左边是地狱右边也是地狱

by Adrian Hanft

通过阿德里安·汉夫特(Adrian Hanft)

像我这样的设计师的特别地狱 (A Special Hell for Designers Like Me)

第1部分：刮擦表面 (Part 1: Scratching the Surface)

You keep hearing me talk about oatmeal and zombies. In case you think I am pointing fingers from my ivory tower, today I want to confess my own contribution to this mess.

您不断听到我谈论燕麦粥和僵尸 。 如果您认为我是从象牙塔上指着手指，今天我想向这次混乱认罪。

(Disclaimer: Trashing your clients and former employer is bad form, even after a decade of silence. That’s not my intention. The people I worked with and for in the story that follows were not zombies. We were passionate insiders trying to make a difference in a zombie industry.)

(免责声明：即使经过十年的沉默，破坏客户和前雇主也是一种不好的形式。这不是我的意图。在接下来的故事中，我与之共事的人不是僵尸。我们是热情的内部人，试图有所作为在僵尸行业中 。)

I knew I was going straight to designer hell the summer of hurricane Katrina. I was taking a lunch break from a photo shoot in Indiana, the heart of American RV manufacturing. I was stopped at a railroad crossing, waiting for a train to roll by. The cargo was unbranded RVs. Hundreds of big white boxes rushing south like blood cells racing to a wound.

我知道我会在卡特里娜飓风的夏天直奔设计师的地狱。 我正从印第安那州(美国房车制造业的心脏)拍摄的照片中午休。 我在铁路道口停下来，等火车驶过。 这批货物是无品牌的房车。 数以百计的大白盒子奔向南方，就像血细胞奔向伤口。

The RVs were to be temporary homes for the victims of the hurricane.

房车将是飓风受害者的临时住所。

People were helping other people. Warm fuzzies.

人们在帮助别人。 温暖的绒毛。

This is the surface appearance, the outer layer where designers, marketers, and brand experts make our living. Here we assume good intention, never question motives, and spin the details into glossy, highly consumable stories about our clients.

这是表面外观，是设计师，营销人员和品牌专家赖以生存的最外层。 在这里，我们假设有良好的意愿，从不质疑动机，并将细节变成关于客户的光鲜，易消耗的故事。

The logoless RVs on that train seemed like a perfect metaphor for the marketing industry. Clients come to us with their plain white boxes. Then the creative people go to work. We add stylish stickers to the product. We create logos and invent brands. We stage photo shoots where, if we put the camera in just the right spot, we can make the white boxes look like luxury goods.

那列火车上的无徽标RV对于市场营销行业来说似乎是一个完美的隐喻。 客户带着纯白的盒子来到我们这里。 然后有创造力的人去上班。 我们在产品上添加时尚贴纸。 我们创建徽标并发明品牌。 我们将照片放在舞台上，如果将相机放置在正确的位置，则可以使白盒看起来像奢侈品。

This was my job, and I would like to think I did it well. The work we created for our RV client was solid, and when you compare it to the notoriously low standards of the competition, we had created a surface layer for our client that put them (arguably) at the top of the industry. Here is my story, a list of the sins that I committed, and the secrets of how to market white boxes.

这是我的工作，我想我做得很好。 我们为RV客户创建的工作是可靠的，当您将其与竞争激烈的低标准进行比较时，我们为客户创建了一个表面层，可以说(无疑)使它们处于行业领先地位。 这是我的故事，列出了我犯下的罪过，以及如何推销白盒的秘诀。

First, let me tell you a little bit about the literal surface of the RVs. The exteriors are ugly and the swirly stickers don’t help much. I desperately wanted a chance to improve the graphics of the RVs. It seemed like the easiest way to differentiate our client’s white boxes from the competition.

首先，让我告诉您有关RV的实际表面的一些信息。 外观丑陋，漩涡状的贴纸没有太大帮助。 我非常希望有机会改善RV的图形。 这似乎是区分我们客户白盒与竞争对手的最简单方法。

Here’s how the graphics on an RV come to be. RV manufacturers have contracts with the companies that produce the decorative decals. The “design costs” are baked into the cost of the stickers. These sticker-makers are cutting deals with all the RV makers so all the stickers are designed by the same cost-constrained designers. It’s a monopoly of mediocrity.

