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my-arlington-academia · 5 years ago

Note

Hello! Could I get headcanons for the main 10 with a Scholar who likes to leave love letters around for them to find?

Yes! 💗 and thank you for the request ✊ I'm not sure if they're already dating or not? I'm gonna assume they are. (This turned out to be so long! I'm gonna flood the tags again...)

Alistair

- first time you gave him one, it was on his desk

- he tried to read as swiftly as he could, but as he was reading through it, he started getting weird looks from the other students

- not surprising, he was grinning the whole time

- Raquel tried to look over his shoulder

- "Oooohhh~ what's that? A love letter? You're so popular with the ladies haha."

- he immediately hides it and stuffs it in his bag

- "Psh. N-no? It was just uhhh... homework!"

- poor boy sucks at lying

- "Of course, I'm sure everyone smiles like that at homework."

- Alistair keeps on giving you glances during class

- he didn't have the time to read all of it but he did see that you signed it and your handwriting is really recognizable

- afterwards, he quietly reads it in his room

- his heart races at each word

- comes to your room as soon as he finishes reading it

- "Y/N I came here to th- than- uhhh? Yeah! To thank you! Haha..."

- for a hot second he forgot how words work

- is laughing out of nervousness

- after that, you keep giving him more and more letters

- he starts consciously expecting to find one on his desk when he walks in

- is really sad when there's nothing on the desk...

Axel

- he already receives a lot of love letters ("fanmail") so how can you give it to him while making sure that he knows it's yours right away?

- you thought of a silly trick to throw him off guard

- When he's walking through the hallways you call out his name and give him the letter, you tell him that "he dropped this"

- he's surprised so he automatically grabs the letter

- "Oh! Thank you for picking it up for- Wait. I don't think this is mine. Uh...?"

- too late! You ran away immediately

- it takes him a few seconds to understand what you just did

- he's excited! But of course he's not going to read it in the middle of the hallway

- skips the beginning of next class to read it carefully in the cafeteria

- he blushes furiously at how passionate the letter is

- he's persuaded that you could write a beautiful love song

- comes in class 20 minutes late and gets detention from Tadashi but to be honest, he doesn't even care anymore

- When he walks in, he gives you a subtle look but you know what that look means

- you're so embarrassed that you try to ignore him the whole period... until he stealthly throws a paperball on your desk

- you open it, it says "look my way"

- even though you're mortified, you do so anyway

- he waves at you and smirks all knowingly

- ohhhh boy, you look away again

- you hear a stifled laugh, he probably thinks your reaction was really cute

Claire

- she often lends you pretty little boxes with cookies in them

- but when you have to give the box back to her, you get an idea

- you put a love letter in the empty box and give it back to Claire

- she discovers it in the evening when she opens the box, expecting to only find crumbs you left behind

- blinks a few times and closes the box

- opens it again and the letter is still inside

- she thinks "it wasn't a hallucination!"

- reads it really slowly because she has to stop at each sentence to calm herself down

- the next day she gives you the box again with the new cookies she baked yesterday

- runs away as soon as you take the box

- you open it and there's a letter on top of the cookies, it's a response to your letter!

- seems like she was too shy to tell you in person

- to fit the theme of the letter: the cookies are heart-shaped

- you guys keep on exchanging letters through the box and it becomes a habit between the two of you

Ellie

- since she doesn't have a roommate, you slide the letter through the small space under her door

- finds it on the floor when she gets back to her room

- OwO whats dis?

- opens it and reads it super quickly

- she's so giddy that she reads over it multiple times

- sends you text messages with lots of emojis in them

- "Thank youuu 💖💕💗 you sweetheart!!! 💘💝😍😊😘"

- builds a robot to deliver letters between the two of you

- it knocks on the door and if you don't open it to take the letter, it goes back to Ellie

- she teaches you how to use the robot!

- "Don't worry! If someone else snatches the letter away from the robot it'll activate an alarm on my phone! And it's not like we need to sign the letters, we can use codenames!"

- You remind her that she's the only one in the pure and applied sciences department to create cute robots like those

- "Ah whoops... well uh, to be fair everyone already knows that we're dating so... no need to hide it!"

Karolina

- she probably doesn't care much about love letters

- she always thought that it's childish and extremely ridiculous

- that is until you gave her one

- the really first time you gave the letter to her directly or else she wouldn't read it, not knowing that it was from you

- she's all proud of herself while reading it

- she agrees with each statement but still blushes

- "Of course I'm gorgeous! You didn't have to write that part..."

- she's actually a sucker for books, especially from the romance genre

- you make her feel like a heroine from one of those books and she's secretly really happy about it

- but she'll never admit that of course

- after a while she gets inspired and tries to write one herself

- she thinks "I'll show you how it's done!"

- ends up getting really embarrassed at the thought of you reading the letter and doesn't give it to you until the end of the year

Neha

- after multiple attempts you somehow managed to sneak the letter in one of her sketchbooks

- too bad you couldn't see the surprise on her face when she found your letter

- she wanted to work for a few hours and brainstorm ideas for some new outfits

- but her plans went out of the window

- she read it. Put it on the side and started thinking about you during a solid 20 minutes

- wants to thank you but doesn't know how to do it without sounding like a little kid

- decides to send you a text for now, but she'll also write you a letter later

- "Thank you a lot for the letter. I really appreciate it."

- thinks that maybe it's a little bit too cold so she adds a heart emoji at the end

- cringes to herself while sending it

- gets back to work but sometimes she draws your face on the side

- scribbles all over it when she realizes what she's doing

- "This is not professional! If I have to show my sketchbook to someone and they see this, they won't take me seriously..."

- decides to write you a letter first or else she won't be able to focus

Raquel

- This is a hard one

- Raquel always moves from place to place without stop so it's hard to be sneaky with her

- eventually you slip the letter in her bag but you don't know how much time it'll take for her to find it

- like you thought it took her a few days

- when she did, she was very vocal about it

- she ran to you and almost jumped on you

- hugs you and thanks you hundreds of times

- "I love you too!!! You're so sweet Y/N..."

- becomes much more flirty, she was already confident but now it's even worse (or better? 😌)

- puts the letter on the wall of her room and shows it off to Claire

- "Look at that Claire! It seems like my godly charm cannot be stopped."

- Raquel starts carefully checking her bag everyday in hopes of finding another letter from you

- and even when she doesn't find anything, it gets her into a working mood

- "Might as well do my homework I guess..."

