Today, I was looking through the images that I have purchased at iStock over the years when this ominous image caught my eye.
I immediately remembered why I had purchased this image of a shadowy figure.
Unimail
It was 2013 and I was working in the web team at the University of St Andrews.
From time to time, the director of Corporate Communications would pop into our office and give us a side quest. He wasn’t our boss, but we had a good relationship and would help him out as much as we could—he knew he was on to a good thing and he could get some sneaky design jobs done under the radar. This was one of those times.
IT Services was rolling out a new product called Unimail to replace our clunky, hand-rolled email system and a calendaring system called Meeting Maker. This new system was built on Microsoft Office and Exchange and the project was being overseen by a new team of contractors, brought in to manage this roll-out.
The director of Corporate Comms wanted me to create a poster for him to put up around the university to alert staff about the change.
As we were part of IT Services, we were involved in the initial rollout so they could iron out any hiccups before pushing it to the rest of the University.
The visit
One morning there was an abrupt knock, a rat-a-tat-tat, on our office door and before we could respond, suddenly the door burst open and a short man stepped purposefully into the office.
“I’m here to upgrade you to Unimail,” he exclaimed. “Step away from your computers!”
I looked at my colleague Steve. He was as taken aback as I was at the sudden intrusion.
I saved my work, stepped away from my PC and watched this diminutive gentleman set about on my computer and efficiently and quickly install the new software.
Within a few minutes, he was done with both our machines, and with a solemn look he turned on his heels, left our office and swept the door closed behind him.
Steve and I looked at one another again and burst out laughing.
“What was that?!” I said. “It felt like a visit from the secret police.”
The poster
A few weeks later, we had a more genteel visit from the director of Corporate Communications who asked me if I could quickly design a poster for him for the wider roll-out.
Given our experience, I knew exactly the image that I should use. I had spotted it on iStock a few weeks before.
So, I produced the following, somewhat in the style of a movie poster with reviews and an ‘atmosphere’.
“Shall I send it?” I asked Steve when I had finished.
Once he had stopped laughing, he said yes. So I dropped a PDF in an email to the director of Corporate Communications thinking that he’d laugh and then tell me to behave and create something less sinister.
But he loved it.
And so this, believe it or not, became the official poster around the University to promote the switch over from webmail to Microsoft Office.
Every time I saw it, it made me laugh.
It still does.
