Creatives Share Their Worst Design F***-Ups, And If You Thought Your Day Sucked…



Image via Shutterstock

What is the designer’s equivalent to that common nightmare where the protagonist turns up at school naked? Everyone has mucked up at work in some way or another—some more so than others.

Mike Sullivan, founder of digital and branding firm Mister Studio, recalls sending 25,000 newspapers to print with the wrong logo.

Keen to find out how other creatives have royally botched their projects, but managed to keep their careers, he has asked them to describe their most embarrassing “design f*** ups.”

Designers recount using low-res files in finalized work, delivering hilariously rude typos, leaving watermarks in files and more. By good luck, some of these errors went unnoticed by their clients and partners.

If you thought your day was bad, check out these ridiculous gaffes made by fellow designers. What is your greatest design screw-up?

What’s your biggest design fuck up.

I sent 25K of newspapers to print with wrong company logo.

Oh.

— M___ke (@miksullivan) October 19, 2018

Sent a whole magazine to print with every page saved as a 72dpi PNG file

— Darren McChrystal (@mrmcchrystal) October 19, 2018

did not happen to me, but an old colleague: for a huge industry client he put „scheissen“ instead of „schweissen“ on the brochure’s cover. just one little letter, no one noticed—but in german this letter makes the difference between electro-welding and taking a shit.

— Christian L. (@christianlpunkt) October 19, 2018

Sent out an email to over half a million people offering a “20% Disco cunt on Coats”. 🙈

— Neil Cooper (@ncooperdesign) October 19, 2018

Once designed a 500 metre long hoarding for a land securities property development near Chancery Lane. Created detailed scale artwork street by street. Production cost was just shy of £100k for print. I turned up on the first day and they’d installed it on the wrong street!

— Jamie Ellul (@jamie_ellul) October 19, 2018

I printed 30k leaflets about “pubic sector pensions”

— Stewart Scott-Curran (@stewartsc) October 19, 2018

Worked with a designer who for a reason only known to him photoshopped a cock onto a squirrel for a local park ad. Artwork was initially a magazine advert so it couldn’t be seen. Then the client requested the image for a billboard…

— Dan Shaw (@DAN5HAW) October 20, 2018

4am amends on an annual report. Put too many 0’s on a board remuneration figure, didn’t notice. Uploaded to their site, went home to kip, got back to the studio at 10am to learn that CNN & Bloomberg had phoned the client for the official line on why their CEO had been so overpaid

— Kate Lenton (@tannerrrrr) October 20, 2018

Printed business cards for a careers consultant, apart from that I wrote conslutant. Got the reprinted, the client never knew.

— Jenny Theolin (@jennytheolin) October 20, 2018

Outstanding thread. 👍 Web dev at my old agency put a load of placeholder “xxx” hyperlink text in a FB app for a major Hollywood film. Client put it live early without permission and the quiz rerouted to https://t.co/gPIQrFZe34 once completed! 😂

— Phill Buckland (@TwitchyPixel) October 20, 2018

Oh. Sending 40k copies of a magazine to print with the low res placeholders on a feature.
With very noticeable watermarks.
With my sarky repro note layer showing.

To be fair, neither the CD/ed/dep ed/sub/production ed noticed as it was put through at 4:30 in the morning.

— John Mahood (@Jsamahood) October 19, 2018

autocorrect on company report for V well know fashion house changed first like from ‘Sophisticated womenswear collection’ to ‘sophisticated womaniser’ – took 2 years to pay off the print bill by hiding the cost in other jobs

— Richard (@depesando) October 19, 2018

Mistakenly included my phone number in a photo illustration on the cover of the @nytimes Business section. My voicemail was swiftly hacked and I got random phone calls and texts for awhile after that 🙃

— Jennifer 🧟‍♀️ (@jenniferdaniel) October 20, 2018

client phoned to tell me a 5k print job was wrong and as I was putting the phone down I shouted ‘you twat’ client phoned straight back and said have you just called me a twat, errr no I don’t think so.

— chris morris (@123veltman) October 19, 2018

Misspelling: Yorkshite was my best one. Given it was on a client brochure (litho run) – was 6 weeks before it was spotted, by another client browsing our folio. I never said anything. Still wonder if anyone else spotted it. (And I still make the same damn typo now).

— Liam Crean (@liamcrean) October 19, 2018

In an arts festival programme I flipped a side-on portrait of a man to suit the layout better. Found out later the reason the photo was side-on was because he only had one arm.

— Dan Fear (@roktraktor) October 20, 2018

[via Mike Sullivan, cover image via Shutterstock]

Creatives Share Their Worst Design F***-Ups, And If You Thought Your Day Sucked…
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October 22, 2018 at 08:06PM
via TAXI Daily News http://www.designtaxi.com/news/402054/Creatives-Share-Their-Worst-Design-F-Ups-And-If-You-Thought-Your-Day-Sucked/