About a year ago, I got an email from a very good client with a design request of the more personal nature:

“I recently got engaged! I know, super exciting!! I need thank you card…something very simple, an emblem to go at the bottom right corner of either a 5×5 card or a 5.5 x 4.5 card. See the link below for inspiration. I like the idea of the heart. The 2 letters will be Y + J.”

{link to standard elegant wedding faire: letter + letter, inscribed into heart}

“Does that make sense?? I am trying to get this printed quickly so your help is greatly appreciated…”

And there it is, the No.1 farce in graphic design: The Simple Job. This one is coupled with I Need It Really Quickly.

That’s not to say there aren’t indeed quick and simple jobs but rarely are they presented as such. Because here’s the way things work and what I consider: 1) What you say you want 2) What you say you want but what I think you mean and 3) What I think you should consider even though you didn’t bring it up at all. What does that equal? 3 options, squared. (for the non-mathletes, that’s a minimum 9 designs) So, here’s what that “really quick job” looks like, as in, All the Work You Never Saw.

So here’s Round #1, simply following instructions:

And here’s feedback from Round #1, resulting in Round #2:
“I don’t know if I’m in love with hearts actually. I do like the first one and the second one (I’d like to see it reversed). Would it be possible for you to send me some additional options a bit different than the inspiration?”

I will bypass the dialogue about color and placement of the emblem (7 more options) and skip right to the final:

And here’s what it looked like behind the scenes:

Simple.