这是RV上的图形的样子。 房车制造商与生产装饰贴花的公司签订了合同。 “设计成本”已计入贴纸成本。 这些贴纸制造商正在与所有RV制造商达成交易，因此所有贴纸均由同一位成本受限的设计师设计。 这是平庸的垄断。

Each year our agency would plead for a chance to design the stickers. Each year we lost. So we worked with what we had.

每年，我们的机构都会恳求设计贴纸的机会。 每年我们迷路。 因此，我们使用了已有的东西。

You can still make a white box with ugly stickers the object of desire. Like any magic trick, once you know the secret the illusion loses it’s charm. So let’s demystify this a bit.

您仍然可以将带有丑陋贴纸的白色盒子做成欲望的对象。 像任何魔术一样，一旦您知道了秘密，幻觉就失去了它的魅力。 因此，让我们对此揭开神秘面纱。

魔术技巧1：化妆 (Magic Trick 1: Makeup)

The first trick is the oldest in the book. Add makeup. Photoshop out the blemishes. Fix it in post.

第一个把戏是书中最古老的把戏。 添加化妆。 Photoshop消除了瑕疵。 后期修复。

Park an RV anywhere, it could be on the side of the road. Replace the dirty industrial park with an imaginary single-lane highway pointed at some mountains. Well done, designer.

将RV停在任何地方，可能在路边。 用假想的单车道高速公路代替肮脏的工业园区，该高速公路指向一些山脉。 做得好，设计师。

“Oh, by the way. We don’t have money for you to repeat that trick this year. Go ahead and add our new slightly less ugly graphics to the photo you faked last year.”

哦，对了。 我们没有钱让您在今年重复这个技巧。 继续，将我们的新丑陋图形添加到您去年伪造的照片中。”

The post-production used in photos of female models is well-documented. The damage to the self-image of women is obvious and easy to point at. You rarely hear criticism of the day-to-day product photo touchup. Who are the victims of this deception? We’ll get to that, just stick with me.

女模特的照片中使用的后期制作有据可查。 对妇女自我形象的损害是显而易见的，而且很容易指出。 您很少听到对日常产品照片修饰的批评。 谁是这种欺骗的受害者？ 我们坚持到底，坚持下去。

魔术技巧2：使用广角镜 (Magic Trick 2: Use a Wide Angle Lens)

I don’t know if you have been in an RV, so let me just tell you. They are tiny. Often you can stick your arms out and touch both walls. Making the interior of an RV look spacious is an impressive trick.

我不知道你是否去过房车，所以让我告诉你。 他们很小。 通常，您可以伸出手臂并触摸两面墙。 使RV内部看起来很宽敞是一个令人印象深刻的技巧。

One of my favorite things about working for an RV client was being able to art direct the photo shoots for RV interiors.

在为RV客户工作时，我最喜欢的事情之一就是能够为RV室内照片直接拍摄照片。

We used an assortment of photographers in Indiana who specialized in creating these illusions. It was amazing to watch them build a shot. In the morning you have an ordinary RV. You find the best place to put the camera. Select the right lens. Manicure the surfaces. Add props. Then carefully build light. By the end of the day you have achieved the impossible–the tiny interior looks massive.

我们使用了印第安纳州各种各样的摄影师来专门创造这些幻想。 看着他们投篮实在是太神奇了。 早上您有普通的房车。 您找到放置相机的最佳位置。 选择合适的镜头。 修整表面。 添加道具。 然后小心地建立光。 到最后，您已经实现了不可能的目标-微小的内部看起来很大。

The final step would be for me to take the interior photo, cut out the windows, and insert a stock photo of a beautiful landscape. Deception complete.

