Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A Little Design Help

Learning to work with people is hard. There are a lot of little nuances to co-worker relationships that make collaboration difficult. This is not about one of those little things…this is just about stupid people and stupid stuff…two things for which I have zero tolerance.

Being a graphic designer…I make things “pretty.” A lot of my co-workers get offended by that word, but as long as you appreciate my ideas as well, I am perfectly happy to make it “pretty.” You might be surprised to know how many people care about the aesthetics of the wrong stupid shit. I mean seriously dude…you should ask my help picking out some non-pleated pants before you ask for my help to make your email “pretty,” because all I am going to do is change it from Comic Sans and delete that heinous clip art.

How would you feel if you were asked to create a collection of 50 bajillion icons for some stupid internal application and all but one were great, but this one kinda resembles a gall bladder, so could you please go back and do it over? Well no thank you very much. I would rather not waste more of my time because some random person who just had their gall bladder removed, thought an icon that I made looked kinda like a gall bladder (maybe if you turn your head and squint while on crack).

While we are raging about design-related irritations…lets discuss the design sophistication of email stationery. As much as I love puppy feet, I don’t necessarily think they are an appropriate choice for your law firm’s professional correspondence. I can see that if you are say…an engineer…that a graph paper background might seem like a stylish choice…but it isn’t. It is ugly. And when I get your emails I die a little inside. Less is more people…really…black text on a white screen is absolutely in these days. And while we are at it…animated gifs of little butterflies or belly dancers as part of your electronic signature…also mildly inappropriate. Here is a desperate plea to Mircosoft: “Stop producing these hideous backgrounds, it is like giving a loaded gun to a kid in a black trench coat…it is going to end badly.”

Ok…so now that I have worked myself into a flurry, I just need to express a few more things that annoy:
  • Times New Roman
  • Powerpoint transitions that involve checked flags or pieces of pie
  • Yellow text on black backgrounds
  • Buttons with bevel, embossing, gradients AND drop shadow (just cause you can open Photoshop doesn’t mean you should use it)
  • Microsoft WordArt…it is neither legible nor art…so don’t
  • Pastel rainbow excel spreadsheets

Cause…The More You Know…the less I will want to spoon my eyes out.

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