Sometimes I have to toss aside my own sense of design and order and allow a client to use what we’ve provided according to their own sense. This isn’t new, but what was new for me today was looking at the home page of one web site and realizing that I view it as scorched earth. It seems horrific to me and I’ve allowed it to go emotionally. I’ve abandoned it. I do not care what is done with it. It is dead to me.

Instead of concerning myself with it, like a field doctor, I triage the remaining pages. These pages I do not mention. The style enemy may notice them and devour them as the home page. So I continue to direct the enemy to the dead page. If need be, I allow other, sickly pages to go, hoping that these will finally satisfy my adversary. I engage in this game hoping that soon he will be filled and move on to devour some other work.

Most of the time I am lucky and our client shares a similar sense of beauty and order with me. In those situations I can be much less dramatic in my approach to the project.