🚀 go-pugleaf

>> I'm sorry if I sound testy. It's just that I'm a publications
>> professional, an editor, and I'm awfully tired of engineers who
>> think they know as much as I do about publication design.
>> 
>> Valerie Maslak

>And your either/or attitude is way out of line, since most engineers see
>publications by the ton, which means they have gone through half the
>educational process for book design right there.

>What I am saying, Valerie, is that your profession isn't a hard one
>for an engineer to learn. Most of us who use DTP have already learned
>it. Probably as well, or better, than most book designers. And I speak
>from experience on that, not just idle speculation.
>
> Howard Stateman

Howard, are you trying deliberately to be inflammatory or what? I understand
what you're saying, but it sounds pretty negative the way you put it.

Since we're all flapping about our credentials, I spent 17 years as as a
software engineer - I have software patents. I've spent about two years in
a publications group. I came into this group with a better-developed design
sense than most of the people in our group, and so I brought in a whole new
"look and feel" to our publications (at least from my division). The change
in publication value is enormous; our customer response has been more than
positive, the publications have won some awards, and a group of electronics
magazine editors volunteered the opinion that these manuals were the best
looking, most attractive manuals they had seen packaged with an industrial
instrument. I think I'm qualified to comment.

So, what is the upshot? Well, at some level, Howard is right. This discipline
is less difficult to learn than some others. On the other hand, Valerie has
EVERY RIGHT to be testy. What's the difference? Professionalism. There are
lazy engineers, there are lazy graphic designers and layout artists. Many of
the lazy ones in both professions seem to have the attitude that it should all
come without effort.

Howard, your statement that most engineers are "halfway there" simply because
they've been deluged with documents is a perfect example of this laziness. It
is an OUTRAGEOUS statement, and typifies the attitude that so offended Valerie.
It offends ME, damn it.

Exposure at the level you are citing is "subliminal" (to use the word
incorrectly), below the level of awareness. Oh sure, some things will make
more of an impact because they are well-designed, but the typical engineer is
a reader of content, and doesn't understand WHY some things are more effective
than others. Of course, if you point out to an engineer just how the reading
presentation manipulates his acceptance level, he will understand readily what
is going on. And some engineers will find this an interesting subject. I did,
that's one of many reasons I'm here. But not all engineers are going to know
or care, and not many are going to find it an interesting subject for study.
And the lazy engineers will simply use their ego to assure themselves that,
yeah, they heard about the subject once, so they're experts. (I claim as fact
at least 60% of all engineers have over-inflated egos.)

A perfect example occurred recently, when a couple of marketing people began
to develop a hard-hitting competitive newsletter for our sales force. They
were told by the marketing manager that our group would do the design and
layout. They decided on their own that they were going to play around with it.
They spent a lot of time on it, and got nowhere. THEY even admitted they got
nowhere.

I did a design, and a good one. Not a great one, a very solid good one - the
project didn't deserve full artistic treatment. They didn't like it, which was
just fine with me (trust me on that). Subsequent conversations brought out that
it wasn't the layout they didn't like, it was the lack of a fancy logo. OK,
let's do a logo for it. But then, they didn't understand that a logo conveys
image (other than the image of "professionally typeset") and that they needed
to decide what image they wanted to project. Well, we eventually got a logo,
and it's OK. So now they want to tweak with the layout again. EVERY SUGGESTION
THEY CAME UP WITH VIOLATED BASIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES. I was patient. I DID every
one of them so that they'd understand that it didn't work. THEY WERE UNABLE TO
SEE THAT IT DIDN'T WORK. So I explained the principles behind it all. They
weren't sure.

Every design professional in the area understood what I was going through. I
even checked back with other designers to make certain I wasn't missing some-
thing. No, it wasn't me. All designers go through this frustrating experience,
again and again.

The upshot of it was that they will use my layout, but they don't THINK they
like it - they're not sure. The primary problem is that they are frustrated
that they couldn't do it themselves (they're willing to admit that) and they
can't improve on my layout (they finally admitted that too.)

I'm willing to concede that the customer is right, and that somehow I haven't
connected with the "inner image" of what they want. In this sense, I have
failed them. But they also have in hand a viable vehicle for their newsletter,
which they didn't have beforehand, even after they'd tried. This has been a
real learning process for them, and they admit that too.

They were simply ignorant of the fact they were ignorant. This is the attitude
that Valerie is fighting.

When I hired software people, one of my best interview questions was this:

     Most interviews are the process of telling me what you know.
     Now I want you to tell me now what you DON'T know.

This one question stopped cold the arrogant and the ignorant alike. It would
filter out the real designers from the wanna-be designers. And the lazy from
those who care. Anybody can be a designer, even engineers. Hell, anybody can
DO almost anything! There are no sacred cows. All it takes is a lot of work.

-- 
-Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.                (503) 627-3437         briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM
P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-383
Beaverton, OR   97077                        (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply)