Democracy is for Losers
Lately, it seems to me that more and more people are talking about how great this “democratization” thing is. Of course, they aren’t talking about places like Iraq or Afghanistan. No. They aren’t even really referring to making the American system more democratic (although there certainly are a lot of people screaming very loudly at the moment to see if it will work that way). No, these folks are talking about things like web standards and design. They’re bringing it into business and decision making.
Unfortunately these same people live in a country where to want something other than “democracy”, as they’ve termed it, is purely unpatriotic. To say that you’re against this so-called democratization is to be at best “the man” and at worst a crazy Nazi.
So, let’s step back for a minute.
What is the point of hiring a designer? Isn’t the point to have consultation and recommendations? Because, let’s be real, if you could design, you wouldn’t be hiring a designer. So why be “democratic” about it? If you truly want the best possible result, why would you want to have an equal voice in the process itself, rather than veto power?
Let’s be honest for a minute, when it comes down to it, should everyone have an equal voice in all things? Should the layperson really have equal say in the engineering of a bridge as an engineer? Should Joe the Plumber really have equal say in teaching your kids business ethics? Should you have equal say in things being designed for you?
It seems like a hard question to answer, but the answer is a clear no. Of course the client should have some say in a design project, just the same as a client would tell a mechanic which parts of the car to fix or accepting the lawyer’s suggestion to settle. When it comes to the project, however, the point of the designer is to be the expert, the consultant, the artist. It’s important to remember the reasons you hired your agency: they know how the market works, they’ve done their research on the demographic, they have the artistic talent, they have the skills necessary. And you don’t. That’s why they are so valuable. (resist the urge to read “expensive”)
Democracy doesn’t make your design better. (I’ve already addressed the other concept of democratization that really means having lots of people doing the work and paying one, which is a lot more like modern day snake oil sales) Having an equal voice in the process won’t help you. You have something much more important to contribute. As the client, you know your company, the people who work for you, and the people you work with. You (hopefully) know where you want to go and what you want to be doing. You have the knowledge and words, and the designer has the ability to turn that into images. So, I urge you, give up this notion of “democracy” that many are starting to champion, and let the system that’s worked so well for so long continue to be the best it can. This isn’t a government, it’s a market.
Logic.
There’s a period at the end for a reason. It says “that’s it.” It’s cold. It’s final. Unfortunately, it’s also very hard to define right now. The vast majority of Americans (and American businessmen) haven’t actually had to survive this kind of crisis before (at least not as an adult). It’s interesting to hear so many people blame this on everyone else. Whether it’s an evil corporation, or that liberal pinko baby-killer in office, nobody seems to want to take a minute and think. And it’s a problem. Instead of trying to solve our problem or putting our minds together, we continue to pull back and attempt to survive with blame as one of the primary defense mechanisms. It’s used as though identifying the cause of the trouble will somehow miraculously bring us back from the precipice
Well, it won’t.
Since I try to write about design, I’m going to make my point in terms of design. Currently, the marketing world is seeing a dramatic loss. Ad revenues in the first half of ‘09 were down 14% according to the Wall Street Journal, and marketers, ad agencies, and other ad-based companies are seeing huge losses. People are getting cut. Budgets are slashed. Special projects are lucky if put on hold, but are usually tossed in the bin. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
We in the ad business could start blaming people. We could blame our clients for being stingy. We could blame the past or current president for making a bad economic situation. We could blame our congress for general foolishness. We could blame global warming if we got really creative (it is what we do after all…). The reality is far more distressing it seems: we have nothing to blame but a clear lack of logic. In this market, one of the first things slashed is marketing and advertising budgets. It’s money wasted that’s not directly spent on business. Right?
Unfortunately, wrong. Marketing is what drives business to stores, what brings in innovation, what informs the people of new products, services and functions, and what makes sure that your product is where it should be. So why, when people have stopped spending money, are these companies placing the burden on the marketing departments (or hires)? When your opponents have similarly slashed their marketing budgets, you continue to play on an even playing field. You’re still competing for the same amount of business while people are spending less. Wouldn’t it make more sense to inform people about your product and promote it more aggressively when your competition can’t keep up? Doesn’t it seem clear that disengaging your consumers only leads to a loss of business rather than a cost cut?
It’s an odd problem to have, and seems indicative of our current situation as a nation: we’re running around with our heads cut off. When was the last time your community banded together to create local economic growth? Locally, I see the Indy metro area tearing itself to pieces to try and compete with different sides of the city rather than promoting the whole area to compete with other metro areas. In the process, we not only divide our city but we also see a plummeting import of tourism in an other-wise tourist friendly city.
