Michael Bierut elaborates on the similarities of graphic design and speechwriting for clients.
Your client has a message to communicate: an argument, a sales pitch, a call to action. Your job is to give it form. You’re an expert at this. You know how to take a complicated bunch of ideas and reduce them to their arresting, memorable, engaging essence. You come up with some big ideas that you’re convinced will work and, detail by careful detail, you bring those ideas to life. But there’s a problem: your work is second-guessed by a bunch of middle managers, some of whom are insecure, some of whom have their own agendas to inject, some of whom just like to say no. Despite all that, you refine and revise, hoping to keep the strength of your original idea intact. Finally, your work is approved, and it goes out into the world. If you’re lucky, it really makes a difference: minds are changed, passions are fueled, your client looks great. And, somehow, hardly anyone out there knows you were involved at all… It sounds a lot like graphic design, doesn’t it?
He goes on to reference some examples cited in Peggy Noonan’s What I Saw at the Revolution book about her time — and pressures — writing speeches for Ronald Reagan and H.W. Bush.
I particularly liked this backstage pass into the beautiful closing words of the Challenger Disaster speech Noonan wrote for Reagan:
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them — this morning, as they prepared fro their journey, and waved good-bye, and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
Bierut adds:
A deluge of mail and calls followed. But does it surprise you to learn that during the attenuated review process, someone from the National Security Council suggested that that the end be changed — quoting, of all things, a then-popular AT&T commercial — to “reach out and touch someone?” Noonan described this as “the worst edit I received in all my time at the White House.”
Ahh, clients. To be fair, we’ve all been there—we’ve all thought we had a better solution to a problem than the people we hired to solve it. But it’s still funny.
Chris
on 30 Jan 07And you can listen to that speech here.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/ronaldreaganchallengeraddress12.mp3
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html
Hrush
on 30 Jan 07I have to agree with Bierut’s conclusion—”And, somehow, hardly anyone out there knows you were involved at all…”
I don’t know whether this is a bother within the design profession, however, or just the reward of good design(ers) at work.
Good design is about users accomplishing tasks without “design(ers)” getting in the way. The better the design, the less noticeable the designer.*
Good design enables users to flow effortlessly through a task. The design is, simply, an aid to achieving a goal—it does not intrude or impose itself; it is not loud.
I believe the hallmark of a good designer is the ability to craft an experience in which design and designer get out of the user’s way.
The better the design, the less noticeable the designer.
That’s the way it should be. That is the designer’s reward.
And as a disclaimer: I don’t mean the world of high fashion design where, apparently, design and function uttered in the same breath are considered blasphemouse.Matt
on 31 Jan 07Honestly, how does Peggy Noonan deserve any credit for that, other than choosing the poem (“High Flight”, IIRC) to steal from?
Anonymous Coward
on 31 Jan 07Steal from? Speeches often refer to poems or stories or quotes or other speeches. She wasn’t claiming those as her lines.
Trisha Cupra
on 31 Jan 07Could you imagine how dumb this would have sounded?
“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them — this morning, as they prepared fro their journey, and waved good-bye, and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “reach out and touch someone?”
Good grief. Thank goodness that ‘client’ wasn’t given what they wanted. You often have to give a client what they really need, not what they think they want.
This discussion is closed.