Archive for the ‘Bad Design’ Category
You’re Defying Logic
What’s the best part about going on vacation? The time off work? The fun? The relaxation? Absolutely not, the best part of vacation is the plane ride, because that means a meeting with my good friend The Sky Mall catalogue. Just pages and pages of stupid stuff no one would ever ever want. Dog in a suitcase? Gigantic crossword puzzle designed to finally kill off grandma? An authentic popcorn cart (really?) But, nothing had ever come close of course to topping the ultimate skymall product; zombie escaping from the garden.
However, yesterday on the plane I found something that might shake the zombie off the “worst product” mantle. A true example of how important a competent design firm is to your business. A stark reminder that do it yourself or discount design will do nothing but hurt your companies’ face and presentation to potential customers. I present to you, Gravity Defyer Shoes:
Who who who, thought to themselves that we want a series of athletic shoes and we want to brand them like Nike. Except instead of a swoosh….. we want to use a sperm. People will love to rock sperms on their shoe! In fact, we should make our logo two sperms. Seriously, tell me I am wrong, what else could it be? What the hell were they thinking?!
Supposedly the Nike swoosh was an icon drawn on a napkin by Phil Knight’s secretary and has become one of the world’s most recognizable brands. So I envision the Gravity Defyer design process went down something like…. the CEO’s 6 year old blind niece drew this in her 1st grade art class with crayons and construction paper and threw a tempertantrum until daddy used it on the shoes. Or maybe a 6 year old is the ceo. Or maybe it was a bar bet between two drunk college frat boys. I don’t really know how this came to be and frankly I don’t really care, but more I’m just emploring to all of you. GET A REAL DESIGNER! Otherwise you might end up with sperm shoes.
WTF were they Thinking?
People, please, when you’re designing a logo or naming a company, pay attention to the acronym. How many of these have to make the rounds on the internet before attention is paid to this detail?
Bad ‘Za
So, I read about this the other day, and I’m hoping it’s just a rumor, or some designer’s crazy idea that will meet it’s match against sensible minds. Pizza Hut, with it shrink revenues hit hard by a poor economy, is working on rebranding itself as a more “hip” food alternative. One of the ideas being bandied about is this naming change from Pizza Hut to simply The Hut.
I’m all for doing interesting branding moves, especially when you have as solid of image recognition (the red roof) as Pizza Hut does. But… The Hut? Like… Pizza the Hut?
Everyone can be a graphic designer 2 - the sequel
Honestly….. I was searching the internet for a topical design enhancement formula and found just the thing I was looking for. I think this will make the Mrs. a big Rick fan again.
A Story About a Logo
Once upon a time there was a company called Morgan Stanley and there was a company called Smith Barney. Then, the economy turned south. Now, when a big money-loving company and another big money-loving company love money very very much, sometimes they will merge. And, when they merge they need a new identity. And, sometimes, they will create a logo so unbelievably boring that it makes your head collapse on itself.
I don’t get it? What’s the point? Did they just do it in Microsoft Word? I mean, I understand that the banking industry is in turmoil, and it’s not exactly the place to be looking for creative, out of the box, design. Nor is it the place to be spending big bucks on design at the moment. But, good-freaking lord! Really, that’s the best you could come up with? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
The End.
Conan in the Mushroom Kingdom
Conan’s new “Tonight Show” set sure did strike me as odd when I first saw it. And, I felt like I had seen it before in another application. Well, a big thank you to the blog Serious Lunch for helping me out by explaining that the monologue is “all Mushroom Kingdom like”. When you really piece it together, you can’t dispute the resemblence.
Well….Atleast it’s Not Really Creepy
Back in 2008 the WGN Superstation ( the station that lovingly gives us the worst broadcast team in the history of humanity, yes I’m talking about you Hawk Harrelson and whoever your tool color man is) brought us one of the most frighteningly terrible identities in recent memories.