It’s time to step back, think, and work together to help things move forward. Blame won’t solve our collective problem, nor will it really make us feel any better to have someone be the scapegoat when we’re still swimming in issues. Let’s be responsible. Let’s be mature. Let’s use a bit of logic.
Sadly, Still Sex-nifigant
The other day I stumbled upon an article that UnderConsideration had a link to on the Quipsologies page. The article raised a point that I don’t think we pay attention to anymore, not because we don’t care but because it’s such a ubiquitous truth that there is no reason to raise it: sex still sells. The article appears to have been written in response to public outrage at a certain Calvin Kline billboard with what appears to be an orgy about to happen. The public was outraged that such advertising could exist, that there were no filters or oversight to prevent such a travesty from happening.
But then the article makes the real point: this has been going on for ages.
Should we be outraged at the continuing process? Should we even be surprised to see such explicit imagery being used in advertising? The problem, it seems, is really the double standard we set for ourselves. When companies like Abercrombie only receive passing criticisms for their use of explicit imagery. Society declares it’s outrage, screams that it shall not tolerate treating people as objects, and raises it’s voice against those who would perpetuate such indecency to our children! Then it sits down calmly, plunks the credit card onto the counter and pays for the pair of jeans and t-shirt it just bought.
What’s truly outrageous is that it’s been happening for a very long time. The article goes into some depth by pulling examples from the last several decades to make the point. It’s not new, and outrage at “new” or more “outlandish” examples betrays the fact that we continue to let it happen, period. As a member of the design community, I understand that it’s a more complicated issue than it looks like at a glance. It’s more than just trying to associate a product and good feelings, it’s about trying to sell a lifestyle. That lifestyle exists, and our society embraces it. We look to the news for drama and scandal. As a society we revel to watch Jon and Kate break apart their marriage vows. We applaud (and almost anticipate) politicians who are crucified to marital unfaithfulness. As a society we don’t marry as often, we have more partners on average than ever, and our sexuality is at the forefront of so many major issues. The advertising we complain about isn’t causing this, it’s the mirror pointing back to us.
And that’s really what it’s all about. We can’t keep blaming ads for ruining our society. We can’t keep saying that the ads make us stumble or that the drama makes us weaker. Those are only reflections of the things we already wallow in. Yes, ending the use of explicit imagery in advertising would be great. Praise, hallelujah! But the real change comes from our society, and the ads will reflect that change, should it ever happen.
Training a Pet Peeve
This is to all of those people out there who choose to type in ALL UPPER CAPS. You know who you are. Maybe you think it helps you get your point across, like screaming it somehow helps in comprehension. Or maybe you’re just really lazy and won’t turn the caps lock button off. Perhaps you think it just looks pretty or that it matches your handwriting better, thus being a better representation of who you really are. Well, you’re not fooling anyone.
You see, we know all about you. And it’s not a two way street. What you don’t know is that we [the people] in order to form a more perfect union have collectively chosen not to read what you write. Yes, you’ve read correctly. Despite your valiant attempts at gaining our attention, you’ve failed. Big time. Of course, there is occasional rebel in our group who thinks what you have to say IN ALL CAPS might be worth reading, but after one [two if you're lucky] lines of type, those idealistic notions of breaking away are quickly relieved.
The fact is, you are writing to a wide forum of people who are mostly literate. And, unfortunately for you, they’ve grown up reading mixed caps. That is to say, 99.9% of all non-headline media that a person reads is made up of either an initial capital letter, or a mixture of capital and lowercase letters with the capital always at the front of the word. It’s easy for everyone to read. Letters are easily distinguished from one another, and words take on unique forms. We don’t need to focus on phonics [what you may call FONIX] because our brains have been trained to treat certain shapes as specific words.
Case in point:
In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum[p][1][2] is the name given to commonly used placeholder text (filler text) to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font, typography, and layout. The lorem ipsum text, which is typically a non-sensical list of semi-Latin words, is a hacked version of a Latin text by Cicero, with words/letters omitted and others inserted, but not proper Latin (see below: History and discovery).
is far easier to read than:
IN PUBLISHING AND GRAPHIC DESIGN, LOREM IPSUM IS THE NAME GIVEN TO COMMONLY USED ELEMENTS OF A DOCUMENT OR VISUAL PRESENTATION, SUCH AS FONT, TYPOGRAPHY, AND LAYOUT. THE LOREM IPSUM TEXT, WHICH IS TYPICALLY A NON-SENSICAL LIST OF SEMI-LATIN WORDS, IS A HACKED VERSION OF LATIN TEXT BY CICERO, WITH WORDS/LETTER OMITTEND AND OTHERS INSERTED, BUT NOT PROPER LATIN (SEE BELOW: HISTORY AND DISCOVERY).
