Sometimes You Just Have To Fire Your Clients Instead.

I recently actually just had to walk away from a marketing internship for a rather sad reason.


Not exactly the way I wanted to end 2014 and start off the new year, but sometimes you just have to know just when to fire your client rather than the other way around.

Rough Representation of Concept that the company thought was a good idea if all blue.

The client company didn't know what they want, yet wanted to be a strong believable Marketing presence. There was another college intern who just put "pretty things together", and then there was me, building and pitching an iconic brand, much as I've had in the recent years.



They didn't like the "simple designs", that I brought with me to the table, and especially with my recent years of work and experience, and when compared my pitch to that of the iconic FedEx logo, which this logo also included a hidden arrow concept as well.. one of the company members actually said the following: "Well no one ever mentions or sees that in the logo (for FedEx), and I don't think really anybody even knows about it."


Wait.. what?


I had to sit back for a second to actually try to process what was just said. Just shaking my head in disbelief all the while with the little designer voice in my head screaming; "How in the hell could someone miss the arrow after looking at the logo on trucks and billboards and packaging for YEARS..?"




After a moment all I could really… well to which I had to professionally respond: "Well.. that logo and arrow concept that you are referring to with FedEx actually won quite a few awards for the way it was designed, and yet its purpose was so clever and so simple."


Once I sat down with the CEO and they honest said we want to start offering logos for $50 and you can't take more than an hour to work on them otherwise we cannot offer you a position here.. is when I just knew they weren't serious about their brand and were only about cutthroat profit.


It was a disaster. The many conversations were just juvenile and not detailed, broken english, etc. Im not sure how they think they could do 90% of the stuff that they wanted to do. And to make it happen in a week nonetheless.. the week of Christmas and New Years that is. As The rabbit hole grew worse and worse, well, nobody has to show you to the door. With major spelling errors with projects they gave and massive failures of communication, its just another designer story to not repeat in the future.


It wasn't $50 an hr btw.. they meant $50.. per logo. How could one possibly even recover from creative burnout under those conditions, let alone be effective in their design?


Moral of the story: Never feel bad about walking away from a nightmare client and/or project.


Just make sure that if you did sign anything contractually that you are covered and thats that.

Wishing A Happy Turkey Day for one and all.

Wishing A Happy Turkey Day for one and all.

The Facebook Disconnect Effect.

So as many of you are well aware, there has been a growing sharing of information concerns in regards to how Facebook and other companies have openly shared users information for marketing and target market purposes. As much of Facebook and Youtube's policies in particular have changed since I have used their services, moving forward there will be workarounds implemented to keep content more site based rather than be relying on access to other sites.

As I have personally disconnected my own Facebook Account, in doing so it also causes a disconnect with any other pages that I had authored, being also the Mik Tek Studios Facebook page. Users have noticed that it is no longer viewable.

In a similar experience, soundtracks or video clips that are purchased for commercial use on the Youtube platform are all too consistently flagged for supposed Copyright Infringement, even though said items in question are always purchased legitimately and used according to their specified license when designing an item for a client. Not only does this look bad as a brand for MTS, but it also puts into perspective the lack of control that one can exert on their work for display purposes, personally or professionally.

With that being said, as there is also a revamp to the website and content in the works, I implore any who have noticed these types of occurrences to look forward to the same content and availability of their end result viewable on this site in the not too distant future rather than waiting for policies to shift back or change altogether to better suit the users, rather than the other way around.

Either way, great things have been in the works, and to all who read and follow my work and support it I do say thank you; it truly has come a long way since I started penciling in logo ideas for school projects some 10 years ago.

Make Your Mark. Change The Game.
Game On.

Mik Tek Studios August 1st 2013 Update

Greetings fellow clients and Mik Tek Followers!

Just a few new announcements worth the drumroll and to be worth mentioning in an announcement all of their own. So lets get crackin!

Updates to the Website and Mik Tek Logo.

"In the upcoming weeks, you will see some changes to the website, away from the darker green ominous theme and more to a modern flat black and bright teal."

In the upcoming weeks, you will see some changes to the website, away from the darker green ominous theme and more to a modern flat black and bright teal. a welcome refresh to the Mik Tek Brand, yet still packing the same Creative Quality Burst of Energy that Mik Tek Studios has begun to have a reputation for over the past several years. The new logo will also represent a tightened sense of branding, which will also carry the same color theme universally throughout all of our future products. The emphasis was always on the work of the studio, seen even right down to the core elements of the previous logo design, we however want to make sure that the brand is just as strong as the quality of work that flows from it. We are pretty excited about this refresh, and we hope you will be too!

Greater focus/ participation back into elements of game design.

 

(This particular announcement is not so much a newer one, but one that has been a long time coming.) As of the time of this writing, I [Michael MidKnight] have had done battle unknowingly in the past few years with Celiac Disease, a rare disease that does not allow my digestive system to process any products containing or made with gluten. It had affected my work greatly and much of the upcoming work from last year was placed on hold while this was sorted out. Having this knowledge moving into the 3rd and 4th Quarter of 2013, I am feeling like I have a new lease on life. Getting back to one of the core aspects of what I founded Mik Tek Studios for, fellow followers will start to see all bits of Mik Tek come to life with gaming, from little bits of info on your daily feeds containing little known facts of the Gaming World to full fledged products, services and partnerships launched specifically for Gamers and Game Developers, some that I hope to reveal very soon. Game On and Stay Tuned!

