satorimedia

Yesterday a friend of mine who has recently been promoted into a marketing position asked me for some logo advice. She works for a property management company, and they wanted a simple, quick, and dirty logo. She had tried to give them some of what they wanted - but they (i.e., management) were somewhat less than clear in what they wanted. Aside from the fact that it wasn't what she was giving them.

This was not her fault. Far from it, me and many other designers have felt this pain. The best manifestation of it is in the Dilbert comic where the pointy-haired boss says to Dilbert "Our site needs a better design. Can you make it more...webbish?"

It's not my friend's bosses' fault either. Blame the dearth of arts funding, blame what you want, the fact is that most people in our culture are ill-equipped to actually talk about aesthetics. People don't know design principles (take a look at some of the flyers and such designed with the plethora of fonts available today). And that's a good thing, for people like me, because it keeps us employed.

Well, sort of. This was more of a favor than employment. But still, I'm proud of what I came up with - and more than that, it did give her boss a better idea of what he was looking for.

Hmm. Maybe there's a job description for "The Logo Whisperer"?