Design?

Q:What is good design? 

What constitutes are great poster? A great logo? Brochure? Etc. This was a serious question I was asking myself.  I began to think about it a lot. I even thought to myself, what did I think about the font 'Brush Script" (I despise that font and I see it everywhere) before I became a designer? And from there are was supposed to come up with some enlightened sense of design. From the answer to this question I will be able to design anything and it will be loved by all. I kept branching from that single thought "What is good design?" 

For that matter what is good music? What is fashion, What is a cute outfit?

My experiences:

When I re-create stuff for others they say well I like this but I don't know if the client will. So many times I have had to make very readable and well-designed things 'dumbed-down' (that's what I call it) just so the ad can be approved by the client the first time around.  
Marcie's Solution: Educate the client as to why this design works over the one that's is not so successful, but this is for another discussion.

I've had many opportunities to re-design things for clients, but I've found that 're-designing' really means re-make the ad but keep the same look as their old ad so it will be approved. There have been times when I have disregarded their version of 're-designing' and used my own version of it to only be shunned by the middle person that is the connection to the client. I want to say, " How about you send it to them anyways and see what they think."

Example. I got this ad from a representative and the client wanted to change the previous ad, it was heinous in every sense of the word. The lack of imagery made it difficult to understand what the ad was for. So the client wants us to add in some imagery that relates to golf. It was a thank-you ad to thank their sponsors for some event. For some reason they included a roster they had from the event, it made me confused. But whatever, I am going to re-design this ad and blow their socks off, well I still had to exercise restraint but it finally wasn't some dinky text change.

I design three versions of the ad.. show it to the rep. and they say, "Oh, make it look like their roster." Good grief.. Their roster wasn't ugly but I made one ad look like the roster except so beyond ugly there was nooo way they were going to pick it. I made another one where their logo was on the golf ball and the text was Bookman Old Style and it all nicely fit in the lay out (my favorite of course). The other ad was similar to the one I created but with a different image (I wasn't in love with it, but it was bad either). The picked the Bookman Old Style text (yay!) but the other image. (????) I had to force the rep to send all three versions to the client (how annoying!). It came to my attention that the design was, in fact, to the sales reps liking, not the clients. I think this is so backwards.

I've made some things for and arts & entertainment sort of thing, I made three versions, as always. One of my ideas was so outrageously awesome that it's a portfolio piece, for realsies! Every designer I have shown it to thinks it's the best concept EVAR! But is it going to be used for that? NOPE. One of the people that pretty much do everything (write the editorial, decide the theme, etc.) for the supplement didn't like the idea. Either that or it was never shown to him. Frustration at it's high.

I am OBSESSED with a certain collection of fonts.. One being Georgia because of it's old style numbers. I am not particularly fond of sans-serif because I think that they can start to blend and look the same. Whereas with serif fonts there are a numerous amount of options to experiment with serifs, stress on letters, etc. (love) A lot of people like sans-serif which is completely fine but not my cup of tea. I especially don't like the mix of sans-serif and serif. It just doesn't fit to me, but I see it all the time...  
Q: What is a great font?
A: What are you using it for?

Ultimately, I came to this conclusion...

A: Who are you talking to??