24 Hour Visual People
“This request is coming in really late.”
“Yeah, I know. Can you gin something up?”
“Probably. Maybe something like the one we did last week. It would work well for this.”
“Which one is that?”
“The two column layout. With the image running across the top of both columns. Something like that.”
“Hmm…”
“It would look like—got a pen? Thanks. Here… like that. You could drop the copy in right there.”
“Well…”
Pause.
“I know it’s really late, but can you mock it up for me? I’m really more of a visual person.”
“You know that implies exactly the opposite of what you intended, right?”
“What?”
“That means you can envision it without actually having to do it.”
Another pause.
“Like if I said I was a ‘plumbing person,’ I could conceive of how to set up a water heater without actually cutting pipes and sticking them together. But what you’re saying is you lack a visual imagination. Think about it.”
Someone is grinning now.
“Stop being a jerk.”
3 Comments
Tom
No matter how much hot water that gets me into, I’m using it at work, dammit.
Christopher Fahey
I’ve never read a better summary of “design thinking” in my life. I can totally imagine a d-school MBA saying that they are a “visual person” to mean that they do not “do design”.
My guess is that what your “visual person” meant was “I need to actually see it to know that you got it right” (as opposed to “I’ve relayed my general idea to you, please take it from here, I trust you”).
David Sleight
Thanks! Trust definitely enters into it. Always makes me think of the Tyler Durden character ranting at the end of Fight Club.