CHAT BACK: Epic Fail

Recently, myself, Mike Rigby and Christopher Doyle from Interbrand gave a talk for AGDA entitled ‘The Plight of The Modern Brand Designer.’ Due to popular demand, I thought I’d post a few of the plights, starting with ‘Epic Fail’.

If there’s one phrase that has become part of the web lexicon that I hate, it’s Epic Fail. Two words that lazy, uninformed commenters often fall back on to describe something they know little or nothing about.

Let’s start with a definition from Urban Dictionary:

Epic fail

‘A mistake of such monumental proportions that it requires its own term in order to successfully point out the unfathomable shortcomings of an individual or group.’

And now let’s rewind a little bit. Back to when a job lands in the studio.

It’s the dream brief. Everyone knows that feeling. Even at the brief stage you can tell there’s potential – the opportunity to do something great.

Flash forward two weeks. You’ve sweated over it for a fortnight, waded through layers of information searching desperately for an original, relevant and engaging solution.

You’ve rejected countless other feasible design directions, and along the way, you’ve considered other careers including becoming a window cleaner. Until suddenly, one day, it all happens! You’ve cracked it.

You’ve sorted out the complex brand hierarchy, answered all elements of the brief, and above all, come up with a great idea. You can sit back and enjoy the feeling that you’re still a good designer. You’ve hit gold.

Now comes the selling. You’ve convinced yourself and all your peers, it’s just a matter of convincing the client. You attend numerous meetings and teleconferences debating why it’s red, why it’s round and why it’s been rotated.

Throughout this process you face battle after battle, some of which you win, some you lose until finally you reach that happy place, ending up with a what you think is a great piece of design.

Gold becomes sold. You’ve done it! All approved and ready to go onto design development. Lots of studio high fives and reassurance from the client that you’ve solved their problems. Brilliant.

A whole host of pain ensues as you battle to meet the delivery deadlines for the rollout of the identity. You make it out of the other end without losing any staff and somehow manage to make a profit. The client is happy, and despite everything, so are you.

The brand is launched.

And now, with or without your consent, you enter the blogosphere. The beauty of blogs over magazines, is the ability to hit a wide audience and hear opinion from the design community. This is also their downfall.

Many blogs are to designers what gossip magazines are to Lindsey Lohan. They follow what’s hot, what’s cool and try to predict whatever trend will be hot next season. As fans of design, why wouldn’t we read the trash blogs?!

One such blog, which is the Daddy for brand designers, is Brand New. Don’t get me wrong, I love Brand New for its up to the minute commentary on contemporary branding. You log on one day and there it is in all its glory – your beautiful design work.

Underneath a fair and balanced review from the site authors, are literally hundreds of polarised opinions about your work. Some complimentary, some stone-throwing. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll receive a comment from Paul.

Paul’s comment is:

Epic Fail.

Let’s just remind ourselves of what that means.

‘A mistake of such monumental proportions that it requires its own term in order to successfully point out the unfathomable shortcomings of an individual or group.’

So, let’s get this straight. You’ve worked very hard for the last six months, had the best brains working on it, solved the client’s complex business issues, been through weeks of selling, and fended off throwaway client comments that would have a negative impact on the result.

You’ve ended up with a delighted design team, and above all a delighted client. Yet Paul only has two words to say – Epic Fail. Fair enough Paul, fair enough.

In your eyes, Paul is somebody like Michael Beirut from Pentagram – somebody you respect, passing judgment on your work from their iPad in a lofty New York apartment – and this criticism should be taken seriously. You’re a bad designer.

But fortunately, a little sleuthing around, and checking Paul’s own website, reveals that Paul is in fact an undergraduate teenager, a first year at university, sat in his bedroom, juggling MSN messenger, Facebook and his coursework.

Little surprise then that Paul can spare the same amount of time on his scathing review as he probably did learning about the project. His teacher has told him what makes great branding design, and this isn’t it. Epic Fail.

Of course, professional designers also get their chance to stab with Epic Fail, but again, if their post is not anonymous, we are treated to their weblink which puts everybody’s mind at ease and redefines ‘professional designer’.

The problem with Epic Fail is this. Designers around the world with varying levels of experience feel more than comfortable passing judgement on out of context snapshots of what are often long and complicated processes.

There is little time taken to appraise the design in context, the problem that had to be solved, where the client was before this design, and even what the client’s impact on the job has been.

So, how do you protect yourself from such scathing, and succinct criticism? Some readers will doubtless reply that not posting to, or reading blogs is the way forward. But those people will have also just read this article on ... a blog.

No. The answer, in my humble opinion, is to keep putting yourself out there, accept the criticism, accept that good design is often polarising, and accept that some reviewers are unable to comment beyond two words. And remember – it’s only Paul.

Cue Epic Fail comments below.