- becomes much more responsible with homework now that she checks her bag everyday

- your love literally helped her to get better grades

Tadashi

- This was a risky mission

- you had to sneak into the student council room and leave it on his desk

- they had a meeting this afternoon and Tadashi has been in a bad mood lately

- Well, to be fair he's always done with everybody's BS but this time it was worse than usual

- he finds the letter and gets confused right away

- wants to read it but he's having a meeting

- he's really fidgety the whole time, for some reason he has a feeling that it's from you though he can't explain why

- once everyone leaves the room he opens the letter

- all of his stress dies down, he falls back on his chair and sighs

- goes to find you and brings you to the council room, he makes you sit on his chair

- you tell him that you can't be here but he smiles and answers "Oh? You say that now even though you snuck in earlier to give me a secret love letter of all things?"

- he teases you with endearment and massages your back to thank you

- asks you if you'll write more (because he loved it) and you promise to do so if he promises to take more breaks

Tegan

- Tegan often invites you to play videos games with him (or to marathon some shows/anime/movies/whatever)

- you left the letter behind for him but he didn't catch the drift

- goes to your room to give it back

- "Um... you forgot this, I think..."

- you tell him that it's for him

- "Wait, really? You can just text me, you know? It's quicker and way easier than writing letters."

- oooohhhh boy. He really doesn't get it, you have to spell it out

- "A l-love letter? For me!?"

- "Tegan. We're dating."

- "Oh right! Sorry... I always forget that, it seems like I'm in a dream..."

- reads it in front of you while you're paying close attention to his reactions

- and to no surprise: he's a blushing mess

- you're fully satisfied, all that time was worth it

- he says that he'll repay you with a "love text message" which sounds like he's being lazy, but really knowing how... "unique" his handwriting is, you're glad...

- but it was not just a text message.

- "Sorry, I went a bit overboard 🙏🙏"

- his text has a 23 pages long file attached to it

- he wrote a really really long essay explaining in details why you're "so awesome" and "the best person in the world"

Tyler

- after classes are over, when he's working on a new painting he spends almost all of his time in the art room

- that's when you strike!

- you know he has a habit of sitting in the corner of the room so that's where you leave the letter

- honestly, he was in a slump lately because he felt like he was doing a really half-assed job with his new art piece

- but your letter gave him so much motivation that he finished the painting in a day

- "This is crazy Y/N! Reading your letter gave me the same rush as drinking 5 monster drinks in the span of 2 hours!"

- "Uhhh... Please don't do that?"

- laughs at how worried you look and asks you to write more to give him strength

- you say no at first but he pulls out your letter out of his pocket and starts reading it out loud in the middle of the hallway

- "Ssshhh! People might hear!"

- "Yeah, so? That's kinda the point but if you promise to write me more I'll stop~"

- you know he's just teasing you but it's still so embarrassing...

- in the end you give in out of shame however you have no idea just how much this letter helped him

- whenever he feels down or like he's not good enough he pulls out one of your letters and reads it

- he keeps all of them safe in a box, they're his treasures

#sweet elite #se #main 10 #headcanons #requests #asks #hope you guys like it!

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awesomebrazilianprincess · 7 years ago

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It's Neymar's Time to Complete His Rise to Royalty

If Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi has anything in common with Crash Davis—if there’s any sort of cultural crossover between the archetypes of global sports glitz and minor league baseball grime—it’ll show itself when the tape recorder starts rolling. That’s when the icons in their posh private jets heed the wisdom Davis imparted on a bumpy bus, whether they’ve seen Bull Durham or not. “You’re gonna have to learn your clichés,” Crash says in the 1988 classic. “They’re your friends.”

The galácticos have little choice but to follow this advice. Combine the fanaticism surrounding global soccer with the minimal access afforded the media covering it, and you have an environment where every crumb becomes content, where innuendo is louder than insight, where the tiniest spark can become a bombshell. In short: The less said the better; be safe, not sorry. So it’s significant, then, that in the middle of what should be the most relaxing summer of his adult life, Neymar da Silva Santos Jr. is willing to let you in, share his concerns and maybe even make a headline. He can’t hide from who he is, nor from the momentous, legacy-defining season to come.

The quiet but charismatic 25-year-old Brazilian forward has never won a World Cup. He has never been named FIFA’s player of the year. And if he remains at FC Barcelona (which was up in the air as of Monday; if he’s not in Paris a week from now, it will be a surprise), he will have to wait a bit longer until he’s even considered his own team’s centerpiece. But he’s universally deemed soccer’s best player after Ronaldo and Messi, and he’s beloved in a way that neither of them ever will be. And a big reason for that is his indifference to the Book of Crash.

Neymar can’t fake it. He’s not packaged, and he’s not a product—and as a result, he sells lots of them: Nike, Gillette, Panasonic, Beats by Dre. In 2013 he was named the most marketable athlete in the world by SportsPro and Eurosport. In January he was ranked the most valuable player on the European transfer market by Switzerland’s CIES Football Observatory. And in April he was the only footballer on TIME’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. (“I’ve always been struck by his humility,” David Beckham wrote for TIME. “He’s respectful and wants to learn...He lives to play the game, and I imagine he approaches it now the same way he did as a boy.”)

Neymar says he can’t explain his inclusion on that list—and then he tries to do just that: “Maybe because I’m an athlete or maybe because I do a lot of things on social media. But I don’t know. I don’t like to talk about myself. I try to be a good role model for my son, my family, my friends, and then I try to be a good role model for the rest of the people, too. ... I try to be myself without being anything different. I’m only one Neymar—for my family, for the public. I’m always the same person.”

When Neymar acknowledges that, yes, the next 12 months, climaxing with the World Cup in Russia, will probably be “the toughest season of my life,” he believes it. The world will read those words and discuss and dissect them, and then they’ll become even more true. The spotlight is about to get even brighter, and Neymar, who’s been soccer’s next big thing for nearly a decade, will have to confront his destiny.

This was Neymar’s first summer without a national-team commitment since 2010, when his exclusion from Brazil’s ill-fated World Cup squad caused an uproar at home. Brazil has already qualified for Russia, so he’s had the chance to indulge. He hit Oracle Arena for Game 2 of the NBA Finals, sitting courtside with Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton and posing afterward with Odell Beckham Jr. and Kevin Durant. Neymar wasn’t at all concerned about whether the Warriors’ megastar was a fan; this was no ego trip. “I don’t know if he’s seen me play,” Neymar told SI, “but I had the pleasure to meet him.”

In another photo the 5' 9" Brazilian stood on a chair and playfully lorded over 6' 7" Draymond Green. Neymar enjoys being around famous and accomplished people—he reunited with Green in Ibiza last month—not because of how it reflects on him but because he’s a fan, genuinely in awe of what they can do.

