A proliferation of lists exists about design and the internet and do’s and dont’s and whilst laying in bed this morning feeling like hell warmed up I thought I would go back to the original commandments from the big man (No not Jacob Nieslon’s use it lists, the other big fella ) and see what they had to say about the issue:

1. You shall not make for yourself an idol

   There are many rock start designers, many are very good, many are just good self publicists, acknowledge and read there blogs them but but don’t worship them, or emulate them or use there ramblings as design gospel.

2. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God

   Like so many of these texts this is open to many interpretations, so far I can surmise that it means, Use semantic markup when building a web site, call a heading a heading a list a list so on and so forth. Another interpretation could be, and this is one I wish some people I have worked with would heed – don’t call your self a Designer if your not one.

3. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

   This is one I am most guilty of, you’ve got to stop working at some point, just because the client gives you the assets on Friday evening and ‘Absolutely must have the work done by Monday morning’ its okay to push back and explain that its not achievable, and that you need to take some time to rest and do other stuff, if you don’t then you whole week could be whacked out of joint and the quality of the work you deliver will suffer.

4. Honor your father and mother

   We all have influences in our work, honor and acknowledge them, people who’s work we saw as a child, mine are Vaughan Oliver, Simon Larbalestier, Dave Mackaen, Hans Belmer, Egon Schiele & Ralph Steadman, who are yours?

5. You shall not murder

   Don’t fluff it up, if your going to do something to kill the design like ‘Making the logo bigger’ then don’t do it, even if the client tells you to and you know it will kill the design, just explain that you love your client and you don’t want them to be accessory to murder, they might be understanding, if they are intent on this cold blooded act, hand them the knife and report them to the authorities.

6. You shall not commit adultery

   On occasion I’ve been given another designers work by a client and asked to improve it or change things or something else unspeakable, sometimes I’ve done it, sometimes I’ve not it all depends on how pretty the design is, but I’ve always regretted it and felt guilty that I’ve not spent the time and love on my own design’s and ended up hiding the bastard children of my affairs by not putting them in my portfolio.

7. You shall not steal

   Pretty self evident, in design its often regarded as a large crime to rip off another designers work, but behind closed doors we all whisper average designers borrow, good designers steal, but it could also be stated that Average designers steal and get caught, good designers are so good at stealing that they don’t, or they are open about her influences (see commandment 4).

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

   If a design sucks its YOUR fault, don’t blame the client for making you do something that broke it, if your in that position, push back explain why it wont work, if your unable to convince the client try two things, the first is try and make there suggestion work, the second is book your self on a assertiveness training or hypnosis course (I’m looking to book one myself as I’m far to accommodating). If neither of these work then just shut up, finish the job and don’t put it in your portfolio, just don’t slag the client off, they had there reasons no matter how bad you thought they where.

9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife

   I’ve once or twice taken on what where in my perception lesser jobs in order to get a slice of a clients bigger pie, don’t do this, because I found that I was always thinking about the clients metaphorical wife rather then the job in hand ’so to speak’ and you never end up servicing the current project with any great satisfaction and as a result you’ll probably do a bellow par effort and never get invited to that party where your invited to covet the neighbor’s wife with permission.

10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor

    This was a hard on to differentiate from the previous commandment as once I had that picture in my head it was hard to shift, but I think it could be interpreted into this… Don’t be tempted to shoe horn a clients design asset in to a Design if it doesn’t fit, no matter how cool you think it is, if it isn’t going to gel well then leave it out, if you don’t there is a good chance that you’ll make everything involved all grubby.

So are you a sinner, go on confess?