Every year the Design Department sponsors a "Career Day," in which professionals from different areas of design come in and talk about their jobs. Last spring I was asked to design a poster to promote the event with the understanding that they were on a tight schedule and needed something almost immediately. I jumped at the opportunity to do it because little things like this excite me.

Romeo and I came up with a concept that we thought would be really funny, and if I pulled if off, it might even be a nice looking piece. The instructors who asked me to do it, however, weren't as excited about the idea as we were. In fact, they "HATED" it. They thought it was too negative a concept for an event that was supposed to be so positive. Whatever. The previous year's Career Day poster was a light bulb with lightning bolts coming out of it. I reminded them of this but their defense was that "...it was a good idea that was executed poorly." But as much as they hated my idea, they had to take it because the BIG day was rapidly approaching and they needed to promote it. Their argument and dislike for the poster seemed ridiculous to me -- so much so that I even paid for the first batch to be printed.

The posters were put up and I was sitting in my office feeling really pissed about the whole thing, when the Chairperson of the Design Department comes into my office and says, "Great poster, Tony! Maybe that'll get students to finally come to this thing! Keep 'em coming!" Later on that day they told me they needed MORE posters printed because the students were stealing them out of the classrooms. I heard the event was a success -- I chose not to go. Afterwards I was invited to lunch with the guest speakers and faculty... I skipped out on that one too.