Graphic Designer’s Design Is Wrong
This afternoon I was on the phone with my brother discussing an upcoming trip and I was using Orbitz to get some prices. On the load up screen I noticed that the now loading animation was off color from the color of the background screen.
When I brought this to my brother’s attention he said, maybe the designer intended to have the colors mismatch. It was clear this was not intentional, but a mistake by the graphic designer. It was not a major mistake but something akin to a misspelled word or misplaced coma. When I make these mistakes my bother has no problem immediately telling me that I’m wrong. Yet, when a graphic designer is wrong in his color selection, it might be intentional.
Why is he, and I would be willing to bet many others, reluctant to call a color mismatch wrong but have no qualms declaring a misspelling as such? What is the difference between graphic error and a spelling error?
One might be eager to argue that grammar is more likely to be wrong because the reader will not understand what you mean without proper grammar. I find this argument less than compelling because in most cases the person correcting your grammar does so because they understand what you mean. The mere act of correcting one’s grammar implies understanding of the underlying meaning.
I suspect the difference is because as children we are formally trained in a set of arbitrary language rules while no training is given on graphic design. Things that are correct are so because the state has conditioned them to be so. Many will argue that the state has an interest in inculcating grammatical rules into the citizenry to insure a basic level of understanding between people and groups. To a certain extent I can agree that such standardization is necessary. Nevertheless, its amusing to think that grammar’s correctness is derived from state proclamation.
The act of correcting does not normally assist in conveying meaning. Therefore, in most cases the corrector is doing so simply to experience the tinge of superiority over the person making the error. Correcting someone else’s mistake is a way of distinguish yourself from that person. It makes you look edgeumakaytid.
If only the state inculcated a set of rules for graphic design. My proclivity towards the visual would of allowed me to learn those rules with minimal effort much in the same way ‘intelligent’ people pick up grammar rules. With very little work I would have had a lifetime of showing off my smartness by correcting graphic design error, regardless of intention.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:00 am
When you mentioned this to me, earlier, I didn’t see it. But this is something that’s wrong.
And that’s not some kind of power-trip.
Any organization that will have a lot of writing done on its behalf will have something called a ’style-guide’. This ’style guide’ will state the rules on what words should be used to describe certain phenomenon, how those words should be spelled, what syntax should be used to make these words communicate clearly, and what punctuation should be used so that readers understand the syntax.
Something that violates this style guide is wrong. And to point this out to someone is not a dick-measuring contest, it’s correcting a mistake.
Now out here in the wide world there is no ’style-guide’ so in a sense, you’re right, people who correct ‘mistakes’ in the world could just be pedantic dicks.
But though the ‘rules’ out here in the world aren’t as concrete, they still have force. And if you want to be able to communicate both your ideas, and your authority to express them, you will need to hew to the grammar that frees your words from the shackles that unclear and confusing grammar, spelling, and punctuation impose.