My Most Amusing Failure

Some of my most disastrous failures come from computer-related projects, of which design work contributes a significant portion of it. I don’t usually like requirement-based design, meaning someone comes to me and say, “I want this and that and I want you to use this and that” cause that would mean me working around a very restricted perimeter.

Yesterday I was tasked to come up with an “eye-catching” event poster with images of mikes and mouths (the requirements). Sent to me was an attachment with about 10 pictures of which I only found 3 functional.

Now usually if I am forced to use what people give me, I would need a fair amount of trial and error to get the right composite. After struggling for 2 hours, I did come up with something really loud, but not too palatable. I decided to pull the plug.

In the morning, just before I was about to hit the delete button on my failed product, I decided to play a prank and send an email to every involved in organizing the event with the following 3 attachments.

in original colours

with purple colour overlay

with blue colour overlay

I stepped away for meeting and when I came back, all sorts of responses were pouring in via email and MSN. This had got to be the first time responses from NOC people were so prompt. I couldn't stop laughing when I read all the responses - I believe I had just started a demonstration of how varied the opinions of the NCBV people are. Responses range from A-Z and everything in between.

For:
“Besides that (the morbid gums), the rest of the picture looks fantastic, the words, color and especially the mike used. Brilliant.” – Kai An
“Eye-catching….I like the blue one” – Adrian
“This should look good on a T-shirt” – Rex

Against:
“Yucks, who’s mouth is that” – Cat
“It will be controversial – not sure if it will fly. It’s a bit disgusting. This person’s mouth is riddled with imperfections. Is it yours?” – Estee
“I feel like puking” – Tim
“If you put this as publicity I am DISOWNING you as a friend.” - Alicia

Undecided
“OH MY GOODNESS! In my worst design nightmare I have never seen this coming! So freaking well done! … We might want to send it out together with our email to our sponsors to prove to them that we have some solid work done” – Pacey
“I think it would be good to have SPIN Logo there as well as "Website for more info".... “ – Deliang
"Eh dude, where got jaw blue colour one." - Iris.


Anyway, to quell the unrest, I had to come up with something fast, so this was how the final product looked like.

Sleek, safe, professional, boring. But it keeps friends from disowning me.