Wood Ingham
For a while, I was the in-house writer and publicity designer for this one-horse business software firm. It was a bit tedious. I didn’t have a whole lot to do.
So this one day the Boss calls me in. They’re getting ready the new brochure for the upgrade and he has some ideas for the design. In short, he wants the cover to have a flowchart on it.
Sorry? A flowchart? Are you insane?
And he wants it to look like a breast.
For a second there, I say, I thought you said you wanted it to look like a breast.
Yes, he says, that’s right. A breast. Like on a lady. With a voluptuous curve here and a fulsome curve here and a pointy bit here. With relevant aspects of our software written on the arrows.
I am somewhat direct in my expression of what I think of this.
He tells me that sex sells. And that he is selling to people who own factories. And it works on them.
So I spend the next week trying to make the flowchart look artistic and stuff… and not look much like a breast. After about three days of trying to compromise, the Boss (who shall forever after in my mind be Mr. Breast) comes in and looks over my shoulder, and says, “Can’t you make it a bit more pert?â€
I went freelance not long after that, and I’ve been doing this every since.
It pretty much defines where I am. I could be making flowcharts that look like breasts. or I could be writing.
Hurrah for writing, I say.
© HD Ingham 2009