This is a cautionary tale for all you graphic designers out there. An anecdote and a solution.
I was a graphic designer for a library. My first full-time job after I quit college. (That’s another story.)
I was good with computers and had learned how to do graphics programs (anyone remember PageMaker and QuarkExpress?) so I landed a job printing pamphlets at a library for their events and whatnot.
So, the time came when I had to design a pamphlet for a new garden atrium at the brand-new library. The county commissioners (local small-time politicians) had financed the whole project and I was told to list them on the back of the pamphlet as a way to thank them. Nothing unusual yet, right?
My boss gave me the name of one of the commissioners, and I was told to call her and get a list of names of the pols who had contributed. No sweat. I typed the five or six names in (it wasn’t more than that) popped them onto the pamphlet and ran it off to the printer for one of our larger, higher-quality printing jobs for the gala event revealing the new building and garden.
A while later, I got a call from the head of the commissioners. The big one. The Commish. She said something like, “I intercepted your pamphlet at the printer and stopped them from printing it.”
Huh? What? Why? And how did she know it was there?
“The names on the pamphlet. Who gave you this list?” She barked over the phone.
Uh, I said… Politician X. (Not her real name.)
The Commish explained: on the list of names, Politician X was at the top and Politician Y wasn’t. The Commish felt that there was some sort of intrigue going on where X (the one who had read me the list of names) was seeking to steal the shine of Y, who had actually done the bulk of the work on the new atrium garden thingy. The Commish continued to wonder aloud on the phone about all this internal drama crapola. All I could think was, I’m supposed to have those pamphlets ready ASAP and you’re screwing it up with your pettiness.
After much wrangling, the powers-that-be decided to list the names alphabetically by last name.
Later at the gala event, Politician Y said hello to me, but her tone was cold. I may have been paranoid, but I couldn’t help but feel I was being accused of being a willing part of Politician X and her real or imagined conspiracy to put the names in certain order so as to… whatever.
Ever since then, when I design something with names, I put the names alphabetically. That is my lesson to designers, and really anyone. When there’s a list of names, be careful to list them alphabetically by last name. It’s an objective ordering scheme and it won’t be implied that you are a key part of some grand plot to list one person two or three spots ahead of another with the goal of utterly destroying their career. Or something.
Good luck out there, designers!
This was originally published on LinkedIn on 3 Feb 2023