It seems that everytime I turn around I run I am bombarded by information in 3′s. I started to realize it when I was rewriting my company’s mission statement. My three main objectives as a company it to deliver every project

1. On Time
2. On Budget
3. Above Creative Expectation.

Shortly thereafter I realized that most of my clients want me to meet a triple bottom line. That is to say, every project needs to be:

1. Good for Business
2. Good for the Environment
3. Good for the Community

When asking them to elaborate on these criteria, again there are three points for each:

Good for Business means it must:

1. Increase Revenue
2. Build the Brand Image
3. Reduce Production Costs

To have a positive impact on the environment I must make sure to

1. Reduce Waste
2. Recycle excess materials
3. Reuse existing materials

and to be good for the community I must

1. Promote Moral Standards
2. Display Ethical Behavior
3. Foster Educational Properties

Whew! That’s a lot to think about, let alone live up to when designing an information brochure or a piece of packaging design.

So when I accept the job and am ready to put together the contract, inevitably there are three major points every client needs adressed in the contract

1. Cost
2. Time
3. Quality

Then I remember reading a statistic about reader’s information recall when applied to bullet pointed lists ( sorry, I do not remember the source, please let me know if you know it). The optimum number of bullet points to list is five. More than five an d the list looks too long and most people will not even begin to read it, less than five and it appears as if you do not have enough information and therefore the content is inconsequential and subsequently unread. I know, I started with 5, but here is where the 3 comes in. People only remember the first two and the last bullet point. Show them five and they will remember three. (What do you do if you have less than five points? Write a short paragraph or put the info into a sentence.).

Do you have more threes you come into constant contact with?