Oh right, it's clip art and Comic Sans. Just a few pet peeves of any trained designer, these crimes against design oftentimes pass through to be printed, published, and circulated. Who approves these things? Where is everyone's good taste? I feel like I encounter so much BAD design on such a constant basis that I find myself thinking, "Do most people have bad taste?" Then I answer myself with a big, loud, obvious and unfortunate YES. So it becomes our jobs as designers to help fix this problem. In my eyes, education, from both university and self, remains the most important tool in alleviating the bad taste epidemic. Education isn’t something we should throw in the air with our cap at graduation; it’s something that should continue on for the rest of our lives, leading us to better ourselves as designers. Many are not aware that their taste is in fact bad, so we must be able to back up our choices with knowledge. I do believe design can aide in doing good for the world, but we must remain current, aware, and conscious in order for such an idea to succeed. We must not only continue to educate ourselves, but others as well.
I get that art is very subjective, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, I think it’s great that graphic designers generally look down on clip art and Comic Sans. I’m not sure if you know about this, but on April Fool’s, Google played a prank on designers—if you Googled ‘Helvetica,’ the search results were displayed in Comic Sans! I think it was funny to see designers, myself included, cringe at the sight of the typeface.
ReplyDeleteThe downside is that some people actually appreciate Comic Sans, and don’t perceive it as bad design. I currently work part-time at The Ray as their graphic designer, and sometimes I get the lovely task of editing old, dated posters--some of which contain clip art and/or Comic Sans. There have also been times where I had to argue my case to my supervisor, in order to edit said posters.
I really agree that it is our duty as designers to educate our audience. Ultimately, it’s really gratifying to share with the patrons of The Ray my knowledge and my experiences of good design. By exposing more people to better designs, the more we can educate… that’s my take, anyway.
Nina, your post made me laugh. I think it's true that most people do have bad taste, and as a designer it is nearly impossible to please these people since you know they are wrong. A think a little education would definitely benefit these people!
ReplyDeleteComic Sans. Where is the love people? But I digress, I very much agree with your post. Bad design is so ubiquitous in our world that I think we have to be careful not to let it ruin our palate for good design.
ReplyDeleteLove this Nina! It is something that I see a lot of too and I feel that people are just oblivious to it because they are uneducated, as designers we are here to fix the bad type designs out there by the non-designers. Its almost like we can call ourselves the "superman" of design as we save the world from bad type design. Ha ha
ReplyDeleteI think this post is something that every designer would agree with. Ever since I started my education in graphic design I'm constantly analyzing every poster, flyer, brochure that comes into my space. One of my favorite things to do is be critical on business cards. I've even started a collection of the various business cards I receive, some are great and some are awful. it reinforces my knowledge of good and bad design and even teaches me more about what works. What more people that produce bad design don't realize is that is reflects poorly on the company. If someone receives a business card that is awful I feel most people recognize something is off and thing the business isn't as legit as one with a well executed card. Sort of contradictory I think most people do have good taste they just can't explain why they think it works or doesn't. The problem is when people with no training go to execute their own designs it fails cause they don't know how to express their information through design, yet they recognize bad design, just not when they do it, if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI love that you said that people don't know they have bad taste. That is something I see everyday around me and in class and you always want to say something to show them a different perspective, but then you don't want to offend anyone. I know that if someone tried to tell me that I was a bad designer with terrible taste I would be so hurt, I don't care what people say, criticism can definitely be taken personally.
ReplyDeleteBut then again if you have what someone would call bad taste, but you could back it up with reasoning and design logic then who are we to say your design is bad. What made our style right and your style wrong. I feel there are some specific rules, but then are teachers are constantly telling us that for every piece we make, we should be able to explain why we chose the things we did without saying it looked cool. So if a 'bad designer' could properly explain his work then maybe it's not bad design, maybe it's just misinterpreted.
I definitely think that we should keep up with learning and exposing ourselves to the about what is going on in the design world because it's always changing and to be a good designer you need to be aware of the changes and improvements that are going on in your field.
This is definitely true. I was told by a potential employer that my skills weren't necessary because, as he put it, "I have a mac here so I can just do the designs myself." He proceeded to post a lovely graphic using all kinds of transparency and used some comic sans-esque font. Oh well!
ReplyDeleteBut as designers, we can also be overly critical. Just because it isn't helvetica doesn't mean it isn't good design!
I think one problem with educating non-designers about the importance of good design is that it can come off as being shallow and nitpicky. We live in a society that simultaneously says "Image is important!" and "It's what's behind the image that counts." And the thing is that both of those statements are true, which is oxymoronic. I think what's happened is that the general public has come to associate image/visuals as an artifice -- which it is, actually. But they view it as something that's covering up something else, whereas good design should strive to be clear in what it communicates. And so what happens is that people with non-design sensibilities try to compensate for their lack of design skills by saying that they don't need good design and that their content will speak for itself, but in trying to do their own design, they end up sabotaging their own message and content because they don't know how to communicate that effectively via visuals. (Which is what Jenna said earlier.)
ReplyDeleteI agree that most people have bad taste, but that is because they do not know better. As Jenna said, when I learned typography it completely changed the way I look at every piece of paper with any text on it. I see a lot of bad typefaces, clip art and layout! It makes me want to fix it! But that is why not everyone is a graphic designer and for those of us who are, we can make the world a better designed place.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this post, I came across this article that shade some light on what is it about bad design? Here is the link. http://onerutter.com/general/what-is-it-about-bad-design.html.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's definetly no secrect that there are a lot of designs out there that really aren't so easy on the eyes, perhaps this is because of lack of awareness of basic elements that a professional designer uses?? Or maybe this has to do with under-budget companies using tools such as Microsoft office to create simple adds and flyers??
ReplyDeleteMajority of the businesses that operate in the city are local small spaces, perhaps they are under served as far as design resources go, this would be a good platform to network with local spaces in certain areas and offer design services....
I often work for my dads company doing random designing and ads and at one point I got into a fight with my brother who also works there and is kind of my my boss about using comic sans, I swear if I wasn't there to yell at him everything would be made in it.
ReplyDelete"Many are not aware that their taste is in fact bad, so we must be able to back up our choices with knowledge."
ReplyDeleteVery Bauhaus-ian sentiment there. I think they were the last designers to really straight out say "the public doesn't know what's good for it. We're the professionals, we'll tell you what you should want." That kind of statement is all but gone in a market research guided industry, but you have to admire the gutsiness of the statement.
some people never learn this stuff, some learn but don't care, and then some learn yet still disagree. this is why this stuff can happen, (at least thats my opinion)
ReplyDeleteI almost wonder if we design for ourselves sometimes, do those outside our community find the difference? It makes me think about the same principles from other industries, such as with music or literary?
ReplyDeleteIn some cases, I think bad design can be eliminated simply by getting a second opinion from someone not involved in the project. When you get really wrapped up in a project, it's hard to take a step back and evaluate it objectively.
ReplyDeleteBad design is a waste of time and just confuses people more. Designers take the time to create and learn how to create good design. Good design can make you slow down, it can make you think, it can be about things besides efficiency. Good design makes you think as much as you should, but no more.
ReplyDelete