With a rebrand as WGN America, the station gave us this creepy, goth chick watching you watching her logo. What exactly was the meaning behind this? I don’t know. I’m assuming you couldn’t give me a logical reason behind this image either. Is it a woman watching WGN in a really really well lit room? Do they show a bunch of crazy indie films on the network? Do they strive for the really weird eye shadow demographic? After being so poorly received by just about everybody, only a year later WGN has once again spent gobs of money to try again to give it’s station an identity worthwhile of such a large company. And, of course, once again a failure.
Now believe me, it’s an upgrade. And, from that perspective then the design can be coined somewhat of a success. But, lets break this thing down. Three squares, with rounded edges, skewing together to form an akward disjointed shape? Heavy handed serif typeface. And the color palette, Olive green, lime green, and puke green. What…?
I really hate putting down others’ work, mostly because I understand the challenges associated with different levels of “politics” between clients and firms. I understand that there are certain things that occur on the road to a design that the general public never sees. But, this is just too over the top bad, twice! Hopefully, 2010 will bring us try number 3, and maybe a non-offensive solution.
When Design Goes Bad
An interesting article from the New York Times about the outrage centered around the redesign on the packaging for Tropicana.
The New York Times
By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: February 22, 2009
Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging
It took 24 years, but PepsiCo now has its own version of New Coke.
The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and scrapping the changes made to a flagship product, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice. Redesigned packaging that was introduced in early January is being discontinued, executives plan to announce on Monday, and the previous version will be brought back in the next month.
Also returning will be the longtime Tropicana brand symbol, an orange from which a straw protrudes. The symbol, meant to evoke fresh taste, had been supplanted on the new packages by a glass of orange juice.
The about-face comes after consumers complained about the makeover in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls and clamored for a return of the original look.
Some of those commenting described the new packaging as “ugly” or “stupid,” and resembling “a generic bargain brand” or a “store brand.”
“Do any of these package-design people actually shop for orange juice?” the writer of one e-mail message asked rhetorically. “Because I do, and the new cartons stink.”
Others described the redesign as making it more difficult to distinguish among the varieties of Tropicana or differentiate Tropicana from other orange juices.
Such attention is becoming increasingly common as interactive technologies enable consumers to rapidly convey opinions to marketers.
“You used to wait to go to the water cooler or a cocktail party to talk over something,” said Richard Laermer, chief executive at RLM Public Relations in New York.
“Now, every minute is a cocktail party,” he added. “You write an e-mail and in an hour, you’ve got a fan base agreeing with you.”
That ability to share brickbats or bouquets with other consumers is important because it facilitates the formation of ad hoc groups, more likely to be listened to than individuals.
“There will always be people complaining, and always be people complaining about the complainers,” said Peter Shankman, a public relations executive who specializes in social media. “But this makes it easier to put us together.”
The phenomenon was on display last week when users of Facebook complained about changes to the Web site’s terms of service using methods that included, yes, groups on facebook.com. Facebook yielded to the protests and reverted to its original contract with users.
And in November, many consumers who used Twitter to criticize an ad for Motrin pain reliever received responses within 48 hours from the brand’s maker, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, which apologized for the ad and told them it had been withdrawn.
“Twitter is the ultimate focus group,” Mr. Shankman said. “I can post something and in a minute get feedback from 700 people around the world, giving me their real opinions.”
Neil Campbell, president at Tropicana North America in Chicago, part of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, acknowledged that consumers can communicate with marketers “more readily and more quickly” than ever. “For companies that put consumers at the center of what they do,” he said, “it’s a good thing.”
It was not the volume of the outcries that led to the corporate change of heart, Mr. Campbell said, because “it was a fraction of a percent of the people who buy the product.”
Rather, the criticism is being heeded because it came, Mr. Campbell said in a telephone interview on Friday, from some of “our most loyal consumers.”
