Rants Archives - jason landry

How to Ruin and Idea

Or, how the inability to say “no” is evil

Gather round, children, and hear an old tale. A tale of my early days in design, a tale of woe.

A tale of having to work with dun-dun-duuuun…other people.

It was in the far off legendary age of the First Internet, sometimes referred to as the “late 90s”. I was new to the business, having left my studies at the Art Institute of Dallas about 6 months prior. I was working at Ribit Productions, a firm making a, shall we say, difficult transition from the forgotten age of Multimedia Design into Web Design. We were prepping some updated marketing materials for the firm, and in addition to a new website (for which we won and award, back when it is really hilariously easy) the owner wanted a new CD-ROM to give prospective clients.

Now, some younger folks that might accidentally read this may not know what that is. For a very brief period in the 90s, before websites really existed but computers very much did, folks were using the still-relatively-new (and just as quickly abandoned) medium of CD-ROM to blanket their prospective clients with their messaging. I could get snarky here and try and explain the last few sentences, but seriously, just use Wikipedia.

So anyway, boss wants a new CD to send out. As was the custom at the time, we wanted to create an animated/video intro that users would theoretically waste a few minutes of their day watching. Why did we do this? Nobody knows. Maybe because we could? We had all kinds of neat new tools for making cool-looking stuff, so we did. The fact that none of it ever added to anyone’s bottom line, or even entertained anyone, is something which we tried then and now to ignore.

At the time, I was engrossed in one of my periodic obsessions (hooray for ADHD). I was deep into the Myst game franchise. Not just the games (at the time just numbering the original title plus its follow-up, Riven), but the tie-in novels and all the lore and what-not. Accordingly, I devised an animated intro and overall “experience” for our new CD-ROM that paid homage to these games. Side note: it involved using the Fine Frog Art seen in my portfolio.

So I pitch the idea, and it is met with excitement and enthusiasm. The someone else pitches a different, more abstract idea, and it is also met with enthusiasm. Then another person pitches some stuff that is sort of tacked on to both of the other ideas.

So at this point, the right thing is to take a look at everything on the table and decide which is best for the image the firm is trying to convey, right?

Yeah, no. Wrong.

At this point, the owner dictated that we combine all of these ideas in order that no one would feel “left out”.

Now, if I am going to be honest, which I hate, some of this was my fault. I was prickly about my ideas back then, having the all-too-common attitude among young and inexperienced – especially male – designers that my concepts were liquid digital gold directly flowing from the mouth of the universe. So, you know, maybe the idea to combine designs was made to appease me. A little. Or entirely. Who knows?

The result, of course, was a steaming pile of contradictions and confusion. No message, no company image, nothing useful and certainly nothing that drove sales or even mild interest. Now, I am not saying my original idea was brilliant (hint: it absolutely was) but no matter how cheesy it may have been (brilliant), it would have been far better than the abomination that followed.

If you watch this thing, you are probably left with a lot of questions. It goes from a fairly abstract (and oh-so-very-90s) beginning to a forest, into a tree, into a cave, and then another…forest? What?

This is what happens when no one says “no”. This is what happens when company leadership tried to let every idea be precious.

The lesson, of course, is that ~~if I pitch an idea, follow it to the letter~~ you have to pick your ideas and concepts, just like you have to pick your battles. This is a battle that the owner should have fought. They should have chosen a concept, moved forward, and at best issued a mild apology to author of whichever concept did not get picked. Trying to hybridize and make everyone happy accomplished nothing. If I want to be fair, it is likely that even if a better concept (meaning mine) was followed, it would not have generated more sales, as CD-ROM was already on its way out at that point as a content delivery medium, but who knows? Following my brilliant-albeit-derivative concept might have elevated the company to new heights.

Ok, maybe not.

But at least the finished work would not be a cautionary tale some 20 years later.

Death of the Agency

The above title is hyperbolic. Or is it?

Hi there! I am the Creative Director at a small internet marketing firm lost in a mid size city in Texas. My title is completely and utterly meaningless. Why? Because we don’t do any creative. No one does that any more.

We are what is sometimes known as an “SEO Company”. At this point I will pedantically explain that this means we attempt to game the Google algorithm to make client web sites appear near the top of organic search results. One issue with this is that our entire effort is based on the assumption that being high in SERPS will automatically result in more call/sales volume. While there is merit to this assumption, it should be pointed out that no one has really bothered to prove it conclusively. It is “common knowledge”. The other issue with our approach is that the Google algorithm is straight-up smarter than us. And you. And everyone you’ve ever heard of. All of that is really neither here nor there.

