microsoft publisher...ugh

once upon a time, before i was a youth worker, i did graphic design. i stopped only because i didn't have the drive any more (and because i couldn't handle pulling three all nighters in a row, getting glandular fever from being so run down and trying to think of concepts for stuff i hated). Basically, though, i didn't give it up because i was a crap designer; i just realised that I wasn't right to be in that field cos of everything else that goes hand in hand with it.

all i do now is tiny stuff on the side; invitations for 21st and other celebrations, advertising for my uncle's business etc. and it's great, cos now i love doing it as opposed to before when i was forced to do it.

so, i work with youth workers. and they have to advertise all the time with fliers, newsletters, posters etc.

and they use publisher.

and don't get me wrong - publisher isn't the issue. when i've been on other people's computer i've used publisher and made simple, yet effective, brochures and stuff. it's not the program; if they were using Adobe or Indesign or Quark the problem would still be there.

it's like they're blind. mish-mash of colours, no thought as to whether or not their colour design is going to end up being printed in black and white, no thought to legibility, fonts. These youthies; they're into Comic Sans and Curlz.

stop and think about that for a moment.

Comic Sans

Curlz.

so then! they see me walking past and they jump out of their chairs and yell 'Bee! Bee! you're into design can you have a look at this for me and tell me what you think' and they drag me over to their computers.

and i feel like i'm going to a funeral.

i look at the screen and i see illegible fonts. i see words that are meant to stand out so they've changed the font size for each letter. i see fucked up kerning cos of the size differences. i see widows everywhere. i see text justified wherever they see fit. i see everything in the centre of the page. i see hyphenations from one line to the next - not one, but several. i see... wait for it... clip art images. Or, worse still, images that they've taken from google image search and they've used without a thought to, well anything, and they've blown it up and it's all pixellated.

what can i say?

and! don't even get me started on the language used, or their mispellings, or grammatical errors.

so i end up saying something vague like 'oh... well, um, i'd probably maybe just fix up where that hyphenated word is... and that one... and that one...' and then i have to totally lie and say 'but other than that it looks fantastic! wow - it's great!' and they kind of frown when i say my one little problem too, as though they can't work out what's wrong with having 4 hyphenated words on one poster that only has 40 words on it.

i don't want to go back to graphics - but i really struggle with this.