who’s made this their career, has contracts, and charges fees for their work.

After turning in a project for review, most designers will charge an hourly rate for any revisions that the client wants done. In that sense, $50 for a single revision is actually a steal.

Carmack’s tweet seems to imply that any revisions should be free of charge — does that mean no matter how many revisions it takes? And the implication that they should be designing graphics for, I don’t know, just the pleasure of it, is bordering on asinine.

The tweet was posted yesterday and, despite hundreds of replies, Carmack hasn’t made any effort to clarify or rectify his position. See some of the responses from real graphic designers and creatives below:

The next time you want money for music you wrote you need to rethink why you started making music in the first place.

— Joshua Cole (@joshuawcole) January 18, 2019

you may be a visionary producer but i guess you’re still a dumbass

— umru search party LA (@umru_) January 18, 2019

Would love to hear what you think the correct reason that graphic designers “started designing in the first place” is

— Mikey Joyce (@mikeyjoyce) January 18, 2019

First off, technically you’re making the change, not the designer.

Second, if they’re charging you $50, that’s probably an hour of work and that’s not a simple change.

Third, it sounds like you’re a crap client who either A) gives bad direction or B) can’t make up their mind.

— Erik (@BillsFanAuthor) January 18, 2019

Imagine being able to afford a designer & complaining about having to pay a designer.

— Lameboy Advanced (@AvianPride) January 18, 2019

This might seem kind of funny but I'm actually not lying.

— Lil Boostie (@alexprofera) January 18, 2019

Kind of shocked that you would say this…people don’t work for free. Their art/designs are equivalent to any regular goods or services being sold.

— Magician Holly (@kaydem0n) January 18, 2019