Suburban Goddess

Today I am faced with one of the hardest design challenges of my entire career. I have an ad, the size of a business card, to be designed for one of the bitchiest, pickiest, and most critical clients ever.

Me.

I finally made the commitment to advertise, (and when I say commitment, I’m talking CONTRACT, legal & binding) and I only have one shot to get it right because once it’s done, it’s DONE for an entire year and there is no way to change it. There’s only one other designer with an ad, and it’s very simple, small, and tastefully done. My ad will be bigger and fall in front of hers, so the pressure is immeasurable. Do I go for techey, or classic? Color or white space? Do I list everything I do, or just put my website & hope they’ll come? ARRGGGHHH! Add the pressure that the other three designers here are looking (”Sure, Kristie, it looks great!” & then they turn to each other with that OH MY GOD look), and I really am starting to understand why other designers send in a blank slate & tell me to design their ad. It seems like sacriliege; letting another designer design YOUR ad, but I swear, it suddenly makes sense! Of course, his will never be perfect either, but at least when someone comments on it you can be catty & say, “Oh my God! That piece of crap? I was just SO BUSY with all my REAL work that I let some poor little designer do it for me….”

Funny. That poor little designer is me!

On my way home yesterday, I was detained in some hellish traffic on a side road. As I got closer to the flashy lights, I expected to see a ten car pile-up; all that was there was a broken Civic and THREE tow trucks.

I’m not real good at math, (that’s why I became an artist), but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take three trucks to tow a tiny little Honda. But there they were, side-by-side-by-side, blocking the turning lane and causing traffic to back up all the way to I-45. That’s when I got mad.

I’ve seen them before, in the strip mall parking lots, congregated together in little flocks, just waiting for some poor, unsuspecting motorist to screw up. God help you if you’re in their way when the call comes; I’ve almost been flattened more times than I can count in their hurry to get out of the parking lot. Circling, circling, waiting to devour the remains of some busted compact car or wounded SUV. Completely oblivious to the flow of traffic (or lack of) that surrounds them.

I watched with growing agitation as they stood by, waiting for the poor unsuspecting motorist to finish her cell phone conversation. Do they argue over who gets to peck first? Do they quote prices in a little pecking war?

Do they HAVE to block the damn turning lane???

There’s a vagrant standing there with the standard vagrant sign, “Will Work For Food.” A man in an SUV reaches out of the window and hands the vagrant some money. Immediately, the scruffy-looking man returns to the side of the road, gathers his backpack and plastic bag, and walks over to the overpass. He tucks his cardboard sign admist the gnarled vines along the side of the overpass and sets off walking in the direction of Wal-Mart.

Coffee break? Or unspoken act of courtesy for the next vagrant at the same overpass?

And what would happen if somebody stole it?