The Sweet Smell of Validation

Every year AIGA holds these student/pro meet and greets that were aptly titled, "Meet the Pros." (AIGA stands for something like: American Institute of Graphic Designers. I'm too lazy to look it up.) I went to these things every year in college. Aside from being informative and a great way to waste a day, they were completely and utterly terrifying.

The most horrible part of Meet the Pros was portfolio critiques. The critique in and of itself really isn't that bad. Problem is that a student would either end up getting critiqued by a very friendly and gentle professional who is honestly trying to help, or by a ego driven prick with a faux-hawk.

The second year I went, I got the later.

I showed this guy an annual report for Starbucks that I did in class. Said annual report won me a Student Addy that year so I assumed that it was pretty good and felt confident showing it. Apparently Faux-Hawk didn't agree. He ripped me apart for it. I thought it was seriously clever! The theme of the report was, "Spilling the Beans!" Come on! That's good!

But no. His main complaint was that the cover was a burlap bag background with a large Starbucks logo on it that looked like it was stamped onto the burlap. Faux-Hawk had a major ragfest about how I bastardized the logo and there's no way I would ever get away with that in the real world. I was compromising the brand identity blah blah blah.


It is at this point that I would like everyone to turn to page 131 of Real Simple's July 2009 issue.



What we have here is an ad for Starbucks featuring a burlap background. On one of the cups is a teensy logo that looks like it was stamped onto the burlap.

Enough said.