This morning The Silent Designer and I presented the upcoming issue to The Publisher and The Publisher’s Wife. I don’t know why she always has to sit in on these things and offer her unsolicited opinions. I don’t even think she should be entitled to have an opinion on these matters, aside from her familial connection to the business (meaning, I think she should care about it, but not interfere with it). Her opinion, in my mind, means nothing. That being said, I still have to abide to her suggestions. Talk about feeling like you’ve sold out.

Her brilliant remark today was that she didn’t like the cover lines (the words on the cover of the magazine).

The Silent Designer was pissed. “What don’t you like about them?” He asked her.

“Well, I just think that the colors look tacky. These words should be the same color as the guy’s shirt. And I don’t like the words along the top. They’re irrelevant. And we should change this line to say…”

“I don’t think you understand how much time it takes me to organize copy and make changes like this. I’m not working in MS Word! And why the hell would you want the words to be the same color as his shirt? If you’re going to give me changes, they can’t be last minute. You should come and look at the issue while it’s in progress.”

Wow. I knew he hated her, but this was an impressive display.

The Publisher told us that it looked fine and read well, but instructed us to remove the words from the top.

“They won’t be relevant by the time it actually comes out.”

That’s easy, so no problem. My only gripe is this: The Publisher and his Wife have, in the past, sold the entire cover (yes, cover!) to an advertiser. If you can take a moment to imagine, the cover was basically our logo and then a picture of a pizza place:
And to think, The Publisher’s Wife is worried about the cover looking tacky?