In the last year he performed a short, silly scene in which he juggles a napkin holder in Vin Diesel’s most recent Xander Cage movie—a role only for the athlete who doesn’t take himself too seriously—and kicked a ball across Hollywood Boulevard on Jimmy Kimmel Live! He’s joined musicians onstage, singing and dancing at concerts back home.

Neymar has a piano at his house in Spain—it was there when he moved in, he says, and he has been teaching himself to play with YouTube videos—but at an L.A. photo shoot for this story it takes some convincing to get the man watched by tens of millions every weekend to tap out even a simple a tune on a rented grand. He sits, gets up and wanders a bit before settling back in. Songs are suggested. How about Barcelona’s club anthem, “El Cant del Barça”? A Nike marketing rep asks that the studio’s ambient music be turned up, not down, so Neymar might feel a bit less scrutinized. He’s not an action figure to be played with. He’s human; he gets nervous. He says he felt it when he met Michael Jordan in Las Vegas and when he lined up to take what would be the winning penalty kick in the Olympic gold medal game last summer in Rio. Before the confidence bubbled up at the penalty spot, he admits, he endured the “worst sensation—all of the responsibility is on you.”

The Olympics play a distant second fiddle to the World Cup, but that U-23 tournament stubbornly remained the one international competition Brazil hadn’t won. And with the 2016 Games being contested on home soil two years after World Cup humiliation (also at home), Brazil named Neymar one of its three over-age players. He delivered, scoring four goals in six matches and converting that gilded penalty against Germany. Neymar was in tears almost immediately. For him, delivering the final piece of Brazil’s trophy puzzle was an immense achievement. For the public that adores him, however, it’s still not enough.

“It was like the Yankees finishing with the best record in the regular season: O.K., that’s kind of cool, but they measure everything around here by World Cup championships,” says Brian Winter, a Texan who co-wrote Pelé’s 2014 autobiography and who now runs Americas Quarterly, a political, business and cultural journal covering Latin America. As Reuters’ chief correspondent in Brazil for five years, he knows well how the nation’s sports, economics and politics intersect; he was living in São Paulo when Germany dismantled the hosts 7–1 in the ’14 Cup semifinals. That game in Belo Horizonte, he says, marked “the start of a long descent into hell for Brazil,” which has been reeling from financial and political crises since.

Neymar’s penalty and Olympic gold offered only temporary respite. “It was cool for, like, a day,” says Winter. “It created the sensation that hosting the Games hadn’t been a total waste. But once the lights went off, it was so clear that all of the promises linked to the Olympics—improved policing, infrastructure—had fallen short.” Brazilians, he says, are “desperately hoping for a reason to be happy in 2018. And so often—maybe too often—Brazilian soccer and politics mix.”

So the nation turns to Neymar. Four years after the misery of the so-called Mineirazodrubbing by Germany, which Neymar missed with a fractured vertebra suffered in a quarterfinal Thunderdome match against Colombia, Brazil has a viable shot at redemption in Russia. The 7–1 stain will never go away, but this World Cup will feature Neymar in his prime, shouldering the hopes of a country desperate for a reversal in fortune. This is the season in which it all could turn around. The season in which Neymar might finally fulfill his promise.

"Everybody wants that Neymar be the protagonist in the World Cup,” says Ricardo Kaká, the Orlando City midfielder who was part of Brazil’s 2002 title-winning team (and who, incredibly, is the last man other than Ronaldo or Messi to be crowned world player of the year—10 years ago). “This is unfair sometimes, but it’s also because of who he is as a player, for his potential, how he can decide a game, how he’s a protagonist in Barcelona. There is going to be pressure on him.”

Kaká is certainly familiar with scrutiny, but as good as he was, he never became the long-term, tactical focal point of the Seleção. Nevertheless, Neymar looks up to the former Brazil number 10, who’s 10 years his elder. Neymar admires Kaká’s piety, and Kaká appreciates Neymar’s willingness to listen and learn. They’re both part of a text-message group reserved for Brazilian national team veterans, making it one of the most exclusive clubs in the world: Kaká, Roberto Carlos, Denílson, Elano...–Neymar joined recently, and he employed the group’s advice during the Olympics.

Kaká explains: “The first games, Brazil didn’t play so good, everyone was criticizing Brazil—and he was the most important player. He tried speaking with the press, and then I said to him, ‘Now as a player we have a very good opportunity to answer without saying; we have the field to [show that] we care and that the situation is important to us.’ In the end he won the Olympics, and that was the best answer he could give.”

The members of the group, Kaká says, believe Neymar is “very smart to understand that these guys can give him something different, something that could help.”

Brazil needs Neymar because, increasingly, Brazil is Neymar. Though rocked by recessions and political scandals, the nation has seen massive gains made by the nascent middle class over the past couple of decades. For years, socioeconomic classes “often resembled castes,” Winter says. There were five—A through E—and it’s the C that’s been on the rise.

C is roughly where you would have found a young Neymar. The son of a journeyman pro player, he wasn’t impoverished growing up on the southern fringe of the São Paulo megalopolis, but his family didn’t have much either, and making ends meet was a chore. Now Neymar takes in some $37 million per year (more of it from endorsement deals than from Barcelona), according to Forbes. He’s living the modern Brazilian dream.

“Neymar has the deepest connection with the people of Brazil of any soccer player of this generation, particularly with the rising middle class,” Winter says. “The way he talks, his street-wise charm—he appeals to that segment. He’s the best pitchman in a generation.”

That appeal also dovetails with the millennial generation. Neymar is a master of social media. His image isn’t meticulously crafted or self-celebratory like Ronaldo’s; it’s not homey or reticent like Messi’s. That video of Neymar playing soccer in a backyard with Justin Bieber is more effective than anything a consultant might stage. It’s organic and honest, a window into Neymar’s effortless cool.

He’s fashionable. And he’s got a wonderfully wry sense of humor. “Social media tends to ferret out the phonies,” Winter says. “People love watching for their idols to show a glimpse of insincere behavior—but you really don’t see it from him.”

There’s a 2011 video of a 19-year-old Neymar in the locker room at his old Brazilian club, Santos, in which he dances and sings and thrusts along to Michel Teló’s cover of “Ai Se Eu Te Pego.” The more sighs and eye rolls Neymar gets from teammates in the video, the more committed he becomes.

He’s comfortable, unvarnished and fearless in the moment—the sort of person anyone with spunk or spirit would like to be around. The clip has more than 25 million views, and Neymar has 78 million followers on Instagram, making his account the 14th-most popular in the world, a hair above Messi’s.

