Make it Pop.

[LetterT]

"No. I will not make it pop. If I make every thing on the page pop, then guess what, nothing pops."

Backstory:

I'm a graphic designer at our local newspaper (which translates: production monkey). I worked hard for my B.F.A. and it appears to be all for nought.

I build stupid garbage ads all day (mostly car ads). It seems to me, that to be successful here, I have to purposely forget how to design, cobble some garbage together and present the trashiest ad possible.

I'm curious as to whether there are other graphic designers on the forum and what your story is. Are you locked into drab, uninspiring garbage design also? How many times per project do you hear "make it pop"?

It seems to be the current buzzword and it was old the first time it was used.

[syntheticgerbil]

I do concept and animation at a small local video game company that only does games for testing purposes, and a lot of it watered down and characters are overly nationalized, but that's okay I guess since it's not my company and I need the work.

I think it's probably easier to make money doing "lowest common denominator" work, especially if you are doing it for want/job ads.

Everyone seems to love Comic Sans too, I'm sure this is all interconnected.

[James]

I know next to nothing about graphic design, but it continually astounds me that an apparently large number of people still think that the atrocious clip-arty stuff they put in their adverts is at all appealing. You have my uninformed sympathy.

[Roderick]

Not really in the same boat, but I do a lot of freelance illustration/animation/comics work for lotsa clients. It gives a lot more freedom than making banners I guess, though the fun thing actually is the tug-of-war between what you want to make and what the client has in mind. Usually I try to sneak in as much off-the-counter things. In my last assignment, I made an illustration about a vampire that everyone said would be rejected. It came through, and I won the bet of one KFC bucket of chicken

[n0wak]

I'm curious as to whether there are other graphic designers on the forum and what your story is. Are you locked into drab, uninspiring garbage design also? How many times per project do you hear "make it pop"?

I'm not a graphic designer but I work for ad agencies so I am certainly aware of this shit by proxy. It's, well, it's to be expected. "Whitespace" has no meaning to these people. If you get into a situation like this again, I suggest listening to this song.

Also, dreamless.org, a forum I used to frequent in 2000 before it went down (lot of designers/new media types), had a classic "client quotes" thread that has lived on in infamy.

So, yes, how many times do I hear crap like that? Every time.

[Jake]

"No. I will not make it pop. If I make every thing on the page pop, then guess what, nothing pops."

Backstory:

I'm a graphic designer at our local newspaper (which translates: production monkey). I worked hard for my B.F.A. and it appears to be all for nought.

I build stupid garbage ads all day (mostly car ads). It seems to me, that to be successful here, I have to purposely forget how to design, cobble some garbage together and present the trashiest ad possible.

I'm curious as to whether there are other graphic designers on the forum and what your story is. Are you locked into drab, uninspiring garbage design also? How many times per project do you hear "make it pop"?

It seems to be the current buzzword and it was old the first time it was used.

I worked at local weeklies for a bit under three years, and I know exactly what you mean It being a few years ago for me, I mostly did real estate ads as opposed to cars, and also occasionally ads for the local Dairy Queen.

I escaped that job for my current far more enjoyable job doing most of the graphic design at Telltale Games... which is not perfect by any means but is obviously a million times more enjoyable than days and days of yet another black and white picture of a hamburger or a tractor or a photo of a 90% built house onto which which I have to clone-tool in a fully grown lawn. That's not to say that more than a week goes by without someone asking to make the logo bigger, make the colors pop, add a hilariously off-putting starburst or call to action, or whatever, but I think that basically always comes with the territory of being an advertising/promotion-focused graphic designer, unless you're somehow in the position to only work on your own projects. That stuff is all obviously far more tolerable when you're working on a video game, though!

Also, surely you've seen this.

Edited February 12, 2009 by Jake

[David]

Welcome to hell.

I work in web, and have done a fair bit of design-related stuff professionally. Most of what I've done is more related to front-end development, though; taking the design and doing the necessary stuff to get it on the web (HTML, CSS, whatever). So, anyway, I work on the same team as graphic designers, and have heard a lot of the same types of stuff, especially at my last job.

Ridiculous delays in the development pipeline are incurred by these types of excellent comments coming in at the last minute. Or worse, when it's after last-minute--e.g. An important person hasn't seen the design before we have to start slicing it up and coding it for the web, and when they do see it, they'll just need changes (after it's already prepped for deployment to the production servers)--which means double work for designers and everyone else on down the line.

