A reality check

Now undeniably I have a small obsession with aesthetic and therefore I am completely biased towards design playing a key role in PR. Freelancing for PR agencies as a designer can be a bit of a nightmare sometimes. Their ideas of turnaround are completely unrealistic and what takes 3 minutes for a wordsmith can take 3 hours for a designer to visually convey the same thing. The first thing I learnt on the MA programme at Westminster was that "Brevity is key".

Reactive PR cannot afford to take hours thinking of what to say, and this is where design loses its placement on the PR podium. Brands have to react to information hitting the headlines in moments, and this is where design is immaterial. The appliance of pressure to a designer generally leads to bad & ineffective design and yet the PR industry is constantly pressured. The expectations of designers in this industry are completely unrealistic and usually something has to be compromised. This infographic demonstrates it perfectly.