“We underestimated the deep emotional bond” they had with the original packaging, he added. “Those consumers are very important to us, so we responded.”
Among those who underestimated that bond was Mr. Campbell himself. In an interview last month to discuss the new packaging, he said, “The straw and orange have been there for a long time, but people have not necessarily had a huge connection to them.”
Reminded of that on Friday, Mr. Campbell said: “What we didn’t get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn’t something that came out in the research.”
That echoed an explanation offered in 1985 by executives of the Coca-Cola Company in response to the avalanche of complaints when they replaced the original version of Coca-Cola with New Coke: Consumers in focus groups liked the taste of New Coke, but were not told old Coke would disappear. The original version was hastily brought back as Coca-Cola Classic and New Coke eventually fizzed out.
(There are, it should be noted, significant differences between the two corporate flip-flops. For instance, the Tropicana changes involved only packaging, not the formula for or taste of the beverage.)
An ad campaign for Tropicana that helped herald the redesigned cartons, also introduced last month, will continue to run, Mr. Campbell said. Print and outdoor ads that have already appeared will not be changed, he added, but future elements of the campaign — like commercials, due in March — would be updated.
Unlike the packaging, the campaign has drawn praise, particularly for including in its family imagery several photographs of fathers and children hugging. Such dad-centric images are rare in food ads.
The campaign, which carries the theme “Squeeze it’s a natural,” was created by Arnell in New York, part of the Omnicom Group. Arnell also created the new version of the Tropicana packaging.
“Tropicana is doing exactly what they should be doing,” Peter Arnell, chairman and chief creative officer at Arnell, said in a separate telephone interview on Friday.
“I’m incredibly surprised by the reaction,” he added, referring to the complaints about his agency’s design work, but “I’m glad Tropicana is getting this kind of attention.”
In fact, Tropicana plans to contact “everyone who called or wrote us” to express opinions, Mr. Campbell said, “and explain to them we’re making the change.”
Tropicana is among several PepsiCo brands whose packaging and logos have been recently redesigned by Arnell. The new logo the agency produced for Pepsi-Cola has been the subject of comments by ad bloggers who perceive a resemblance to the logo for the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
The bloggers have also buzzed about a document outlining the creation of the Pepsi-Cola logo, which appears to have been written by Arnell for PepsiCo executives; Mr. Arnell has declined to comment on the authenticity of the document, which is titled “Breathtaking Design Strategy” and is written in grandiose language.
One aspect of the new Tropicana packaging is being salvaged: plastic caps for the cartons, also designed by Arnell, that are shaped and colored like oranges.
Those caps will be used, Mr. Campbell said, for cartons of Trop 50, a variety of Tropicana with less sugar and calories that is to be introduced soon.
During the interview last month, Mr. Campbell said that Tropicana would spend more than $35 million on the “Squeeze” campaign. Although he declined on Friday to discuss how much it would cost to scrap the new packaging and bring back the previous design, he said the amount “isn’t significant.”
Asked if he was chagrined that consumers rejected the changes he believed they wanted, Mr. Campbell replied: “I feel it’s the right thing to do, to innovate as a company. I wouldn’t want to stop innovating as a result of this. At the same time, if consumers are speaking, you have to listen.”
Not Like it’s Missile Codes…
I’m sure we’ve all purchased tickets online for events (but in case you haven’t, here’s a little explanation) and run into the security “write down the numbers with lines over them” because some people use programs to automatically hold tickets and block people. So, this security protocol is a legitimate step on the way to purchasing tickets. However, I was trying to purchase tickets for one of the Tribe’s “away” spring games next to my house at the Oakland A’s stadium. So, going through their ticket office I did their guess the number game 6…6! times before I could get it right. This picture is one of the easier ones…
Honestly, at some point in the design of this system did they take into account that a human needs to be able to decypher these things?
This is nothing more than a lesson in web design that user experience is something that must always be taken into account first and foremost, especially in an application that requires user feedback.
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