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Please Trust Your Designer
on 10 Jul 19
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last week or so, you’ve probably heard a little something about LeBron James’ decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and join the Miami Heat. Heck, I do my best to completely ignore professional sports and even I know far too much about the brouhaha. LeBron did his best to create a media circus, but I’m not here to talk about him today.
Shortly after LeBron’s announcement, Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert released one of the most epic rants of all time (written rant that is; I think Mel Gibson and Christian Bale are tied for most epic recorded audio rant). He has already received his fair share of heat (no pun intended) for his statement, including a nastygram from Jesse Jackson and a $100k fine from the NBA. But I’m not here to talk about that either.
Instead, I want to quickly address Mr. Gilbert’s font choice. Comic Sans? Seriously? Don’t you know that there’s never an excuse to use Comic Sans? For your poor taste in typography, you’ve been openly mocked all over the Interwebs. Just to help you remember not to commit this font faux pas again, I am ordering a copy of this poster for you.
And now, to the real meat of this post. I’m pretty sure Mr. Gilbert didn’t publish that letter to the Cavs’ site by himself. He probably typed it out in a Word doc or in an email — or he might have even picked up a pen and paper to scribble it out — and then he passed it along to his web person for publishing. I can imagine Mr. Gilbert standing over his web person’s shoulder having the following conversation:
Dan Gilbert: Verdana is much too boring of a font for an epic rant such as this. Use something more exciting. Something with sizzle. Use Comic Sans!
Web Person: But sir, there’s never an excuse for using Comic Sans. It is a typographic abomination, singlehandedly responsible for swine flu, global warming, and Paris Hilton.
Dan Gilbert: I’m serious. Use Comic Sans. It’s the best font ever!
Web Person: But sir, font geeks from all over the world will ridicule you for this most egregious of errors.
Dan Gilbert: I don’t care. Use Comic Sans. Now. Or you’re fired!
Web person: Fine. No sense losing my job over it. As soon as your rant goes live, I’ll need to go lie in the shower in the fetal position for a while because using that font makes me feel so dirty…
In my head, that’s pretty much how it played out. How do I know? Because it’s happened to me far too many times.
I always find it interesting when a client hires a designer because of their expertise but then decides to nitpick every decision they make. I can assure you that professional designers have got your best interest in mind. They know what they’re doing and they all want to create something truly incredible for you.
Don’t ask your designer to create a Flash intro for your site. Don’t try to force your designer to use Joomla when they say it’s totally wrong for your project. Don’t demand that your designer use Papyrus for your logo. That’s a really bad move — even if you happen to be James Cameron and you just produced the highest grossing film of all time. (Maybe I should order him one of the aforementioned posters too.)
The point is this: Trust your designer. Please. If your designer tells you that something is a bad idea, listen. Chances are that the designer is probably right.
About the Author
Jon is the Creative Director at OnWired, a web design and development company in central North Carolina. He’s a Photoshop addict and can juggle Google AdWords campaigns blindfolded (if you ask nicely).
Don’t worry that his college degree is in a foreign language — that just means he can design a killer multilingual site.
Read Jon’s Bio.
What You're Saying
Gee, I thought I was something of a designer. So, exactly why should one not use Comic Sans font? Maybe it’s the curious youth within me, or the practical part of me. I can see the comment above mine in all caps and that is problematic as it is harder to read. All caps for a title is fine, as would be any font, and I mean Comic Sans.
I can think of a few hundred other places where the client should trust his/her designer/developer, e.g. don’t name files with spaces when you link to them, use clean code that separates HTML, CSS, JS and etc. into separate files…
Thanks,
Bruce
http://futurewavedesigns.com
If this article didn’t delve deep enough into the reasons of why you shouldn’t use comic sans, I highly recommend that you checkout this article:
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/
It is quite possibly the best and most informative explanation and history of Comic Sans that I’ve found to date.
Hmm perfect thread.
Hahaha, You know clients have their ways sometimes. I usually let most of my clients know that we are hired to design. I am very picky about picking clients, we actually have a process of elimination. By doing that we have a faster easier and better design process and we design the sites we feel will convert and work for the client. Thin of this when you go to the dentist you don’t tell him how to use his tools.
arban - Fri, July 29, 2011 5:22:00
Dear SIR/MADAM,
I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW IF YOU CAN DESIGN WEBMAIL FEATURES AND THEIR FUNCTIONAL PARTS AND PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW MUCH IT WOULD COST ME.
THANK YOU SO MUCH.