www.leefur.com

So I may be in the market for a car. Some of my top contenders include the Honda Element (probably in all black to hide some of the ugliness), the Audi A3, the Toyota Prius, or a pickup like the Toyota Tacoma or Nissan Frontier (oh and the Subaru Baja if it wasn't so odd).

Your thoughts? Remember gas out here is ridiculous ($2.55 for regular), and I'd like to be able to carry some shit (surfboard, bike, 'random crap'). Oh and I like fast things. And gadgety things.

To caveat at the outset, this is aimed primarily at my design chums. But I won't be using any industry speak, largely because I don't really have any industry speak. I mean, I can use computery words. But I won't be saying "We can implement a J2E Java servlet portal applet" to the satisfying reaction of blank stares and confused silence.

So, in our little design world, we had marketing people. Well, I should be more specific - we hate advertising. We hate 'promotions'. Promotions are usually not thought out, and people who ask for promotions usually think that saying "Brand New" in the biggest letters possible will sell more product. Instead, what all their varied promotions do is create an experience that's rather like a NASCAR car. (is "car" necessary there?) That is, just a pile of loud messages with none really making any impact. So my designs go from being sleek and easy to use, to muddy and hard to find what you're looking for.

My point? Well I was shopping today and I found a regular-world equivalent that I felt like sharing. Let's use a metaphor. Er, no - a simile. Let's say a store is like a website. This isn't a stretch - both represent a company trying to sell you something. In both you have to organize your products into sensible categories, and you have to provide a way to see what you carry, how to get to it, and how to buy it. Make no mistake - the pathways you trapse through your local Walmart are well thought-out, and when you have to walk by Sesame Street Shitstorm to get to the kids clothes, or by the Swedish Penis Pumps to get to the condoms - that's marketing. But that's good marketing. That's smart. That's non-invasive, and at some level it's a service to you, the customer. Perhaps you need to be reminded you need to buy batteries after you buy a Walkman.

But endcaps. Endcaps are promotional. Take a product out of its normal spot, with all of its friends, and put it on an endcap. Now he's promoted. It's like putting the Flowbee on the front page of Amazon.com - more people are going to bump into it. More people are going to buy it. But remember how I said we design folks hate promotions? Well, here's why. Endcaps take a product out of the organization that's been so well thought out in the store, and place it randomly in some other spot. Sometimes it's nearby. Sometimes it's not. So today when I spent 20 minutes staring at a rack full of shower accessory things looking for a chrome, suction cup mounted razor holder, frustrated that I could only find a cheap-looking plastic version, I was pissed when I finally found it an hour later on some end cap.

Screw advertising people and screw promotions. Why don't smart people like me run the world?