I’ve been out of the web design business for four months, and haven’t received job offers from strangers ever since this blog was featured in the Computer Times a few years ago.
So I was a little surprised that someone emailed me today, saying he liked my designs on online T-shirt gallery-shop, Threadless.com, and asking me to redesign his company website, which happens to be in French. Monsieur wanted to know how long it would take, and stated that the final product would be a mockup.
But I never put anything up on Threadless.com. I logged in and sure enough, the system confirmed I had made no submissions. However it did show that my email address was visible to the public, which was not a good thing. The email was addressed simply as “Hi,” without referring to my name. How remote could that be?
Next, what on earth makes Monsieur think I’d do a great job of his website, by simply looking at a T-shirt design? It must’ve been a kickass work of art. It’s making me delusional. Now I’d like to think I did submit something many years ago under a pseudonymn which I’ve forgotten. Like, it’s become some sort of cult legend and I don’t even know about it.
Back to reality. I figure this guy has sent an evil bot to sift out our email addresses. He then goes around massaging the egos of various members of the design community, hoping to get a free ride in the process. I may be paranoid, but I’m not too sure if I should reply to his email.
Designers of the world, beware!