This little gem popped up on The Oatmeal recently. It's called, "How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell" but in this case, "web design" could easily be substituted for graphic design or writing.
There's a line in there about a client asking for a web design to "pop" and be "edgier." Story of my life. I don't do design work professionally, but I do tons of writing and I collaborate with designers often. We get buzz words like this in creative briefs all the time. I was once asked to write a 10-page portfolio that was "YouTubian." Three drafts later I discovered that the client actually wanted the language to be youthful, snappy, humorous, and a bit tongue-in-cheek. That, I can do. "YouTubian" left me guessing.
But I don't really blame the client. As creatives we sometimes forget that we use a slightly different vocabulary than our clients. It's up to us to translate and decode. Sure, we shouldn't HAVE to, and in a perfect world we wouldn't. But without clients (or some client-like entity that cuts our paychecks), we'd be on the street. That'll never change. They'll never change. So it's up to us to bridge the gap.
Ahhahaha this is great. We are currently in the "home run stretch" with our website redesign at work...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of clients, you should check out this website for a good laugh: http://clientsfromhell.net/ .
ReplyDeleteClient: “This looks good. I’d like for you to get together with the project manager (male) and the marketing director (female) for a little ménage à trois before the next phase of the project starts.”
Me (who was only half-listening to this point): “Excuse me?”
Client: “Hmm? oh, ménage à trois? That’s a French phrase. It means collaboration.”