The advertising agency was once a storied and glorious institution. Just watch Mad Men, you’ll get it. Horrific sexism, alcoholism and probably a lot of other isms aside, the folks at the fictional Sterling Cooper were badasses (especially, it should be noted, the women, despite the aforementioned sexism they had to face). They created things. The Creative Director, despite the hor…

OK, you know what? Let’s just assume we all know that the men in this show were horrifically sexist so I don’t have to add the disclaimer every time.

Anyway, the Creative Director, identity thief and stolen valor pioneer Don Draper, was a god damn creative genius. The men running the agency were hardcore business guys and salesmen extraordinaire (even that one Ayn Rand worshipping asshole). The point is, they made things. They used instinct, experience and talent to make great things. And yes, I know it is fiction, but I know people who lived through that era, and that fiction has a lot of reality in it.

But no one does that any more. At least, most agencies don’t. See, these days we have metrics. We have data coming out our collective wazoo. And if I am being honest, a lot of this data is great. A lot of it also noise. It takes very talented people to find the signal. And that’s where the problem comes in.

Once upon a time, marketing and advertising were almost arcane disciplines. They required expertise. They were required connections. The web changed all that. I know, I know what you are thinking. But no, this is not a “the web destroyed x business” rant. Really (everyone knows Millennials did it anyway). However, the advent of the web had a horrible effect on the traditional agency. See, there were no web experts. Or at the very least no real ones. Anyone could claim to be a web expert. And wow, did a lot of people do just that. Who could gainsay them? No one knew how the hell any of this crap was going to work. No one had the foggiest notion how to use the web to drive marketing. I worked at old time agencies when I first started, which coincidentally was when the web got started (yeah, I’m old). And let me tell you, some of the ideas that got floated around were just laughable. And I don’t just mean laughable in hindsight, I mean at the time, we knew it was crap, but we didn’t know what else to do. This led to the rise of the web design firm. Which then led to the rise of the web consulting firm. This, in turn, led us to where we are today.

At some point, after the advent of the almighty G*, we sort of figured it out. And we jumped in with both feet. A lot of the old storied agencies did not, and were slow to adapt. I remember seeing one or two giants close their doors. Others simply bought up the smaller web-based firms and played a furious game of catch-up. We could read the future. We understood the “new economy”.

We destroyed The Agency.

“Oh, come on, Jason”, you say, “there’s agencies everywhere.” To that, I say, bullshit.

What we call an agency now would be unrecognizable to our forebears.

Agencies used to be creative. Now we just run two-line “ads” with a link to click. Web design? Don’t make me laugh. 90% of all websites are virtually identical if you break them down into their abstract elements, and that’s igonoring the fact that they are overstuffed, slow, and riddled with tracking scripts that make a mockery of high bandwidth.**

Yeah, yeah, I know, there’s still some people doing cool stuff. The new Nike campaign comes to mind (and fuck you, Wieden & Kennedy, for making me side with Nike, those bastards ruined the Chuck Taylor All-Star). But honestly, how many are left doing that sort of work. It seems like the numbers shrink on the daily. Where once we had magazine ads and billboards print pieces galore, now we have one inch on SERPs.

What can we do about it? Nothing, really. I am just an aging Gen-Xer lamenting the business I thought I was getting into.

At least we still have television.

Looks at Youtube.

Oh, god damnit.

*Google, of course
**And yes, I am as guilty of this as anyone.

LEGO 42081: Volvo Concept Wheel Loader ZEUX

“If I ever ask for another Technic set, shoot me in the ass.”

That’s what I said to my wife about 3/4 of the way through building the LEGO Volvo Concept Wheel Loader ZEUX. Her response?

“Ok!”

As if to say, “Gladly”.

I can’t blame her, this thing had me sequestered for most of a weekend after all.

Let’s back up.