Did you just see that? I know you did. Don’t deny it. You didn’t finish even trying to read that second block of copy. Why is that I wonder?
I hope we’ve learned a valuable lesson here today Mr.-I-love-the-all-caps-treatment. I hope we can now go on to be a civilized nation [interwebz] of people who are both literate and capable of saying things without having to scream them or cry for attention. We can continue to be a polite, well rounded society of folks who have a proper understanding of conversation. Maybe, just maybe, we can move on to the second or third grade of interwebz communication. Congratulation grad.
Ad Templates and a Painful Reality
It’s a funny thing to see what can happen when you’ve done an ad as a template. I did some pro-bono work for a local non-profit, designing an ad for a series. After the first one, they said they’d like to just go forward with it as a template and requested my files. Since it’s a pro-bono job, and I’m not one to lose my daylight hours lightly, I went along with this. I know better than that, of course. I know and have seen what happens when designers pass off their work to clients who want to move forward with it on their own, I just didn’t think it would happen this time. Sadly, it did.
The image on the far left is the original ad (I don’t have the published version, I never caught an issue with it inside) The middle one is the first iteration that I didn’t touch. You can see where they dropped the screening on the background to make the type legible, and added a drop-shadow to the logo, making it impossible to read what’s on the right side (also note, I did not design the logo, just used it) The titling was the serif instead of the slab-serif, and far too tightly leaded, completely breaking the rules I had. They changed the location of the contact information as well and placed it before any information of events. Really though, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.
Unfortunately, this was not true of the second ad. There is no background image, period. I used easily found faces, yet they chose whatever seemed to be convenient (at least it would appear) for the header. The logo got blown up to ginormous (it’s almost a full 2″ wide”) the justified text that I spent so much time making even is completely neglected, word spacing gone crazy. All formatting, for that matter, is gone. It’s just text on a page and a logo.
It’s okay though. It’s a learning experience for me, and hopefully one for the client. There’s a clear degree of ability and sensitivity that got lost along the way and which will leave the ads getting neglected as well.
And it’s an important lesson, I think, for all people when it comes to design. It’s not something anyone can do. It takes time, training and visual sensitivity. It takes intention. Color, type and layout all matter. Hierarchy helps guide the viewer through the information. The value of this skillset is critical for an ad to be effective, and with each removal from that skillset the ad becomes clearly less effective (not to pat myself on the back too much). So many people are happy to dismiss designers, or agencies, because they don’t see value in their services. They assume that a nephew with photoshop is the same as a professional designer. Hopefully the lesson here, is to think that such is as silly as thinking a child with toothpaste is a dentist. The child could clean teeth, but I wouldn’t want to go to them for an exam.
My Dock Got ‘Decked…
One of the programs I regularly use to keep up with Twitter is Tweetdeck. It helps me meet my goals using Twitter: easy tracking of people I follow, easy posting, short URL integration, instant notification, trending, columned viewing, custom grouping and simplified navigation. It does all of the things that Twitter can’t do by itself at a much more reliable level. There are no fail whales on Tweetdeck. I had seen the old icon for Tweetdeck on many a designer’s dock, constantly wondering what the heck the program was. And, of course, it’s nearly impossible to search for an app based on it’s icon. It didn’t help that it was a black bird because all I got were Beatles Lyrics and torrents to download Beatles music (or close to that result anyway). Well, in all of the Twitter research I did over the last few months I discovered what it was and fell in love with the program.
To be honest, the old icon is ugly as sin. The illustration is awkward and clunky and the dimensionality is equally poor. It’s got some really uncomfortably sharp creases in the highlights, and the weighting of the various anatomical parts is… off. However, it was always very easy to find, and quite frankly it was unique among the slew of square icons on my dock. As you can tell by the dock image, it fits in quite nicely with my CS products (even better if you’ve upgraded to CS4). And, quite frankly, I hate it. And the bird illustration is even more clunky (if that’s possible…) Without the dimensionality, the head has gotten too heavy and feels fat. The small feather indications on the head, tail, and wing are gone. The balance is forced forward, making the bird look like it’s going to fall forward. Some of the weight is gone from the upper part of the leg (and there wasn’t enough to begin with) and now it feels too twiggy. The wing is also gone, further forcing the weight too far forward. A small clip out of the tail was also “resolved” and now it’s a fluid, but unbalanced shape. It feels more like an awkward Peep than a bird. For all of the problems the original had, it had finesse. I also don’t want it to blend even more with my dock. For some, that’s probably a relief, for me, it does the opposite of what the original did by standing out. It’s also lost a bit of it’s legitimacy too, taking on the web2.0 psuedo-design feel that most of them have taken. It’s joined the legion of icons that all look the exact same, attempting to declare “hey! I’m web2.0 too!” Ehn.