Cutting Through The Jargon - RD217

<h2>Communicate clearly and jargon-free.</h2> <p>Pixels.<br /> Bleed.<br /> Wordmark.<br /> Hero Image.<br /> SSL.<br /> White Space.</p> <p class="p1">I imagine, as you read each of those words, your mind quickly thought of each one’s meaning and how you use them.</p> <p class="p1">To you, a designer, deciphering these words uses up the same amount of brainpower as reading the words eggs, horse, car, or house. There’s no need to burn brain calories contemplating them since they are second nature to you because you’re familiar with the jargon of the design industry. You wouldn’t be much good as a designer if you didn’t know what pixels or bleed or a wordmark, etc. were.</p> <p class="p1">But you deal daily with people who are not in our industry. That’s why they hire you, after all, because of your creativity and knowledge of all things design.</p> <p class="p1">But sometimes, that knowledge can become a crutch—especially when dealing with clients who don’t know what we know.</p> <p class="p1">I recently had a Zoom chat with a new client looking for podcast cover artwork. The gentleman was in his 80s and starting a podcast about the commonalities between creationism in religion and science. He’s a retired professor of quantum physics with an in-depth knowledge of string theory. He’s no dummy. Some may even consider him a genius.</p> <p class="p1">However, during our discussion about his podcast cover artwork, he asked me what a pixel was. He had read how podcast cover artwork should be 3000px by 3000px square. He was unfamiliar with the term but rightly surmised that pixels are a form of measurement. But he had no idea how big or small a pixel was because, in his vast knowledge of the inner workings of our universe, pixels had never come up.</p> <p class="p1">This goes to show you that even the brightest minds don’t know everything from every field. And nor should they.</p> <p class="p1">Maybe you’re thinking, “The guy was in his 80s, so that’s understandable. However, most people these days know what a pixel is.