What Hanging My Six-Year-Old Out of the Car Window Taught Me About Design

Sarah Fey, March 2019

At 6 and 8, my girls were arguably much too young to take to Cirque du Soliel at Randall’s Island in New York City. But whether it was my own dumb efforts to be a “cool mom,” or the delicious appeal of a performance where I didn’t have to sit criss-cross-applesauce on the floor, I thought it was a fabulous plan. I had not been to Randall’s Island in many years and had not factored in the traffic and we were very late.

Inching across the RFK Bridge, I saw that our exit was only 100 feet away, clear on the other side of ten lanes of solid, angry, bumper-to-bumper traffic. I swore (quietly), put on my blinker and nudged to the right hoping the driver would let me in. Those of you who know New York will laugh. Of course he ignored me, sticking like glue to the car in front of him—and no one else was more generous. In a fit of desperation, I asked little six-year-old Annie, who had a mad head of blond curls at the time, to roll down her window, lean out and wave at the cars. It was miraculous. The previously stone-faced drivers melted. They smiled. They waved. And every single one waved us over. With Annie waving and smiling and waving and smiling, we sailed our way across all ten lanes and made it to the exit.

So shocker. Little blond children have been used to sell since Renaissance cherubim. What struck me here was the transformation. Before Annie opened her window, we were a car: anonymous, sealed, impenetrable—just like the hundreds around us. To the other drivers we signified impediment, annoyance and, when I nudged over, aggression. Once Annie appeared, everything changed. Now we were human, relatable, (adorable), and we had a story. And just like that, the other drivers—who, as they waved, I started to see as people too—were on our side.  

When designing in a crowded market, I find this a useful story. It’s tempting to settle in to the normal look and tone of your peers. You want to appear professional, credible, on par—another shiny SUV on the highway. But in our anonymous digital world, it is only when you open that window and let your audience see what makes you real, what makes you human, that they will let their guard down and let you in.