We’re an agency of young adults, so thinking about how to appeal to Generations X, Y and Z comes pretty naturally. We don’t have to wonder why this target demographic isn’t buying stuff or attending things or going to websites. We just sort of… know.

But the rest of the world seems to struggle with how to reach us. They’re wrapped up in stereotypes of what young people are, and they’re failing as marketers because of it. If you’ve watched the news in the past six months, you’ve probably heard about our nation’s attempt to get people enrolled in health insurance and the importance of garnering the “young invincible” market (hint: don’t talk about us like we can’t hear you). You may have also heard about the terrible advertising campaigns launched by different states in this effort. But even if politics aren’t your thing, you’ve almost certainly seen big-brand commercials (cough, cough Quizno’s… cough, Honda) that reduce every person under 40 to a caricature of American youth. It’s downright embarrassing.

So, at the risk of sounding like Thought Catalog drivel, we’re going to set the record straight about young adults. Here are three things the world seems to think about young adults, why they’re totally wrong, and how this new perspective can help anyone market to us.

MYTH: We can’t communicate, and when we do, we speak in abbreviations. A few years ago, a bunch of blue-hairs decided that kids were losing the ability to communicate because they were spending a lot of time on the Internet and sending text messages. Sure, we’re capable of communicating briefly and succinctly, but we also blog and post, and we are exposed to more reading material than any generation before us. We can write – and not just in imaginary text lingo. We don’t know how your parents operate, but ours say “thx,” “lol” and “b4” way more than we do.

Takeaway: Don’t use text-speak to try to appeal to us. We’re better than that, and we know how to use a smart phone keyboard. We could text the works of Tolstoy if we had to.

MYTH: We’re lazy and entitled. Look, the youngest among us are part of the generation spawned from helicopter parents. We entered college with a semester’s worth of credits. We volunteered every week since 8th grade. We read newspapers and actually care about real issues. Entitled? Psshh. We just don’t want to waste time doing things that don’t matter. Perhaps the problem isn’t with us, but with a society that can’t provide a living wage for someone who’s worked this hard. But we digress…

Takeaway: Don’t try to pander to us by acting like we’re all a bunch of Justin Bieber-wannabes. Instead, appeal to our sense of creativity and aspiration. Empower us and inspire us – don’t mock us. Apple, you’re doing everything right.

MYTH: If you’re going to reach us, you have to be subversive. It’s true, we probably won’t pay attention to things that look dated or unprofessional. We’ve grown up surrounded by advertising, so there’s a little bit of marketer inside of all of us. But we’re also not dumb. Slick graphics are pretty, but if your product sucks, it doesn’t really matter (we know how to read reviews). If you want to tell us something – just tell us.

Takeaway: You don’t have to try to make something cool in order to get us to want that something or do that something. In fact, that probably won’t work. That thing has to be cool (not hip-cool, but good-cool). Tell us why it matters – for real. We can take it. And please, don’t sell us crap.
Just because we’re young, doesn’t mean we don’t have a brain. Still not sure what a young adult is? Try talking to one! Hold focus groups. Hire someone with less than 10 years of experience. Do your homework. We’re only hard to reach because we see through your strategy.

3 Myths About The Young Adult Demographic: Debunked

Understanding the young adult demographic

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More specifically, graphic designers love to love typography.

In a career field that consists of  “make it yellow/bigger/jazzier/into a giraffe,” the subtleties of type are the last bastion left for a designer to nurse his or her need to tweak, beautify and control.

And do we ever. We have magnified an apostrophe by 800%. We have adjusted the kerning between 1s on a thousand occasions. We have tried all 66 available faces of Gotham on one business card.

And if none of that made sense to you, well, you’re not in the club.

But that doesn’t mean you’ve escaped the influence of anal-retentive, coffee-fueled type designers and the years they’ve spent sculpting descenders. Because obsessive designers and typographers out there have had their way with pretty much all the text y¬ou see anywhere. And you may try to tell us all that effort has gone right over your head, but we know that’s not true.

Have you ever looked at a photo that just SCREAMED “seventies?” From the reddish, low-contrast tone of the paper to the aviator sunglasses to the fu Manchus to the avocado-colored Oldsmobiles (not to mention that one couch that EVERYONE had), even the densest of millennials can recognize that era of cross-country road trips in a split second.

And that’s how it works with type, too.

Type isn’t just a font choice or a color; it’s all kinds of details that you don’t even know you noticed. The appearance of the punctuation, the space between words and letters, the shape and combinations of type and the nuance of contrast and hierarchy — these tiny, pained decisions are made so that when a person sees the website/package/sign/book, they know what it’s saying to them without even having to read it. Typography can make words look established, fun, hand-made, clean, child-friendly, rebellious, antique, artisan, eclectic, modern, blue-collar, edgy or even — yep — straight out of the seventies.

Unfortunately, these subtle details can convey more unfortunate things as well: If you stretch or smush type, use too many fonts, use “the wrong” fonts or neglect to kern, you’re broadcasting inexperience. Misplaced typefaces don’t go unnoticed, either. If you choose Bodoni for a book about Galileo, we’ll know you didn’t do your homework. Helvetica in a WWII documentary? Try again. And for those of us that love to love typography, it’s like you’ve attempted to sneak a Paco Rabanne dress into a performance of The Sound of Music: We’ll notice.

And nerdy type people, much like nerdy theater people, will not take inaccurate details lying down. No, we will splatter them all over the Internet. Because when you love to love something, you love for other people to see you love it.

And really, loving typography is not just for typophiles.

Words are the bulwarks of truth and the expressions of character, personality and beliefs. They make up manifestos and constitutions, memoirs and stories. They spread profound ideas and bring enlightenment. Words have claimed the moon, challenged Catholicism, incensed rebellions and declared free nations.

If statements and questions are powerful simply as words, imagine them as type.

Not Just for Typophiles