Ronaldo has more, but Google “CR7 dancing” and among the first few hits are clips of the Portuguese star gyrating in a pink bathing suit in front of a crowd in Ibiza and another of him cavorting on a private plane. Search “Messi dancing” and you’ll find videos of the Argentine and his wife. There’s no better illustration of the differences among the three men.

Kaká certainly sees it. “Neymar just tries to be himself,” he says. “What’s in your character [takes] you where you want to go. Messi is a little bit shy, so he wants to be more out of the light. Cristiano wants to be not just a soccer player, but also a celebrity. There’s not a rightway, it’s just a choice. Neymar is the nice guy who wants to be everywhere, but he’s humble and simple. When he takes a picture with Kevin Durant, it’s: ‘This is the man, not me.’”

The soccer-loving world may worship now at the feet of Messi and Ronaldo, but that’s humanity’s appreciation for the divine and incomprehensible. Messi plays as if there are fireworks attached to his boots—the ball moves so quickly from one side of his foot to the other that it seems to occupy two places simultaneously. He’s all controlled chaos, staccato soccer. He is a savant, essentially, who doesn’t seem to be truly comfortable anywhere but on a field, and he’s been the driving force behind a three-time European champion that’s arguably the greatest side the sport has ever seen.

If Messi is from Mars, then Ronaldo hails from Mount Olympus. He’s like one of us but better, perfected. He plays like the physical specimen he is: with strength, power and panache. He’s more attractive than the statues of him. If Neymar markets to the C class, Ronaldo aims his CR7 brand, with its underwear and fragrances, at those in the A+. The guy has not only an airport but a galaxy named after him.

Yet for all their supernatural prowess, neither Messi nor Ronaldo is as adored in his homeland as Neymar is in Brazil. Argentines and Portuguese may look up to their respective icons, but Neymar prefers to look you in the eye.

Asked if he’s a little bit Ronaldo and a little bit Messi, Neymar says, “I think I’m like that. Sometimes I’m a little flamboyant, an extrovert. Sometimes I’m quiet.”

Whether he’s their peer is less important to the soccer world than whether he’s their successor. The Messi-Ronaldo duopoly has combined to win six FIFA Club World Cups, eight Champions League titles and a boatload of other honors. But Messi is 30, Ronaldo 32. Next summer’s World Cup will be the last for each man in his prime. At some point, it must be Neymar’s turn.

The Brazilian says that FIFA’s player of the year award is “very important” (Crash Davis wouldn’t like that answer), but he shrugs when asked if and when he’ll break through. “Everything happens in the right time,” he says. “The main focus is to keep playing well, keep winning games, and when the time is right, I’ll get mine.” (I’ll get mine—that wouldn’t pass the Crash test either.)

Back in June, when Ronaldo celebrated Real Madrid’s second consecutive Champions League crown with fans at the Plaza de Cibeles, he made his case for a second straight world player of the year award with a microphone and a chant. The thought of it—of using a team event to tout his case for an individual honor—makes Neymar squirm. “No, I wouldn’t do that,” he says.

He attracts attention in other ways. His play, like his demeanor, borrows a bit from both Messi and Ronaldo. But whereas Messi slices and Ronaldo surges, Neymar glides. He’s smoother and more efficient than either, outstanding with both feet and blessed with the creativity and vision of his great Brazilian predecessors. But his game, like his personality, is more accessible. Train long enough and hard enough, and maybe you, too, could play like Neymar. He’s human, mortal, and he speaks with a voice the next generation understands.

This is where Paris Saint-Germain enters the picture. The powerhouse French club was always going to feature in Neymar’s story, thanks to an astonishing Champions League round-of-16 series that will live forever in the lore of both PSG and FCB. Last season was a tough one by Barcelona’s standards, and its puzzling lack of ruthlessness was exposed in a 4–0 first-leg Valentine’s Day massacre at the Parc des Princes. Neymar says he was embarrassed by the performance, and he corroborates the story that he promised friends he’d net two goals in the March 8 decider at the Camp Nou—which he ultimately did, in the 88th and 91st minutes, before setting up Sergi Roberto’s clincher in a 6–1 thriller.

On a team as loaded as Barça, there aren’t many moments when a player can and must take command. But with his European season on the line Neymar was unstoppable, and for many it seemed like a turning point on his climb to soccer’s summit. In TIME, Beckham wrote that it would “be remembered as the moment he stepped up to take on the mantle of best player in the world. Neymar is ready to make his move.

But as July came to a close, it appeared more and more likely that move might take him away from Messi and back to Paris, where PSG was looking for a way to finance the payment of his record $261 million release clause. Yes, Neymar would have to wait for Barcelona to become his team—but if and when it did, then his team would be Barcelona. If he leaves for PSG, he will join a lesser league and a club that has the cash but not the chemistry to make a deep Champions League run. In NBA terms he’d be moving from the Warriors to the Clippers. And instead of Durant, whose desire to win trumped his need to be the man—as Neymar’s did when he left Santos for Barcelona in 2013—the Brazilian would be channeling Kyrie Irving, itching to get out from under LeBron James’s shadow.

Asked which of his two favorite NBA players he identifies with more—James, who was raised in the spotlight, or Steph Curry, who came up quietly at Davidson, mirroring Neymar’s lower-profile beginnings—Neymar chooses LeBron. Let us not forget, then, James’s ultimate decision to break from the Big Three after winning superteam trophies in Miami. In order to be soccer’s biggest name, perhaps Neymar has to shine further away from Messi, Luis Suárez and Barcelona’s band of superstars.

If he ultimately stays in Spain, Neymar must launch his assault on Messi and Ronaldo while improving on his own 13-goal La Liga campaign and helping steer Barça back to the top under new coach Ernesto Valverde. Last season’s results and the upcoming World Cup apply pressure from both sides. But Messi and Suárez relieve it, at least on the club side. Neymar doesn’t have to be the best player every time he steps onto the Camp Nou field. He’ll have to be more impactful, but he can do so while remaining true to himself. He’ll have some leeway.

If he goes to PSG, he’ll be paid like a king and expected to inspire a desperate club that hasn’t advanced beyond the Champions League quarterfinals since 1995. He’ll have the headlines and the billboards to himself. When those are shared, knocking a ball around with Bieber endears you to fans. When they’re yours alone, a Bieber moment may raise questions of focus, maturity or leadership. There will be no outlets at PSG, no excuses. Either way, he’ll also have to prepare mentally and physically for the rigors of a must-win World Cup.

But it’s all manageable. It always has been—so believes the man with LIFE IS A JOKE tattooed across his left biceps. He was Brazil’s Olympic talisman, and he was thriving at the 2014 World Cup before getting hurt. “We only have one life, so we have to figure out a way to be happy,” Neymar says. “Don’t take it so seriously. That’s pretty much it. Enjoy your life.”

