How is it that there has never been a Simpson’s episode that features Mr. Burns at an advertising agency? After all, design is pretty much everywhere. It’s the perfect medium for a man who wants to control the minds of the masses. A man who once deemed the sun as his competitive advesary.

Actually, Mr. Burns would make the perfect client. He has the remarkable ability to oscillate between being brilliantly controlling and brilliantly clueless. His wealth easily subsidizes his hubris, which has convinced him that he can outdo any younger, abled body man. He’s willing to let you, let him win. He’s willing to be oblivious about it. Most importantly, he can afford great design. Even if he’ll turn it into shit design.

Whoever said “There’s no such thing as a bad client, only bad designers” was probably a bad designer and probably gave his clients shit and called it sugar. That would be the perfect designer for Mr. Burns. I have known clients who have knighted themselves as hands-on designers and will “play” with the designers layouts. I mean, physically sit at the computer and start moving shit around. One client of mine who did that, so badly ruined the work that he turned around in his seat and asked me “How do we get back to the beginning.” Montgomery Burns couldn’t have said it better himself.

Mr. Burns realizes that editing is a wonderfully self-validating surrogate for talent. There is nothing more convincing than re-doing what someone else did, and then saying “I did it.” After that, the lowly designer is reduced to a mere janitor, cleaning up after the Burns-esque client who walks away, brimming with delight because he has, once again, confirmed his opinion about himself. I think now of a slogan used by a group of repairmen: “We repair what your husband fixed.”

For those who aren’t designers, the only universal analogy I can offer is that it is like having a back seat driver. Only the passenger is Mr. Burns. One can only imagine the experience of having such a man tell you how to get where you’re going. Only occasionally am I given a sweet sideline spectacle of watching such a client fall victim to his own compulsions. Lisa Simpson used the German word “Schadenfreude” to describe the pleasure Homer took in another person’s misfortune. I shamefully revel in schadenfreude when a Burns type client snatches away the wheel, orders me out of the vehicle, and then drives away – perhaps a few feet – before crashing the car.