Awkward Silence
The MD of a company that I’d previously worked for decided to take control of the company website realignment the moment he started with the company. As the designer, I was tasked with bringing his rather vague vision of the site to life.
A meeting was scheduled to go over my design proposal in order to mesh his ideas with what I’d designed a month or two prior to his arrival. After presenting my idea for thirty minutes, giving clear and concise reasons for my choices, he stood up and navigated to a competitor’s website before loudly proclaiming that he wanted it to look like theirs.
The website was dire. The site would have looked dated back in 2003, consisting mostly of a flash animation that looped between a stock image of a van and one of parliament. Excitedly, he announced that he loved the website because he would sometimes sit at his desk staring at the animation. He proceeded to stand and stare at it for five minutes while the rest of us sat there in silence, unsure whether to give him five minutes alone with the animation.