最后一步对我来说是拍摄室内照片，切开窗户并插入美丽风景的股票照片。 欺骗完成。

魔术技巧3：误导 (Magic Trick 3: Misdirection)

The third trick is misdirection. If your product can’t rely on its own good looks, you create images that encourage the viewer to look at something else. We called them lifestyle photos. Pictures of smiling, happy people doing exciting things with your product as a prop in the background. The sleight of hand is to shift of attention away from the product.

第三招是误导。 如果您的产品不能依靠其自身的外观，则可以创建鼓励观众查看其他图像的图像。 我们称他们为生活方式照片。 图片，微笑，快乐的人，做令人兴奋的事情与您的产品作为道具在后台。 手的技巧是将注意力从产品上移开。

Imagine an adventurous couple on vacation. They slide their canoe into a crystal clean lake. Before climbing onboard, the man looks back over his shoulder at his RV parked on the beach. With a knowing nod, he thanks the heroic product for making this all possible.

想象一下一对冒险的情侣在度假。 他们将独木舟滑入水晶般洁净的湖中。 在登船之前，该名男子回头看着停在沙滩上的房车。 他点了点头，感谢英雄产品使这一切成为可能。

If you can convincingly Photoshop this concept does it matter that it is a complete fiction? You can answer “no” once or twice, but when you see this trick done enough times you have to wonder. How far removed from reality can something get before the product, the reason you are doing this work in the first place, ceases to be a touched-up version of reality and crosses the line into a deception that obscures truth.

如果您可以令人信服地使用Photoshop，那么此概念是否完整，是否重要？ 您可以回答“否”一次或两次，但是当您看到此技巧完成足够的次数时，您会感到奇怪。 在产品问世之前，某些东西离现实有多远，您最初从事这项工作的原因就不再是现实的修饰版，而越过了对真实的迷惑。

It makes a better trick to include the product in your illusions, but this isn’t mandatory. Simply having your product next to lifestyle images can be enough to distract attention away from the product. For the record, the following brochure cover wasn’t created by me.

将产品包含在您的幻想中是一个更好的技巧，但这不是强制性的。 只需将您的产品放在生活方式图片旁边就足以将注意力从产品上转移开。 作为记录，以下小册子封面不是我创建的。

Let’s jump back to Indiana where I watched the train of unbranded RVs dissappear in the distance. I crossed the tracks and headed back to the photo studio where I commented on the train and how great it was to see an act of goodwill. I asked if anyone knew which RV company was making such a generous donation. The response was,

让我们跳回到印第安纳州，在那里我看到无品牌的RV列车在远处消失了。 我越过铁轨，回到照相馆，在那儿我评论了火车，看到亲善的举动真是太好了。 我问是否有人知道哪家房车公司慷慨捐赠。 回应是

“Donation? Why do you think there isn’t a single logo on those RVs?”

“捐款？ 您为什么认为这些RV上没有一个徽标？”

I had no idea. What I learned next made me question everything. Were my magic tricks really harmless illusions? My tiny exaggerations were about to become a dangerous contribution to a lie that ended up permanently injuring people.

我不知道。 接下来我学到的东西使我对所有问题都产生了疑问。 我的魔术真的是无害的幻想吗？ 我的小小的夸张将成为对谎言的危险贡献，这种谎言最终永久伤害了人们。

Today’s post was about the surface layer, the tricks of the trade that by themselves seem harmless. Next week I am going to talk about what happens when you start asking questions. That’s where my path to hell gets paved.

今天的帖子是关于表面层的，这些交易技巧本身似乎是无害的。 下周，我将讨论您开始提问时会发生什么。 那就是我通往地狱的道路。

Part 2: Got a Brand Problem? Put a Bird on it.

第2部分：遇到品牌问题？ 在上面放一只鸟。

Thanks for reading. Like it? Poke the heart icon. Love it? Highlight and share. Hate it? Write a response and curse me on Twitter. That’s the fuel that keeps me typing. Stay creative.

谢谢阅读。 喜欢它？ 戳心脏图标。 爱它？ 突出显示并分享。 讨厌它？ 写一个回应并在Twitter上骂我 。 那就是让我打字的动力。 保持创意。

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/a-special-hell-for-designers-like-me-5c55bd855613/

左边是地狱右边也是地狱