I am a longtime/lifetime LEGO* fanatic, having received my first box of LEGO bricks while recovering from a tonsillectomy at the age of 4. 45 years later and the pull is still as strong as ever. Despite this, I had never attempted to build a kit from the LEGO Technic line. Technic, for those not in the know, has long been the more “advanced” sort of LEGO, focussing on models inspired from the real world and heavy on working parts, like car engines where the pistons and drivetrain actually work. And this was the reason it had never had much interest for me. If I am building with LEGO, chances are, shall we say, high, that I am building a spaceship or a castle. Or maybe a Space Castle.

Or robots. Robots are good too.

Enter the Volvo Concept Wheel Loader ZEUX.

It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a robotic bulldozer. Now, I don’t really give a crap one way or the other about bulldozers, but robotic bulldozers? I’m there!

Or was.

Not anymore.

Fuck bulldozers.

See, no one told me, Technic is hard. I mean, not really, you know? It’s still got a clear, pictorial instruction book that a child could follow. So I guess the takeaway here is I should not be complaining at all, but I am going to anyway. This thing has over 1000 parts, and they are small. And what we normally think of when we think “LEGO” is barely in evidence. Eyeryone knows the basic LEGO brick, right?

Well, in a Technic set, you won’t see that shit. Technic sets are built from these weird struts and tiny connectors along with cogs and gears and bizarre stuff I’d never seen before.

Now, in recent years, main line LEGO has been incorporating a lot of Technic parts, so I was under the impression I was familiar with it. I hope the reader will not be shocked when I say, “I was wrong.” Using a few Technic parts to achieve a certain effect while building the latest iteration of Starlord’s Milano is one thing, but building an entire kit from this stuff is an anyeurism in a box.

Oh, and let’s say a word about how the parts are packaged. In modern, “System” LEGO kits, you get your parts sealed in plastic bags. The bags are numbered, and each bag corresponds to a given part of the instructions. In other words, the instruction tell you to get bag number 1, and the parts in that bag are what you use for the next section of the build. In Technic, they say, “Haha no” and the parts are bagged using a formula only LEGO and the masochistic bastard that runs the bagging machine knows (I will find you). Any given section of the build would use parts from no less than 3 bags, usually 5. You know what’s fun? Looking in a bag of black struts and trying to differentiate the one that is slightly longer than the other 30 in there. I understand that Technic is meant for advanced builders; the Elite, as it were, but making you search 7 bags for parts 3 times on each page of the manual does not introduce difficulty, it introduces tedium. And migraines.

While we are on the subject of migraines, let’s talk about detail. So much detail. All the detail. Detail that made me go “Why, god, why ?” Look at the photo above, see that big rear section? In the concept, this is where the engine is housed, and also acts as a counter-weight to large loads. Over an hour was spent building the support chasis for that. Why, you ask? Because in case of large loads extended high and out, the rear section actually slides back on rails to provide greater counter-balance. Cool, huh? Except this is a concept vehicle that does not exist and also LEGO and will never carry loads. Oh, and let’s not forget the insane detail you build and then permanently cover up! Same rear section, on the sides, you build out what is meant to be the engine housing. It has transparent pieces for off and on lights, all sorts of greebling**, and you even add some decals to complete the looks. Then, you build the outer hull that covers it up. Forever. The hull does not have hinges, does not open.

And then, and then! You have to do it all over again for the left side.

I should probably mention here that all of this is entirely my fault. For my first foray into Technic, I maybe should have have picked from one of the many options that are a third the size and complexity. No, no, I had to get the big one. In my defense:

Robot.

The build took place over two days — separated into 3 sessions to stave off divorce proceedings — of about 2 hours each, and took years off my life expectancy. At one point, in an effort to open the sealed plastic bag encasing a hydraulic control strut (srsly), my hand slipped and knocked over the tray where I was keeping the very large selection of small connectors. I watched, horrified, as it rained blue, red and gray platsic. I couldn’t even scream, because it was bedtime and if I had awakened my 4 year old son I would be writing this from either a hospital bed or, far more likely, a morgue drawer. For the remainder of the build, I had a series of panicked “missing part” moments followed by frantic searching and weeping. I found parts deep in the carpet, under a bookcase, and hiding on top of books; nestled diabolically behind the edge of the binding where they would not be seen.

Eventually, after trials at which Odysseus himself would surely have rolled his eyes and heaved a great sigh, I finished. I was triumphant. I was tired.

In all seriousness, this was fun. The finished model was well worth the effort. I stand by my comments on the parts bagging. Fuck that.

*Anyone who wants to challenge my all-caps usage,@ me!
** Look it up