Typically, design by committee is the result of a project that lacks strong leadership.
Even if a project has direction in the beginning, the vision gets muddy when multiple people start influencing the design. Before you know it, you wind up with a design that stinks.
There’s a saying abound: “a camel is a horse designed by committee.” There’s nothing wrong with the camel, but when you’re going for a horse, well…
It’s a difficult thing to be a leader in the professional world. It takes a lot of assets: guts, determination, connections, education, and more often than not, a magic carpet. Mainly however, the quality I want to emphasize for good leadership is experience.
I’ve been a graphic designer working since 1996. In that time, I’ve worked as a freelancer and for companies, both small and large. The time I’ve spent as a designer has given me a lot of valuable experience; experience that I hope to pass on to you, the client. (Sorry, sometimes self-promotion is a necessity, like good design).
Thing is, I want to make it known that I’ve worked in a lot of environments. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t in terms of creating solid, well designed projects.
I’ve spent enough time in “design by committee environments,” that I can instantly spot the stinky design it creates. That’s why I laughed the other day when I saw a brochure from American Express in my mailbox.
Let me dare explain the back-story of this piece: a designer is given a concept, usually with some vague direction like “Were doing a new promo for our membership rewards program and it’s got to have something flashy, like a bike, on the cover.”
The designer goes to work, selects a nice blue sky with a red road bike. As a graphic artist, he’s looking at things like colors, composition and how to direct the eye to get the message across visually. He ends up with a piece like this:
Decent Design
It’s a nice looking brochure and it gets the point across. Presumably it makes the prospect, in this case me, say, “cool bike, I want to know more.” It almost worked, but there was a problem, the brochure didn’t come to me looking like this.
I imagine the scenario behind this piece, and I can see the committee getting involved. Someone (probably in marketing) says something like, “I don’t think this brochure is going to reach our demographic, there’s something missing.”
Then someone (probably an executive) says, “Why don’t we have a photo of a guy who represents our target market, looking in at the bike like he’s window shopping.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” says another marketer trying to get a word in. Everyone seems to agree except of course the designer, who makes a suggestion, “simplicity is what I was going for, I think it’s stronger with just the bike.”
The marketers stare at him blankly and the sudden stillness in the room gets the attention of the creative director. The creative director, instead of taking a leadership role on good design, decides to keep the majority of his co-workers happy by saying, “yes, and we can put the target market guy right here at the bottom.”
The designer feels he has no choice but to adhere to the bad design requests. He ends up hopelessly lost in the desert with a beast like this:
Stinky Design
Yes, it’s bad, I know it stinks, so let me plug your nose while I calmly whisper in your ear, “that dark and blurry image of the guy looking at the bike is not a mirage, it’s real.” I did a quick Photoshop job on the brochure (top version) above so you could see how much better the piece looks without the “target market” guy cluttering it up.
Although the above events are imagined, I’ve had enough experience to know “design by committee” when I see it. It happens a lot in the professional world, where the goal is to please everybody.
That way of thinking brings to mind another idiom, “when you try to please everyone, no one wins.” I like this article at Smashing Magazine: Why design by committee should die. Included in the article is a funny list of excuses people use to open up their designs to a committee.
Considering all you’ve just read, I’d just like to say that I take pride in my experience. I like to maintain a leadership role while getting you the quality product you want. All I ask is that you let me hold the reigns and guide you through the design process. This may also involve marketing and writing to some degree, but have no fear, I will lead you to water eventually.
As for American Express, their bad design work has rousted me into action. As a prospect, I’m going to opt out of their mailing list, so I won’t receive any more junk mail from them. Thanks anyway American Express, but my mailbox is reserved for horses—weee-he-he-he-he-he!
Like this post? Didn’t like this post? Have any design by committee horror stories? Go ahead and leave a comment.
