Mikey,
I think that she has potential...She is still definately better than many seasoned designers...Color harmony is easily taught, design skill not...She does have good basic design skills with some patience and starting out small and easy, you could have a gem there especially if her personality is great...
Sandy you are so right, those of us with small shops tend to be control freaks. We are very very persnickety and fussy about the qulity of wrok that goes out...I have worked in many shops over my 25 year in the biz, many of the high output shops had a good enough approach to design...it had to look good enough to go out for the masses...most of the designs were rudimentary and recipe driven and I could make them in my sleep and make them super duper fast, usually I would place the main flowers and give the "run" form and function, then a lesser paid intern type would follow along and fill in, then I would pick up the slack and make minor adjustments as we finished up the "run"...we would constantly make runs of 10 like arrangements at a time to stock the cooler...I was OK with this job,but it was just that a job a grind...all day everyday was time to make the arrangements, I was one of 3 "designers" who were the goto people for customers that wanted something different..To consult on a picky customers order..To be sent out on an install because we were just better at it...We got to make all the 75.00 and up designs and the super creative stuff...every high volume shops needs to have each just like evey rest needs a chef and many many cooks, a cook can follow a recipe a chef creates it...same as us a designer creates the recipe and the form and the underlings fill it in...
I have always said that the true value of a designer is to give them a challenging cooler with limits and have them make something you will find where their true talents lie...color may be off but if they choose the right style of design for what they have to make it with you have a person who can think and use deductive reasoning...I am at my very best at the end of the day when all other deisgners think you have nothing to work with, I can usually get 4-5 saleable designs out of what others deam as nothing to work with, that makes me a more valuable employee to high volume places because I am the designer who can work magic out of the bottom of the barrel and make you money, I would never eneter they designs made in this way into a contest nor would these designs go out to my finicky customers, but they would go out to most others....
This designer will make you money..no doubt about it...I have seen worse designers open a shop never improve and keep customers, not all designers are of the same calibre...and some of us of a higher calibre of most have standards that are so hign that few could make us happy..I am one of those, I have such high standards I barely meet them some days, I had a very hard time when I started managing guaging what I could realistically expect from regular people in terms of work output and quality....I had to remember constantly that not everyone was going to be perfect and I had to pick and choose my battle wisely...I did teach and when correcting did have patience and told as why and how come in hope of bettering the person and I would track how much better they got through my suggestions...and how long it took simply so I could for myself see how the average person learns and to be able to realistically know when someone was a lost cause...otherwise I would never be able to work with people or hire anyone, noone would ever want to work with me if I held them to the same standards I hole myself to...I am awful to myself, I am my own worst enemy and hard on myself to the pont that somedays I would quit if I wasn't attached to me...I saw that early on as a problem...
Mikey, when we interview people we need to interview on all the same levels our business travels...There is merit on hiring someone with design potential that has a great sales way or wonderful personality...Rememebr we sell service first and flowers second...so while the design is up there in the list it is not #1, the quality of our personell and how people view them is #1 they need to trust and be able to work with someone way before they design something for them...
