Is Ragu The Same As A Template?
I’m fortunate to have a full-time cook at home. He’s great and can prepare a meal with the best of them. He can cook more than just Pakistani food too — Chinese, Sri Lankan, Continental, etc., so we’re really happy that he chose to work with us.
My only real gripe with him is that he hasn’t been able to make a decent spaghetti sauce from scratch. I love spaghetti. My kids love spaghetti. It’s important to get spaghetti right in our home. Anyway, I eventually got a little tired with the experimentation and bought some Ragu spaghetti sauce a few days ago.
He made spaghetti today. He used the sauce and it turned out well. I just had seconds.
Now, here’s my problem: He’s a damn good cook. Do I let him know that it turned out well? After all, He didn’t really do anything except brown the mince and boil the pasta. He knows this. He knows that I resorted to store-bought sauce after he failed to make it well enough for us to like. Do I run the risk of offending him by congratulating him on a job well done?
Why am I blogging about this? Because this conundrum made me ask myself how I’d feel if I was in a similar situation. What if a client wasn’t happy with a logo/website/ad I was designing? What if I tried my hardest and it just wasn’t working out? What if the client went off to TemplateMonster or StockLayouts (really now, don’t expect me to link to them!) and bought some prefab design for me to build on?
I’d be pissed. Really pissed. I’d have an attitude and then some. I’d refuse to complete the job if it meant using some generic art.
So, I’m left wondering if using Ragu is the same as using a template.
Side note: I’m bothered by how similar the Ragu logo is to Burger King’s.
6 Comments so far
An interesting post - I like how you left it to the end to tie cooking with ragu in with templated/clip art design I must admit I wondered where you were going with that one (nice analogy). As for templates, I use one for my blog as I think many people do, but I wouldn’t be happy using one for a live job. It wouldn’t feel like “my design”
Weird how logos get to you do, if I am a passenger on a motorway I find myself analysing the lorry logos.
Oh… and you’re so lucky having a cook!
Thanks for the comment Tara.
With the Ragu offering, I was basically telling him that he’d failed to do what he was skilled at doing.
I pay the man too cook for my family. Clients pay me to design things for them.
We’re both, essentially, just service providers. That’s what got me thinking.
Re: the blog, I too have simply modified a theme made by someone else, but that’s because I haven’t a clue about how PHP works and, I think, you need to know at least a little about it to be able to design a template for Wordpress.
The difference is that I don’t have the complete skill set reqd for Wordpress theme development, whereas I claim to be able to design things. I’m also not being paid by someone to create one.
Oh well, he’s on leave tomorrow and neither he nor I will remember this on Thursday, so I think all will be well!
hi Ahsan,
nice analogy!
)
i think this topic is more sensitive with the oriental culture.
i’ve just spoke with a friend comming back from india (i know pakistan is not friends with india… but please… stay with me
this friend has told me that feedback (especially negative feedback) is quite hard to give and to recieve.
i don’t know if this is really true…
as for the ragu logo… i’ve just read an article about the fast food logos. and how they’re supposed to be in strog colour, with an attention to big and special fonts…
no wonder they’re all the same
webee
[is a design blog]
How much is your cook getting paid to brown mince and boil pasta? I might be able to undercut him.
Ragu might bring the Italian out in you but their logo does happen to suck.
If a client finally decides to use a re-worked template, I’d complete the job and graciously decline to work with them again. Best not to offend.
Hi David,
Welcome and thanks for posting.
He gets paid pretty well, so he’s compelled to do more than just handle spaghetti.
Can you do more than handle the mince and pasta? I’ll talk to my wife about a guest-cook gig for you.
And the Ragu never came up with him, so all’s well. Yay!
Re: the template, I’d probably do the same, though saying I’d quit reads a lot better on a blog.
Excellent.
Let me know what the wife says and I’ll check my diary.