Wing Man or no Wing Man? That is the question.

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Wing Man or no Wing Man? That is the question. Posted in Website Design, Concocted by Fred Roed, 2 comments
Published on 19 May 2008

goose maverick

Remember Maverick and Goose in Top Gun? Goose was the wing man to Cruise’s Maverick. This meant that, when they’d go to a bar, Goose would be the fall guy and Maverick would score the chicks. Goose was married, so it was cool by him. He happened to be married to Meg Ryan in the movie, so he was stoked to let Maverick be the gloryboy, because that was back when Meg Ryan was really hot. (Just a little movie trivia for you on a Monday morning).

My question today is: ‘But, what if the chick went for Goose?’

When we design websites at World Wide Creative, usually we work on a couple of ideas on layouts. However, there is always one ‘Maverick’ layout. The one that a little extra effort goes into, and that just has that little extra zing. The other layouts kind of fall by the wayside, and enter the ‘Goose’ (the Wing Man) category.

The Maverick is the one we want the client to go for.

So do we present both options to the client, or just the Maverick?

There are two schools of thought:

1) Wing Man – In order for the client to go for the layout you like, you offer what we call ‘the Wing Man’. This is the Goose of layouts. It’s the poor cousin to the Maverick… and often is the one that was knocked up as a second thought in your creative sessions. No sweat or tears have been spilled over the Wing Man. The idea is that the gloryboy shines when seen in comparison to the Wing Man, and the client invariably goes for the right choice.

2) No Wing Man – The other school says that the client is paying you serious money for your expertise, and you should filter out the ‘wrong’ designs for them.

Most of you I bet are now leaning towards to the second option, right?

That’s fine, and we do too – but the problem is that design is so subjective, that sometimes you can get it wrong. It’s an art, and like any art, you can only rationalise it to a point… and then it’s about whether it goes with the couch. Sometimes, it’s a lot easier to just point out Goose’s flaws in order to make Maverick look better – especially when the client is not a design-oriented person.

So, Wing Man or no Wing Man?