Pretty is a 4-letter word

I don't know if I've mentioned this before (it seems I would have by now) but the word 'pretty' at ICE is actually laced with razors of insult and they slam it down the marketing department's throat like they're feeding us compliments.

"Well, it looks pretttyyy, but we don't want to think."

First off, as designers and marketers, we're looking to get the message across quick. A 3-5 second glance should let the customer know what it is they're looking at, and the message should come across within a half-glance. We WANT people to understand what they're looking at, but we're thrown so much crap that it's hard to sort it out.

We do what we can with what we're given. You put more shit on the page, and YES the font's going to HAVE to be size 7pt. Sorry charlie. Learn how to simplify, then we can talk size 10-12pt font. I can't help it if you refuse to put on your glasses when you read the brochure. Your doctor would be telling you to wear them, too.

Just because the layout of the brochure/site/ad isn't exactly what they had in THEIR head doesn't mean that we don't know what we're doing. It means that they can't function when things don't go their way.

And god-dammit, if I am asked to put another be-damned burst on the cover of my already overcrowded brochure, heads are going to roll, folks.

Heads are going to roll.

In the meantime I'm going to pretend like that suggestion never existed and hope that the suggestor forgot they even suggested it. ^_^