Graphic design for the real world

Got this via email today (thanks Sandra!):

I can just see how this would have happened.

1. The brief comes into the graphic design studio. “We need a graphic that is X wide and Y high.”
2. The designers slave away for a while, working to the stated proportions. The designers may not know, or even care, what the display context of the graphic is. Hey, a graphic is a graphic right?
3. The tissue-paper-covered, black board mounted, final design is revealed to the client. This shows the design scaled down of course. To the same proportions. Everything looks perfect. Hi-res inkjet print and all. Not a hint of any irrelevant real world intrusions.
4. The client goes away to talk about it, make some committee-driven changes to the words or typeface, and finally signs off. Everyone is still looking at the perfect dummy.
5. The printer prints the graphic. Then mount it on the buses. They snigger. The graphic designers never bothered to speak to them of course.
6. The client sees it first time in context on a real bus, in public.
7. The poo hits the fan. Photos flash instantly around the world.

“You’ve stuffed up!” says the client.

“But you signed off on the design!” says the designers.

“But the design mock ups never showed the exhaust pipe!” retorts the client.

“We didn’t know the bus had bits sticking out of it. We did it to the size you specified! We are graphic designers, we work in two dimensions. You should have told us the bus had stuff sticking out of it!” says the designers.

Cue lawyers.

Oh dear.

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