Step-on-me's first day at school

Step-on-me’s first day of school

Did I mention that I’m supposed to be a copywriter now? Well scratch that cracked-out idea. I’m back to being trained in web design.

Did I mention that I already have a degree in multimedia? Well scratch that cracked-out idea too. It doesn’t exist in Step-on-me’s head, so I’m supposed to ignore 2-years of my life.

So, I’m back to attempting to schedule myself for Dreamweaver/Flash classes (regardless of the fact that I TAUGHT a Dreamweaver class). And Step-on-me takes Clark with her to a Copywriting 2-day class. I’m resentful, but I’ll live. Hopefully I’ll actually get some web/multimedia experience within the next few months.

Piper and I enjoy our two-days of solitude with minimal chaos… then Step-on-me returns with Clark. Apparently the instructor of this class got this half-brained idea (this would be a wonderful instance where I’d like to be carrying a tazer gun so that my worklife won’t be made twice as difficult) to teach the class some basics (VERY VERY BASIC) design principals.

With this NEW & IMPROVED knowledge, Step-on-me is now convinced that we all need to go to design classes.

WHAT. THE. HELL. ?!?!?!?!?!?

Okay, so she’s decided to ignore my marketing degree, and my multimedia degree, and my 6-years of design experience. What is wrong with this woman???

Step-on-me is particularly enamored with what she calls the “reverse-Z” design (please note: reverse-Z = reverse-S in everyone else’s design classes). Don’t know what a reverse-S is? Brush up on your design by reading this link: http://pec.jun.alaska.edu/webanimation/pages/design/pages/Quark2.html

This is the boring stuff you learn within the first couple of weeks of your very-very first design class in college. I guess you could call them building blocks. You learn this stuff and build your own experience and talent upon it. Sometimes you have to deviate from the pattern to fit your piece or the specs of your client/employers. That’s just life.

And anyway, so long as it gets the message across, catches someone’s eye, and makes them want to know more/buy more/be more, isn’t that all you need?

So, back to my story. Step-on-me is totally knocked off her rocker by this. She didn’t know about this ‘reverse-Z’ pattern, didn’t know about the 8-word headline rule, didn’t know you were only supposed to use sans-serif for headlines and serif for body text. It’s amazing.

Needless to say, I’m confused. What? Step-on-me, the manager of the marketing/sales department has never had any design classes?

No. No design classes.

Has she had any marketing or advertising classes then? Those design principles are gone into detail in most advertising classes.

No. No advertising or marketing classes.

Then WHY, may I ask, am I forced to listen to someone who’s never been trained in marketing or design when she’s only 4 years older than me?? Does that make any sense?

Of course, Step-on-me is utterly convinced that nobody in the department knows anything about design because SHE doesn’t know anything about design. She wants a complete redesign of all of our major brochures, because they’re all wrong. They don’t follow the basic design rules that she just learned to a TEE, so they’re wrong and must be redesigned. Front, back, inside, outside--even the tiniest 3x3-inch ads must bend to the reverse-Z.

I swear, everyday she changes more-and-more into a likeness of Carol. It’s scary.