Neymar’s relationship with his homeland remains strong. Not even the court cases concerning his controversial 2013 transfer to Barcelona have dented his reputation. In July, he was cleared of tax evasion in Brazil; a Spanish investigation is ongoing. (“Tax evasion,” Winter points out, “is next to soccer as the national sport in Brazil.”) Neymar’s countrymen, meanwhile, remain grateful for the gold medal and for his staying with Santos as long as he did. His Q rating is unscathed.

The only thing that could hurt him at home is, of course, failure to win in Russia. After he was forced to watch the semifinal rout by Germany while recuperating, Neymar told his fellow Brazilians, “We are going to do all we can so that I can fulfill my dream. My dream is to be the champion of the world.”

Three years later he’s asking for help. “I want to win a World Cup,” he says, “but it’s not only me, you know? There are other factors. There are teammates. There are a lot of things going on.” He’s certainly right, if the Mineirazo was any indication. But then he concludes, “I think you can be a legend without winning a World Cup.”

Maybe, but not in Brazil. Sócrates and Zico, for example, were great players and remain well respected. Many pundits think their 1982 squad, which lost to eventual champion Italy in the second round, was better than the ’94 side, which won it all. But on a team with five stars on its jersey, the bar is so much higher. “If Neymar doesn’t win at least one World Cup, as much as people love him today, he will be forgotten,” says Winter. “Brazil isn’t short of epic personalities who’ve won World Cups.”

Neymar tries to make light of the pressure. “It’s very normal,” he says. “The thing is, if you win a World Cup, they’ll tell you that if you want to be the best, you have to win anotherWorld Cup! When you’re one of the top players, this is going to happen all the time.”

Perhaps it has all felt routine until now. But the next 12 months, whether he’s in Barcelona or Paris, will be anything but ordinary. A new chapter is beginning, and while the end is uncertain, it’s sure to be blessedly free of clichés.

#the whole article #neymar #jr #ney #neymarjr #si #cover #photoshoot #interview

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qu4rterlifecrisis · 5 years ago

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Beach People Are a Sham

You know the type. Heck, maybe you are the type. Once the nice weather rolls around, the only thing they do is talk about how they're going to the beach, how they went to the beach, or how much they love the friggin' beach.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good beach. Drinking with friends, kickin' it in the sun, walking in the sand with a fine ass hunni dip. I've been to countries with breathtaking beaches, and I've been known to drive an hour or so on a Saturday morning just to get to a nicer beach than the ones in my town. I'll even go as far as saying I have a favorite beach (it's Narragansett in Rhode Island and 10/10 would recommend).

The idea of being landlocked absolutely *terrifies* me (b/c zombies and other things that you wouldn't survive with no accessibility to the ocean), so you might even say that beaches are a deciding factor in where I will and won't move to.

That being said, I would never consider myself a "beach person". I think calling yourself that has to be one of the weirdest brags of all time. It always comes from people who say it as a if it's an accomplishment, like they want you to congratulate and admire them for getting up early, hauling around an oversized bag of four different sun screens, and plopping their ass in the sand to do nothing all day.

Every time you look at a beach, what do you see? A few way too openly drunk underage teens, some frat bros playing Spikeball, maybe like six people playing volleyball...and what's everyone else doing? Absolutely nothing. They're all either sprawled out like cats in heat, or sitting hunched over their beer bellies, squinting at their phones which (despite being on max brightness) they still can't see because *duh* the freakin' sun!!

Going to the beach doesn't make you better than those of us who spent our weekend binge watching the new season of Stranger Things (I took the 5th of July off solely for that purpose). The most active people at the beach are children aged 5 and under, so if all you did was go to the beach, then we had equally as lazy of a day. You laid on a towel, I laid on my bed. You lugged a cooler around, I lugged my laundry downstairs. You made a sandwich, I had one delivered. You shook sand out of your towel, I shook crumbs out of my sheets (J fkn K I absolutely do not eat in bed). You had to shower off the saltwater from the ten seconds you actually spent in the ocean, I had to shower off the sweat from getting weirdly hot when I fell asleep for a random hour. I did exactly what you did without the risk of melanoma or having to sit in parking lot traffic for 45 minutes.

The worst of all beach people, are the ones who complain about sharks. Maybe this is more of a New England thing, but way too many people act like the sharks are out of line for being in the ocean. People get so worked up over sharks literally just living we're they're supposed to. Boy oh boy, if I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say something along the lines of "sharks should be hunted/removed to make beaches safer for families" well...I wouldn't be that rich because nickels take a while to add up, but you get the idea. Just go to a pool if you're that worried about what lives in the ocean.

TL;DR: Next time your neighbor/coworker/etc. tries to act like spending the weekend at the beach is the same as hiking the Appalachian Trail, put that leathery old bag right in their place and let 'em know that they're a lazy sack of shit just like the rest of us.

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kadobeclothing · 5 years ago

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Super Bowl Ads Were Short This Year: Here’s Why That Worked

Each year, it seems like most of the Super Bowl is consumed by ads. But this year, when the Super Bowl ended before 10:30 PM EST, some big-game party-goers wondered, “Were there fewer ads this year?”

In reality, the game ended at a decent hour because the Kansas City Chiefs smoothly took down the San Francisco 49ers without entering overtime. Additionally, with over 50 commercials, this year’s Super Bowl aired more ads than the 2019 game — which only hosted 42 ads.

