Middlemen are merely modifying meddlers

I write to compliment the mesh of text and Louis Hellman’s cartoon (Private View, DW 4 October). Reading the text added depth and weight to the cartoon that it didn’t have at first glance, although it was still good and tempted you to read. A great combination.

My further comments are generated by the link between the article mentioned above and letter on the next page from Roger Rolfe about share certificates not showing their worth.

It hinges on that breed of people who often term themselves “creatives” and stand between the designer and the client. Design buyers, publications officers, creative directors – they go under many names. My experience is that they home in on the one thing that gives the design “grit” and remove or modify it – in effect, emasculating the concept. Safety in “anodynety” – a word that doesn’t exist but means painless in the worst possible way. It’s their motto. Look it up.

This breed of people also navigate to what they consider to be the more exciting projects and neglect the more mundane. Hence Rolfe’s letter about share certificates lacking the ability to communicate their own worth.

No wonder then, that some of the more exciting work is now done by “client-free designers” working for themselves.

I look forward to responses to the above, but the people that I am criticising will remain oblivious. It’s in their nature.

Let the designer work directly to the client without some middle person doing a bit of everything.

Alan Scott

Designer/illustrator

Address supplied via the Net