I now do work that is substantially less related directly to the design process, which means I avoid a lot of the potential awesomeness that comes with making things that must please the C-level bosses, but your post definitely brings back some painful memories.

Edit: It seems like, if there's anything apart from cathartic bitching (sorry, guys!) to take away from this thread, it's that you should find satisfaction in what you do independently of your job--freelance work, or just fucking around in your spare time--and eventually you'll be able to find a much better gig if you are able to stick it out.

Edited February 12, 2009 by Metallus

[Scrobbs]

I don't quite know how to word this, but I'll go ahead and try it anyway.

Why do people insist on doing this: You have the adverts - normal people going to work on the bus, tube, train whatever - look at the adverts, they are intelligent human beings. They see the advert, and something registers about the product and because they have a brain and therefore an opinion on the asthetic qualities of the advert, they are able to say whether they like or dislike the advert. Too much boring design makes people ignore the adverts.

These people include the people telling you to make the adverts boring and identikit, they must like seeing a nice design as much as the next human being. If they don't have any power to change that, then their bosses must feel the same (as they still get the bus, train, car to work) , if they can't do anything about it, then the clients must feel the same, and to take it one step further the bosses of the client company.

Given that premise, every designer should be producing great stuff, should be allowed to produce great stuff, although there are budget and talent limitations, but producing stuff that is at the very edge of their creativity.

This doesn't happen - instead you get pages and pages of total pointless shite, minutes and minutes of useless twaddle on the teevee. What does this mean? That people go through life with no opnion on things? That the managers that drive the designers into drudgery look proudly at that page of pointlessness and say, "I helped create that."

What goes on? Why does this happen?

[Roderick]

I know one thing about this: cheap, ugly adverts make your products seem very cheap. There's a reason discounter stores always use low-grade ads with horrible, flashy colours (red on white is a favourite). When people see it, something in their head says ,,Goddamn, this is a cheap-looking ad... the products must be cheap there, too!", because only expensive, A-plus brands use proper designs and pleasing aesthetics.

And since the market is mostly filled with bottomfeeders... there's a huge surplus of crap ads.

[DanJW]

What goes on? Why does this happen?

There's a number of reasons I guess. Most people react to good design on a completely unconcious level. It goes straight to their hindbrain without any thought inbetween.

When they find themself in the position of having to create something, they start to overthink. Without training and/or years of effort, design and artistic skill stops developing at round 12 years (not rhetoric - studies have shown this to be the case). Think back - I bet at 12 years old you thought lens-flairs and enormous drop-shadows were cool. Your average dumb client never progressed beyond that.

Good design looks simple and effortless (despite being difficult), so these kind of people feel they have to prove their own knowledge and competence by demanding things, anything, that makes it look less effortless, so they can say "I did something, I am in control!"

It might be out of habit, since management is 80% bullshitting to make it look like you know about something when you don't.

Yeah, I lot requests I guess are people wanting to feel in control of the designer, rather than the other way round. If only these people took the same attitude to the pilots on their air-travel, there might be fewer of them around...

[helvetica]

I support a number of websites within my department and luckily it's pretty smooth sailing most of the time. The sticky wicket I run into most often is what Metallus mentioned; the last minute changes when there's a deadline closing in.

Clients surprise me every once in a while, too. Just last week I heard from someone that they wanted "the person in a construction hat digging" picture on one of their sites. Haven't heard that one in years!

[Jake]

There's a number of reasons I guess. Most people react to good design on a completely unconcious level. It goes straight to their hindbrain without any thought inbetween.

When they find themself in the position of having to create something, they start to overthink. Without training and/or years of effort, design and artistic skill stops developing at round 12 years (not rhetoric - studies have shown this to be the case). Think back - I bet at 12 years old you thought lens-flairs and enormous drop-shadows were cool. Your average dumb client never progressed beyond that.

Good design looks simple and effortless (despite being difficult), so these kind of people feel they have to prove their own knowledge and competence by demanding things, anything, that makes it look less effortless, so they can say "I did something, I am in control!"

It might be out of habit, since management is 80% bullshitting to make it look like you know about something when you don't.

Yeah, I lot requests I guess are people wanting to feel in control of the designer, rather than the other way round. If only these people took the same attitude to the pilots on their air-travel, there might be fewer of them around...