However, in recent years, ads of 30-seconds or less have become the norm. So, although there were more ads this year, many of them were on the extremely-short side. This isn’t shocking. Each year, Super Bowl ad slots get more and more expensive. This year, advertisers paid $5.6 million for 30-second slots. This increased from roughly $5.1 million in 2019. Although keeping an ad under half a minute obviously saved companies millions of dollars, this time limit posed unique challenges for brands that purchased shorter slots. To be considered successful, these short ads would need to grab attention from audiences in 30 seconds or less. These brands also had to create content that would memorably stand out in a chaotic stream of other insanely high-priced ads. If you’re a video marketer, you’ve probably had to deal with similar time-crunches when creating content on a smaller scale. For example, when it comes to in-stream or digital video advertising, the shorter your video is, the cheaper it will be. Even if you’re highly skilled in creating videos that are 30-seconds or less, you might also worry about the research-backed fact that the average viewer only pays attention to online content for eight to 12 seconds. This year, while many brands that bought Super Bowl ad slots of 30 seconds or less relied on quick celebrity cameos, extreme stunts, nonsensical humor, and insanely expensive special effects to grab attention, some companies actually delivered bite-sized commercials that boosted brand awareness with clever, informative, or incredibly memorable storylines. So, how did they do it? To help inspire you as you build a short-form video advertising strategy, here’s a list of some of the best 2020 Super Bowl ads that were 30-seconds or less. 7 Effective Super Bowl Ads That Were 30 Seconds or Less 1. Hulu: “Tom Brady’s Big Announcement” In a classic example of newsjacking, Hulu enlisted the help of the New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady, to highlight some of the platform’s newest features. Aside from presenting the benefits of a Hulu subscription, the commercial also aims to intrigue viewers who wonder, “Will Tom Brady return to the Patriots next season?” Since Tom Brady and the Patriots lost the playoffs, rumors have swirled about whether or not the long-time quarterback would return to the team now that his contract is up. Some have also suggested that Brady, one of the oldest NFL quarterbacks ever, would soon retire. Although Brady doesn’t give any specific announcements about his future in the Hulu ad, he gives a speech that makes viewers suspect that he will be returning to the NFL in some way next season. The commercial begins with Brady somberly walking on to a dark football field to the sad musical overlay of the piano. “They say all good things must come to end, so to my teammates, my family, and my friends — you deserve to hear this from me,” a narration says as you begin to think Brady will announce something important having to do with his career. Suddenly, the music shifts to a peppy hip-hop style as Brady shockingly says, “Hulu doesn’t just have sports.” “According to the script they just gave me, Hulu has your favorite cable channels, plus the greatest shows, movies, and originals of all time. So it’s time to say goodbye to TV as you know it,” he adds. Just when you think that this is just a Hulu commercial, Brady looks at the camera and says, “But me? I’m not going anywhere.”

This is a great example of how Hulu leverages a news topic that rumors had been swirling around. Although Hulu didn’t have Brady make a specific announcement, the brand reinvigorates the questions and excitement around the news topic while still highlighting its product’s best features. 2. Mountain Dew: “As Good As The Original?” While Hulu’s ad leverages news topics, Mountain Dew’s Super Bowl ad plays up nostalgia with a 30-second comedic spoof of the 1980 horror film, The Shining. In the spoof, Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston plays the crazed character Jack, a role famously held by Jack Nicholson. Meanwhile, Tracee Ellis Ross of Black-ish plays Jack’s terrified wife. In the scene which is spoofed, Jack walks down a hallway into a bedroom looking for his wife while armed with an ax. He then creepily approaches an ensuite bathroom that his wife’s hiding in, pleasantly knocks on the door, then smashes a hole in the wood. He iconically sticks his face through the hole, stares at his wife with crazy eyes, and says, “Here’s Johnny!” In the spoof, Bryan Cranston walks towards the bathroom door and says, “Come out, come out wherever you are, I’ve got Mountain Dew Zero Sugar, with the same refreshing taste as the original.” As Cranston smashes the door, you see an overdramatic Tracee Ellis Ross screaming in the bathroom as Cranston looks at her and says, “Here’s Mountain Dew Zero!” Ellis Ross suddenly stops screaming, grabs the drink, and says, “Well, I am thirsty.” The commercial ends with text saying, “As good as the original. Maybe even better?”

This commercial is a great use of how brands can leverage metaphors and nostalgia to tell the story of their products. Both the spoof and Mountain Dew Zero aim to be “As good as the original.” This type of ad shows a skeptic viewer that a new product or brand extension is as good or better than a product they’ve come to know and love, similarly to how they appreciate a classic horror film. 3. Olay: “#MakeSpaceForWomen” Olay used it’s 30-second time slot to tell a space-themed story aimed at empowering women and poking fun at today’s outdated gender stereotypes. The commercial, which depicts three women known for their achievements, views on equality, and activism suiting up to go to space. On the spaceship for, “Mission Make Space for Women,” sits comedian and A Little Late with Lilly Singh host Lily Singh, best-selling author and former Busy Tonight host Busy Philipps, and retired astronaut Nicole Stott. Meanwhile, Taraji P. Henson, star of the NASA biopic Hidden Figures, monitors the flight from Mission Control. Although the commercial is peppy and empowering, it begins by acknowledging how the news still discusses female success in an outdated way. The ad opens with award-winning journalist Katie Couric reading, “Is there enough space for women in space?” off of a prompter. She then turns to the camera crew and says, “Who wrote that? Are people still asking that question?” As MIssion Make Space for Women lifts off, Henson says, “When we make space for women, we make space for everyone.” From the spaceship, Singh and Philipps announce that for each tweet with the hashtag #MakeSpaceForWomen, Olay will donate $1 to Girls Who Code, a non-profit that aims to empower women in STEM.

When a company, like Olay, targets an audience of a certain gender or demographic, creating ad content and philanthropic campaigns that empower the demographic adds credibility behind the company’s mission. While some viewers might have just known Olay as a women’s skincare line, they might watch this ad and recognize that the company cares about and wants to empower its female customers. If your brand’s target audience includes subgroups or genders that could be under or misrepresented, take a note from Olay, and identify inclusive marketing strategies that acknowledge your audience’s strengths and unique qualities. Not only will this give viewers the idea that you care about your customers, but it will also help people in different groups relate more emotionally to your content. 4. Cheetos: “MC Hammer: Where it All Began” Like Mountain Dew, Cheetos also plays up nostalgia in its short and sweet Super Bowl ad. But, instead of mimicking something that already happened, Cheetos interjected its product into an unseen moment in pop culture history. How did Cheetos do this? In the ad, MC Hammer gets the idea for the “U Can’t Touch This” melody while eating a handful of Cheetos. He starts humming it, reaches out to play it on piano, sees the cheesy Cheeto crumbs all over his fingers, and simply says, “Wait. I can’t touch this.” Suddenly, he gasps and his eyes open wide with inspiration as he’s stumbled upon the chorus to his now-iconic song, “U Can’t Touch This.”

Yes. Recreating MC Hammer’s life will be impossible without the budget to hire the artist himself. But, aside from the great celebrity cameo more brilliantly tells a short fictional story. Storytelling is a great tactic that allows your viewer to get intrigued and engaged by memorable content. While you probably can’t afford to tell a story with a celebrity star in it, take a note from Cheetos and use your content to tell an interesting story that centers around your product. To learn more about storytelling, check out this helpful guide. 5. WeatherTech: “Lucky Dog” As surprising as this sound, an advertisement doesn’t always need to discuss exactly what your product does. In fact, you can use your prized slot to tell a story about something your company, brand, or leadership is passionate about. While this type of ad won’t highlight your product directly, it shows audiences another side of your company and makes your brand look like it’s run by actual humans, rather than emotionless executives fueled by power or money. One great example of this strategy was the below ad from WeatherTech.

