By lunch time today I was reduced to nothing more than the shell of a man; close to the edge and low on moral. A client of mine finally decided that it was in fact he who wore the artistic pants in our client/designer relationship, not I, and effectively reduced what was a good design into something that must have fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. A sad sight indeed; this thing would have made the elephant man look attractive. Perhaps even Meatloaf in the right light.
But it got me thinking - about how a design can look so right to one person yet wrong to another. I don't think this was entirely the case with Mr Client and his enormous ego, but nevertheless the thought stands. Now no design has ever, or will ever be "perfect" - globally accepted by 100% of the world's population - but it quickly led to a question; what designs, now or from history, have come closest? The one which sprang immediately to my mind was the iPod - loved by many, criticised by few. With a little more thought my mind shifted to older imagery, such as Van Gogh's Starry Night, though that might be a personal preference...
Dated: 31/05/2006. Filed under: Miscellaneous.
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Comments
- On 1st June 2006 Elessar said:
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Any chance we could see the design in question? That would be a small test, let your readers commenton what they think of it...though it seems Mr. Client and his ego need to shove it where....ahem. So, happy June 1st :P
- On 2nd June 2006 P.J. Onori said:
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Fuuny you bring up Van Gogh as he was considered himself a failure and did not receive any major attention during his lifetime.
The eternal designer v. client struggle is well documented and will always be part of the job. It is unfortunate and very unenjoyable, but for 99% of us, it will be something we have to deal with until we no longer work in the field.
My apologies as I know it is not a fun thing to go through. If it is any consolation, thousands of other designers are experiencing similar frustrations... - On 2nd June 2006 Steve Tucker said:
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@Elessar - Sorry I cant show the design, I value my job too much! But I can tell you it included a lot of bright blues and a content background of blue sky with clouds.
@PJ - Thats alright, ive been though it all before, just the end result is rarely this bad. Maybe I should have just become a lawyer or something. - On 2nd June 2006 kitsimons said:
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It's going to be very hard to find anything. There's the old saying; you can design something everyone will like, or you can design something some will love and some will hate.
The problem lies in the kind of emotions you need to stir up to invoke a "love" of something. In doing so you will hit the right note with some and not with others - such is the nature of humans.
If you want as wide appeal as possible you need to reign it back - produce something innoffensive, something safe. It will be liked by many but loved by none.
That aside, my vote would go to Concorde. A masterpiece of design imo, and I don't recall anything negative ever being said about the design itself. - On 2nd June 2006 Steve Tucker said:
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@Kit - Great choice with the concorde. never thought about that one but you're right - never heard a bad word said against it.
- On 3rd June 2006 SPAM said:
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.......SPAM WAS HERE..........
- On 3rd June 2006 Elessar said:
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Ouch...i thought spammers weren't a problem?
- On 3rd June 2006 Steve Tucker said:
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Criky, me too. Unless that gentleman's casino links are somehow highly relevant to the article at hand. Perhaps they are all good examples of the perfect design... or maybe not.
- On 3rd June 2006 Elessar said:
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Well, it looks like they used bbcode rather then html...looks like you have plenty of words to add to your can list :)
- On 3rd June 2006 Damien said:
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I believe that designing anything that the whole world will look at and like is not possible, to be honest. You can be sure there is someone who doesn't like the way the iPod looks. And there's someone who's saying that Google is too plain as we speak.
I think the designing should be left in the hands of a designer, in the case of a Web design, and that the client should put a great amount of trust into what the designer says is good and not good. - On 4th June 2006 Steve Tucker said:
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I agree entirely with both parts of that argument Damian. Designing should be left in the hands of the designers, and I personally still dont see what all the fuss is about with iPod.
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