I think this is pretty much exactly right.

I don't think that anyone sets out to make a dull advertisement, and that most people do respond more positively to well done and interesting advertising, but once it comes around to their own product, managers often become afraid of the risks you have to take to make something compelling, or they think that they have seen enough ads to know enough about how they're made to pull the right decision out of their hat/ass. Being risk averse and also simultaneously donning a weird veneer of boldness leading to weird snap decisions often results in complete horribleness.

[Nachimir]

I saw this term used once in explaining how to crop photographs well, it it made sense at the time, but I suspect that was only because they were showing with photos and cropping frames at the same time. I can see how it would easily become a horrible, lazy term for people who can't describe what they want out of a brief though.

[syntheticgerbil]

I think this is pretty much exactly right.

I don't think that anyone sets out to make a dull advertisement, and that most people do respond more positively to well done and interesting advertising, but once it comes around to their own product, managers often become afraid of the risks you have to take to make something compelling, or they think that they have seen enough ads to know enough about how they're made to pull the right decision out of their hat/ass. Being risk averse and also simultaneously donning a weird veneer of boldness leading to weird snap decisions often results in complete horribleness.

I'll make you a dull advertisement if the pay sucks. I don't give a fuck, momma didn't raise no fool.

[LetterT]

they think that they have seen enough ads to know enough about how they're made to pull the right decision out of their hat/ass. Being risk averse and also simultaneously donning a weird veneer of boldness leading to weird snap decisions often results in complete horribleness.

We call this thumbprint syndrome. They see a perfectly acceptable ad, but it "needs" their thumbprint so they can claim it as their doing.

On the occasion we sneak in a truly good ad, the advertiser freaks out after it fails to triple their business in one day and pulls the ad. They don't realize people need to see things a few times before it registers.

If it wasn't so against corporate policy, I would post some of my garbage for you all to laugh at and ridicule. Who knows, maybe I'll take out the "identifiers" and do it anyway.

Glad to know I'm not alone

[Roderick]

Please do!

[James]

In the early days of his business, my boss did pretty much everything himself. This included editing the photos of the products he was selling. When I joined the company, we were still selling some items with rainbow gradient backgrounds. I simply don't accept that anyone above the age of eight doesn't realize how horrendously tacky that is. Yet I have seen otherwise. The contradiction might well destroy me.

[LetterT]

Behold! The Pinnacle of "Good Design"!!!!

(Going for Round 5 on Proofs in a business that is extremely deadline oriented. That's a good way to make money )

And I've already been chastised at least 3 times for the "Look Closer" not having enough pop and focus. Of course, the Double Rebates is a big deal too, so let's make that stand out. Oh yeah, the payments definitely need to pop, make them as big as you can.

[n0wak]

What goes on? Why does this happen?

http://www.vimeo.com/1465284

[LetterT]

http://www.vimeo.com/1465284

I've watched that a few times. Has the full movie been released yet?

[syntheticgerbil]

And I've already been chastised at least 3 times for the "Look Closer" not having enough pop and focus.

It could stand be a bit bigger, but what I really want to do with your proof is write in huge font LET'S BUY SOME FUCKIN' CARS AND TRUCKS and then squeeze all the car pictures and pricing info into one big pile of positive space bullshit on the righthand corner of the page.

But I don't want to spend an hour doing that, so I'll let everyone imagine it.

[LetterT]

It could stand be a bit bigger, but what I really want to do with your proof is write in huge font LET'S BUY SOME FUCKIN' CARS AND TRUCKS and then squeeze all the car pictures and pricing info into one big pile of positive space bullshit on the righthand corner of the page.

But I don't want to spend an hour doing that, so I'll let everyone imagine it.

Classic! And it continues! Proof #7, which is actually another go-round on proof #5 from yesterday. So really, after having to redesign the ad, I had to go back to the previous design. (our company policy is 2 proof maximum mind you. Of course, it would help to have that sort of thing written down, no?)

Here's the garbage as it currently stands:

The fantastic thing about this one is, they had me modify National Nissan artwork. That sort of thing always goes over well.

[toblix]

Holy fucking shit.

[David]

I'm still seeing some areas in need of pop. What if we were to do something more like this:

[LetterT]

If we could print that in the paper, they'd run it every week!