After the CEO of WeatherTech’s dog was diagnosed and treated for a near-lethal form of cancer, WeatherTech used its Super Bowl slot to highlight the University of Wisconsin Veterinary Hospital, the organization that saved the dog. The commercial, which is narrated from the perspective of the dog is incredibly heartwarming and makes both the organization and WeatherTech look like companies that care about their clients. “Hi. I’m Scout, and I’m a lucky dog. It’s not because I have this big stick or because I was on the WeatherTech Super Bowl commercial last year. It’s because I beat cancer,” says the dog at the opening of the commercial. “I’m alive thanks to cutting edge technology at the University of Wisconsin’s Veterinary School of Medicine. As the ad ends, it shows a video clip of Scout frolicking on the beach as another narrator concludes with, “Pets make a difference in our lives. You can make a difference in theirs. Donate now at WeatherTech.com/donate.” 6. Pop-Tarts Fixes the Pretzel Commercial While most of the ads on this list tell a narrative story, Pop-Tarts’ aired an ad that humorously overemphasizes aspects of traditional TV commercials. This goofy ad spoof was positions their new Pretzel Pop-Tart as an innovation to traditional pretzels. To add over-embellishments, Pop-Tarts enlisted Queer Eye’s outgoing stylist Johnathan Van Ness to host the commercial. Like traditional infomercials, the ad highlights a pain point and shows how the new Pretzel Pop-Tart serves as a solution — but in an incredibly eccentric way. The commercial opens in black and white as a woman struggles to eat ginormous pretzels. Van Ness begins a narration that asks, “Are you tired of your pretzels not being Pop-Tarts Toaster Pastries? Are you strugs [struggling] to snack?” The commercial shifts from black and white to color as Van Ness appears on screen to help the woman who’s struggling to eat pretzels. He says, “Pop-Tarts fixed that for you,” in reference to her pretzel dilemma. Then, he starts highlighting the new Pop-Tarts Pretzel flavor.

Although every Super Bowl is filled with innovative ads that aim to be memorable with a deep storyline, Pop-Tarts chose to be unique by revitalizing a traditional ad style. With this goofy Pop-Tarts commercial, the brand demonstrates that it can’t hurt to still leverage the traditional “problem/solution” ad format — as long as the content is still interesting, humorous, or eye-catching to viewers. 7. Planters: “Baby Nut” When it came to Planters, the nut brand decided to attract attention with a bizarre two-part series of 30-second ads that culminated during the Super Bowl. In the first ad, which circulated days before the sporting event, Planters’ 104-year-old top-hatted mascot — Mr. Peanut — finds himself hanging off a cliff branch with two men. The men fight over who will let go to save Mr. Peanut. But, Mr. Peanut shockingly and heroically jumps off the branch to save them. He falls to his death and explodes on impact.

Odd right? The ad series only got weirder. In the Super Bowl commercial, friends of Mr. Peanut cry as he’s buried during a funeral. As the Kool-Aid Man sheds tears over the grave, the dirt pile turns into plants as a reincarnated “Baby Nut” emerges in a tophat. With the same grown man’s voice as Mr. Peanut, Baby Nut says, “I’m back,” before asking for his monocle.

This is pretty bizarre, but the commercial isn’t that far off from rebranding trends we’ve seen recently in the media. For example, bloggers have called Baby Nut a “Baby Yoda rip off,” referencing how The Mandalorian revamped the Star Wars franchise when one character discovered “The Child” — a baby member of Yoda’s species. While the Baby Nut announcement did gain some online scrutiny, the commercial is still effective because its bizarreness makes it memorable. Even though some criticized the ad, many viewers enjoyed the weirdness. In fact, some publications report that it “divided” social media. Ultimately, when we look back on past Super Bowl ads, we won’t just remember the ads that followed a standard format or fit into a narrative norm. We’ll also remember the weirder ads and the brands that created them. How to Capture Viewers in 30-Seconds or Less Drawing attention from audiences in just seconds might seem like a daunting task, but the brands above have proven that it certainly is possible. And, although you can’t put all your ad dollars into special effects and celebrity cameos, there are scalable strategies that you can learn from. Here are just a few: Make a statement: WeatherTech and Olay used their ad slots to discuss causes that their brands were passionate about. This makes your brand look more relatable and like it cares about its customers. Don’t be afraid of traditional formats: As Pop-Tarts showed us, there’s no harm in creating a traditional ad format that shows a problem and how your product can solve it. Embrace emotions: Whether it’s laughter, empowerment, or even confusion, ensure that your content leaves viewers with some sort of feelings. This will help them connect more emotionally to your content, product, and brand. Want to learn more about how you can affordably leverage some of the most common Super Bowl ad strategies, check out this blog post.

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source https://www.kadobeclothing.store/super-bowl-ads-were-short-this-year-heres-why-that-worked/

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hub-pub-bub · 7 years ago

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Man, something is just off about this dude.

Uh-oh. Eleven Signs You May Have Hired a UX Hack

by Colin Eagan

"What data informed your design decision to wear that scarf?"

Oh, hey client. Look I get it. Being a client is hard. You didn't learn how to prepare for this in client school. You have to make hiring decisions to supplement your team's digital expertise, and it's difficult to know who's good or bad. Even for design roles. Especially for design roles. As opposed to other areas of your business, it's just more difficult to know what you're getting for your money. So you hired this guy (headshot above) on a short-term consulting basis. I mean, I guess he's ok. He's from a big name agency. He seems to understand Millennials, or whatever. But something is just off.

Well, you've heard it said here before that UX (User Experience) is like playing bass guitar: easy to do poorly, and really hard to do well. Here are some signs he may be selling you UX snake oil.

1. He asks you if you "like" the new design direction.

He's so polite! But this is the wrong question. You don't need to like the design. The design needs to further a set of principles that we agree will add value for our users and achieve our business objectives. Liking it has nothing to do with it. Here are some alternative questions that I just this moment pulled out of my butt, any of which would be a significantly better way to phrase this:

BETTER QUESTIONS THAN WHAT THIS GUY ASKED

Do you agree with my prioritization of elements on this page?

Does this design achieve our "mission critical" business and user goals?

Does the design "speak for itself?" Is it intuitive enough to the un-aided user?

Does the design include the appropriate redundancies?

Will this design hold up under our list of failure scenarios?

Does the design meet our established accessibility standards?

How can we make this design better?

But he didn't ask you any of that. This guy really seems to think he's an artist or something. He needs to read Mike Monteiro's Dear Design Student. After all, an artist is just a designer without a job.

