It's Pedestrian Season!!!

It's Pedestrian Season again!! Not entirely unlike Deer Season, pedestrians also have their special time of the year. Except, instead of instincts being driven by mating, these instincts are driven by the temperature.

In most liberal cities, like Ann Arbor, pedestrians begin hitting the black top in droves as soon as the high temperatures of the day hit about 30-degrees (F). Not all pedestrians are traffic saavy, so you have to keep your eyes peeled--especially for the ones that dart out from behind trees or bushes and wear brown-to-grey apparel.

I noticed an increase in foot-traffic this morning and reminded myself to watch closely for illegal-crossing pedestrians. However, I did NOT notice a pedestrian hiding behind a telephone pole wearing all brown. I pulled out to turn right and noticed a figure bouncing off my right fender. He did a little twirl in the air and ran around behind my truck.

Needless to say, I was slightly shaken up.

The pedestrian, however, seemed fine and continued running down the road.

I submit for your perusal, exhibits #1 & #2

Exhibit #1

The above exhibit is a brochure mock-up I designed for ICE's Winter Book Sale. Please note the tagline 'Buy what you're missing during'

Granted, grammar is off because I removed some key elements, but please ignore that.

The instant reaction of my supervisor's supervisor (Carol) was 'how clever'. (that's good news) The instant reaction of CEO-lady was also favorable.

I was happy as a fuzzy warm kitten nestled in a blanket in the sun on a cool spring day. Super ecstatic happy... I never receive this kind of fanfare for my work. I was on cloud 9.

So, I push the mock-up into first draft and CEO-lady starts freaking out. 'Aren't you going to put a book there? I thought you were going to put a book there. There's no book there.'

WHAT THE HELL??? She actually thought I'd spend the better half of a work day editing the photograph so it looked like there was a book missing with a little dotted outline just to put a book in there later on???

And the WORST part is, SHE GOT THE MESSAGE BUT DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THAT SHE GOT THE MESSAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *faints*

She knew there was a book missing, saw that the message read 'buy what' you're missing', and knew a book should go there. So, her mind, making that last feeble connection, wanted a book in that hole. However, she didn't understand that she 'got the message' and wanted me to put a book in the hole because the message said to find her missing purchase.

After much explaining, Step-on-me returns with a compromise.

And thus I submit to you exhibit #2.

Exhibit #2

She had me get rid of the dotted lines (because, of course, they don't make any sense) and add the words 'Your Next Title'.

Hello Captain Obvious, glad you could join us today in our mission to make the world think less!

The worst part is, it just makes ME look stupid in the long-run. I have to use these bastardized pieces of art in my portfolio and then explain to my potential employers why I'm not an idiot.

Stupid coworkers stupefying managers

I can't concentrate on my work... I'm practically fuming. Really I shouldn't let this stuff build up to the point where I just sit and stare at my computer whispering 'this is stupid... this is so stupid..."

First, some words for those of you that aren't familiar with projects/designs.

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mock·up also mock-up (mkp)
n.

1. A usually full-sized scale model of a structure, used for demonstration, study, or testing.
2. A layout of printed matter.

Mock-ups at my work usually consist of a picture, title, and color/font choices for the cover of a brochure. Nothing is finalized. The only text that's editable consists of a tagline. This isn't a full-blown ad campaign for pepsi. It's a stupid letter-sized piece of paper folded in half.

After the mock-up design is finalized, then we go into pasting in the copy, schedule of events, pricing, presenters... etc. Then the piece goes into draft where people check spelling, adjust wording, and tweak the brochure.

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So! I work out a mock-up for a small brochure (letter size, folded in half). It has the title, what the schedule layout will look like, where the description goes, and the dates. I chose pretty blue and pretty lime green. n.n

They like the design (surprise, surprise) and suggest imagery. I put in a picture of people talking at a table--because that's all our brochures are ever about: people talking. Super-exciting, I know.

But that imagery isn't good enough and Einstein suggests comic-strip pictures on the cover of the brochure. Instantly I'm put off. Not only do you have to discern what the image is, what they're saying, what the joke is, but THEN we have to relate the image/joke to the course. All in a space slightly larger than a business card.

Step-on-me, after seeing my disgruntled reaction, says, "Well, just slap the image in there. We'll just humor him. CEO-lady won't agree with him, so don't lose your original design."

Riiight. So I'm supposed to redesign this brochure to fit this stupid comic (IE, waste time) just to humor him and go back to the original design. Already I'm muttering 'stupid-stupid' under my breath.

So, 7 MOCK-UP drafts later, I've changed all the text on two different brochures, adjusted the schedule on two different brochures, adjusted the layout on two different brochures, added the pricing and all the anal details on two different brochures... JUST IN MOCK-UP.

On the most-recent brochure lying in-front of me, Einstein's changed the description copy 17 times!! What the heck?? Two paragraphs don't NEED to be changed 17 times on 7 different brochures on TWO DIFFERENT COPIES. That's 238 changes just in the copy alone!!!

AND WE'RE STILL IN MOCK-UP!!!!

Finally, CEO-lady sees Einstein's brilliant idea of having a comic strip on the front cover of a brochure designed for lawyer education and she sends him a nasty email. (woohoo! score one for CEO-lady--I really want a copy of that email) So I'm back to the original design.

Step-on-me runs down the list of duties for today and gets to my brochure. She says to make the changes (copy changes) and then she's going to show it to CEO-lady, who's already seen it before, so she can approve it. I butt in and ask, can't we just start the draft process.

:No. CEO-lady needs to approve it first:

I'm about half ready to throw everything on my desk across the room. Fuckin-A, CEO-lady has already SEEN the damned mock-up! Why the hell does she have to see it again?? She's just going to make 50 more changes to the brochure and have to see it AGAIN before it even goes into draft.

The worst part is that Step-on-me keeps pushing this stupid lame late-as-hell brochure to the top of my priority list when I have OTHER things that are more important to do... like rant for an hour on my blog...