The Acidic Tax Trip

I'm afraid the only person who may find this post funny is me, but I'm writing it because Heather commented on my previous post, which featured the Storm Cloud Girl graphic. She wondered whether I drew it myself and, alas, I cannot take credit. Say what you will about Microsoft, but it does have some pretty compelling clipart!

Storm Cloud Girl (my term, not Microsoft's) reminds me a little of some images I found for one of my various gigs. I was hired in the spring by a municipality to produce a brochure to be distributed to all ratepayers outlining their tax dollars at work. Let me tell you, doing a tax brochure is, well, um, let's just say it was daunting for me. In my communications career I have been asked to explain a lot of things. As a reporter I covered municipal councils and had to write about budgets and taxes routinely. Always, though, I approached this topic with a degree of trepidation. I don't find it easy.

Fortunately, the mayor and some of his staff had a vision for what they wanted to see in the brochure, and so it was relatively easy for me to follow through. They wanted simple graphics included that would help to explain this vision.

So I found a bunch of clip art with a theme. Stuff like this

and this

and this.



When I met with the mayor, who I have worked with before, to review my first draft, he slowly circled a couple of my funky arrow guys, honing in on the bulging eyeball, and said, "Um, were you on acid when you did this?"

Of course you had to be there, and you have to know that I am unlikely to ever do acid, but the context of that question in relation to a tax brochure AND that clip art had me snorting with laughter. Even today, when I'm perusing clip art and encounter this one-bulging-eyeball theme Microsoft has going on, I can't help but giggle.