The Opposite of a Concept

Someone is tired over at the Star Tribune. Check out this large illustration from the front page of the business section:


The story is about the former Mithun ad agency as its name changes to that of its parent company, McCann. So to illustrate that, someone at the Strib thought, "Let's use light bulbs. That's never been done before."

Even worse, the headline says that McCann needs new ideas. So the illustrator took the tired light bulb idea and made it worse by using ultra-old-fashioned-looking light bulbs. Maybe the one in the foreground could have been different from the others somehow, as if it represented a different way to make light, rather than just being lit up. But no. Clearly, that would have been too hard.

Not surprisingly, the illustration (which dominates the page) is credited to "staff illustration." Whoever did it was too embarrassed to sign it.