After all, an artist is just a designer without a job.

2. He doesn't immediately ask about your customer service team.

I can't believe we have to say this: customer service teams are the best freakin' source of user information! They are the un-sung heroes dealing with your users on a daily basis. They get to hear what everyone hates about your current website, mobile app, web app, etc. And yet they are always taken for granted. This guy didn't bother to ask about them because, a) it didn't even cross his mind, or b) he thinks it's somehow beneath his job as "designer." Ew, call centers. They probably have florescent lights, and crumbs. Design is something to be handed down from on high by a 20-something wearing leather elbow pads.

Ew, call centers. They probably have florescent lights, and crumbs.

3. He gets really defensive about his work.

A good UX person makes his or her money in the design process, not the design delivery. This means working iteratively with the team to scrap what doesn't work and improve, quickly. But this guy is already getting super defensive about this comp he's showing us, and we're only five minutes into this friggin' meeting. UX people should absolutely push back on clients to help make the work better -- that's what we're getting paid for -- but it's a warning sign if every discussion turns into an ego feud. This guy kept telling us at lunch how he only reads real Americana like O'Connor and Faulkner, but I guess he missed the advice to "kill your darlings."

A good UX person makes his or her money in the design process, not the design delivery.

4. He legitimately seems to think that he's designing for someone just like him.

Wait, what? This dude's world-view is somewhat myopic. He keeps talking about how this will look killer on retina devices, but we know from the research that most of our users are older generation who may still use flip phones. (Is that embarrassing to admit?) We could see if this guy's boss has a broader perspective, but he's actually just like this guy, only ten years in the future. Probably too much to ask given that only 3% of creative directors are female, despite the fact that 73% of consumer purchasing decisions are made by women, $20 trillion of the world’s annual spending. I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for that disparity that we just don't understand because we're not creatives. Humm.

5. He wears a scarf to business meetings that are clearly taking place indoors.

Just throwing this one out there since we're all thinking it. What data informed your design decision to wear that scarf? Yes, it's October, but it's still 80 degrees outside. And furthermore, this conference room is definitely located on the interior of the building. Now, I can much better understand my female co-worker's decision to wear a scarf, as she is legitimately always freezing, since, among all the other shit women still have to deal with in the workplace, air conditioning standards are based on male metabolism. But this guy has no freaking excuse. God, he is just the worst.

This conference room is definitely located on the interior of the building.

6. He tells you his design is good because it is really "clean."

Oh boy here we go. Nope, that's not a thing. The layout may be better with more white-space and fewer words and visuals, but it's not a good design just because you think it looks better. Removing content for the sake of your design aesthetic is a terrible principle.

This guy really needs to review all the research coming out on content density. It confirms what the rest of us have been thinking for years now, that the move toward large-format, poster-style layouts has come at a cost, namely less information delivered to the end-user per second invested. You know this from all those websites that drive you nuts when you have to scroll for thirteen minutes to find half as many words. Oh shit, this guy designed those sites too, didn't he. Well that just figures.

7. He keeps using words like "cultural zeitgeist" or some garbage.

Oh really, this design of yours with three boxes and a stock photo taps into the Millennial cultural zeitgeist? What the actual f*ck, dude. We're designing websites and applications here, not 19th century German philosophical treatises. Who do you think you are anyway, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel? Well do you know the one thing he was bad at? Designing websites. He didn't even have an iPhone. Yes, we understand that any good UX strategy must take into account the larger brand vision and where it fits into culture and the universe. Vision is important. But the reality is the rest of us have to spend the next four to six months actually building this thing. So let's please focus at least a little bit on tangible goals, not impressive sounding phrases.

Who do you think you are anyway, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?

8. He complains the design would have been better if you had just let him use Photoshop / InVision / etc.

Would it have? You will deliver the design in whichever format the client tells you to deliver the design. Do you have any idea how much shit I've had to design in PowerPoint? While it's convenient to pretend everyone lives in an all-Mac, pixel perfect universe, the reality is 90% of US corporations still run on Windows (48% of them on [gasp] Windows 7!) It is your job as a consultant to ensure that your work can live on once you pass it over to the business team. That's not to say you should let technology limit you. By all means, concept in the tool you're most comfortable with or is most appropriate to the design challenge. But when you get ready to hand it off, it had better be a file the client can, you know, open.

Do you have any idea how much shit I've had to design in PowerPoint?

9. He says "I'm not a writer."

Well, that's decidedly not encouraging. We're not claiming that everyone needs to be a professional copywriter for a living, but designers should be able to write and writers should be able to design, or at the absolute least have a healthy appreciation for it. Even if it's something as basic as writing an email to help clarify a design choice, designers need to be able to write. Please don't say "I'm an art director so I let someone else worry about the content." We live in a content-first world, bro. You need to start taking yourself seriously as a writer. Research, write blog posts, whatever. It will make your designs better. Steve Jobs himself said that the future of design lives at the intersection of liberal arts and technology. Oh, you have his biography on your bedside table? No shit.

We live in a content-first world, bro.

10. He spends more time talking than listening.

He likes to talk, that's for sure. Actually he won't stop talking. But he really hasn't asked you all that many clarifying questions, nor does he really seem to care about your ideas. Granted, he looks in the general direction of your mouth while you're speaking, which is nice, but then he just says what he was going to say anyway. We understand that his time is super-valuable and all, but it would be nice if he at least made a small effort to treat his clients differently than, you know, his Tinder dates.

11. He tells you that you really need to be more like Snapchat, Facebook or Google.

No, you don't. This is not the best use of your time. Your homepage should not just be a single search box because Google does it and everyone loves Google. That small, prolific handful of tech companies is entirely in a separate category. While you should absolutely consider tactical matters related to these sites (e.g. SEO strategy for Google, social strategy for Facebook), and perhaps broader research on the effects these sites have on user expectations overall, it's a sign of design immaturity if someone is lecturing you on how sweet Pinterest is. You're much better served learning from leaders in your industry who have already taken lumps designing for your specific audience.

I'm sure some of those sites are really "clean" as well.

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Colin Eagan is Principal for Experience Design at ICF Olson in Washington, D.C., where he consults for clients including Liberty Mutual, Lowe's, AAA, Department of the Interior (DOI) and Depart of Energy (DOE). He is a frequent contributor to UX conferences and publications, including UXPA International, IA Summit, A List Apart, Ad Age, and The UX Booth. He credits any career success thus far to not going to law school.

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Citations / Further Reading: Inspiration for this article provided by Mr. Autumn Man, Terrible Creative Directors, and real life.

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