Announcing Trading Card Design Alpha & Ticket Design Alpha Services.

Still in the testing phase, Mik Tek Studios is excited to announce these two services, currently in Alpha with the projected Beta Launch Date of October 2013. While catering to smaller Trading Card Quantities while still in Alpha, both will be making their way to the available services menu on the Mik Tek Website. As for ticket design, Anything that one would need tickets for, Independent performances, invite only birthday party, film festival, school sports event, any show really, well consider your tickets now available!

Announcing miktek.tv; Be Seen. Be Said. Be Heard.

With no anticipated hard launch date, launching soon will be Mik Tek Tv. Shifting gears from a brand of just a design mindset to more focus on gaming & electronic entertainment as a whole, Mik Tek Tv will be a weekly/biweekly show pulling facts from gaming history, up to date info on cutting edge tech, and pretty much anything else interesting in between. MT Tv will also be looking to reach out to potential partners to aid in this endeavor, Yes, DYKgaming, BalrogtheMaster, Hidden Block and the rest of you Youtube Gamer Greats, Im talking about you!

This concludes the MT Aug 1st Update.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

This week's roundup of DYK little known game facts:

-DYK? Nintendo Owns the Seattle Mariners. Back in 1992 Nintendo became the majority owner of major league baseball team the Seattle Mariners.


-DYK? The interesting story behind the Donkey Kong License:
Rewind back to the NES era, and Nintendo is facing some heavy legal action. With who you ask? Why with Universal Studios, which thinks Donkey Kong infringes on the King Kong trademark. Because Nintendo's first bit had just hit in the States, it was a crucial legal battle to win. Nintendo pulled out the big guns with attorney John Kirby, who successfully argued that the King Kong plot and characters were "in the public domain."

To thank Kirby, Nintendo bought him a sailboat and granted him "exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats."


-DYK? Nintendo used to run a "Love Hotel" One of the ideas explored by the early N, popular in Japan & offered couples rooms by the hour.


-DYK? Megaman originally started as a concept for a game based on Astro Boy, early on Capcom lost the license and made Megaman instead. ‪#‎itsprofitabletorecycle‬


-DYK? There already was a Super Mario 4, In Japan at least. When Super Mario World hit stores in Japan, the game was subtitled Super Mario Bros 4, perhaps to prevent any confusion. Strangely enough, in America Yoshi's Island was also known as Super Mario World 2, though that wasn't included in the Japanese title.


-DYK? Nintendo is 121 Years Old, founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi on 9/23/1889 as a Japanese playing card company. (Sony founded. 1946, Microsoft founded 1975)


-DYK? Concept art for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past shows that some early costumes for Zelda had an odd sci-fi theme. ‪#‎futurelink‬


-DYK? The P in P-Wing stands for Paratroopa. As explained by a Mario developer, the P-Wing represents one of the wings used by the flying turtles known as Paratroopas. Meaning some poor Paratroopa had to be maimed just so you could skip a stage that was too tough for you.


-DYK? Boo in Super Mario is based on a developer’s wife.
First appearing in Super Mario Bros 3, Boos have become an indispensable enemy in the Mario series. The monsters origins come from an incident in co-designer Takeshi Tezuka’s life according to an interview with Miyamoto. He said, “Mr. Tezuka got an idea about putting his wife in the game. His wife is very quiet normally, but one day she exploded, maddened by all the time he spent at work. In the game, there is now a character who shrinks when Mario looks at it, but when Mario turns away, it will grow large and menacing."


-DYK? Diddy Kong originally designed to be Donkey Kong Jr.
The Donkey Kong series had been pretty quiet until Rare took it over in the early ‘90s with Donkey Kong Country. When Rare was first designing the game, the plan was for Donkey Kong to be accompanied by a second player as Donkey Kong Junior. But Nintendo felt Rare’s redesign for the ape was too extreme. Given the choice, Rare kept the redesign and renamed him Diddy Kong.


-DYK? Original audio of the Fire Temple in Ocarina of Time had Muslim-type chanting that was cut because Muslims took it offensively. ‪#‎far2pc‬


-DYK? New Super Mario Bros Wii originally had a chicken Power Up. Nintendo decided to use penguins instead. ‪#‎theotherwhitemeatmario‬

-DYK? Ocarina of Time was originally designed to be played in 1st person mode. ‪#‎dodgedAFPbullet‬

-DYK? In Nintendo's Animal Crossing, the signs in the museum are written in Hylian, from the Legend of Zelda. ‪#‎adoptedherooftime‬


You can be sure to find these and other interesting tidbits of info and announcements on our twitter @miktekstudios, and on our facebook page www.facebook.com/miktekstudios. Follow or Like today!