Make The Logo Bigger
(The following, while fictional, is based on real-life
observations.)
So,
the client emailed me back, “Looks good. Now, could we make the logo
bigger?”
Oh boy, I
thought.
Here
we go again.
(Making the logo bigger is
a painful punchline among designers and brand consultants worldwide, the client
request to “make the logo bigger” is abhorred almost as much as “Looks great.
Can you make this one minor change: try the logo with Helvetica?” Now back
to our story.)
The
logo is enlarged by 50%. Other elements are reduced accordingly.
Email
response, “MUCH better. Can we see it over the visual a bit? The visual seems
so overpowering and our logo might be missed to key prospects.”
Oh
brother.
Before
lunch, edits made and emailed over. Plenty to digest.
One
hour passes.
Two
hours pass.
At
4:45, an email response finally comes back. I am informed their marketing
committee looked it over and spent the afternoon conducting an internal surveyamongst
employees.
It
reads, “GREAT work! Please make the headline bigger and the logo so it fills
the lower half of the page. Adjust all other components accordingly.” (A slow
painful death while being forced to listen to Barry Manilow non-stop is looking
mighty fine right now.)
Exasperated,
I let this settle in overnight.
Slowly
drifting to sleep, I kept wondering, “How could they not see the perfection of
the initial design submission? It was on-brand. All the surveyed touch points
were incorporated…. How? How? Why?…”
After
a short and very restless night of sleep, I arrive at the office the next
morning. I look at the original submission on my 27-inch monitor still
bewildered.
I have
a suspicion.
I
email the client with one question.
The
email response back, “On our smartphone of course.”
The
question I asked?
“What
are you proofing this on?”
I then
advise the client I am sending over a brand
new direction, fully revised and, to appreciate it fully, it’s necessary
to review this on a full size computer monitor with
their committee.
Within
10 minutes, the client having viewed this on their full-size computer screen
emails me, “This is
perfect! Totally nailed it. PERFECT size of logo too! Thanks for all the hard
work and implementing our suggestions! The committee has saved you a fresh
baked doughnut for our meeting later today.”
The
new design sent?
The
original design.
OK,
now where’s that Barry Manilow 8-track cassette?
(The
lesson learned: Size of device does matter.)
Written
By: David Brier
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