I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

I am applying for an art job at Google. I saw the listing and having a steady job with make my mother worry less. I got an email back of their “basic skills test”—

There are 3 parts to this test:

1. Develop an original, fun animal character illustration. – the animal should be a cat – the pose should be comical – free-hand illustration encouraged (instead of vector-based source file) – realism is preferred (but stylizing is okay) (??) – it should be full-color – image size should be: 1600 pixels x 1200 pixels – file format should be: TIFF

2. Develop 2 original icons that convey the concept of ‘Fast Download’ – File format: GIF – Sizes: 128×128, 32×32 and 16×16

3. Recreate the attached illustration in vector format
(a vector-drawn pad and paper, converted to .JPG that I have to redraw back as a vector)

My cynical nature’s first instinct was “they’re having me do spec work for free… then they will steal it.” I suppose I will watermark it, but is that going to insult them? (and how do you watermark a 16×16 icon?)

I’ve read way too many stories like this in illustrator’s and artist’s blogs. TRUST NO ONE!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Design.