5 ms·

USPS Redesign

36 points by idan 12y ago

jrockway 12y ago
It is quite bold and certainly makes an impression. If the post office looked like this, I think I would be confused for a few seconds as I wondered how I accidentally stepped into a personality-infused government building. That said, I find this font incredibly hard to read; it almost feels like it's not English, and my brain has to work extra-hard to form words from the pixels on the screen.
- peterjmag 12y ago
  I agree. It's almost painfully difficult in some places. I think the biggest problem here is the fact that everything is set in all caps, which is a pretty big typographic no-no.[1] The wide tracking and narrow characters of the secondary copy don't help either. [1] http://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html http://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- sp332 12y ago
  I was assuming that this was a "portfolio project" but the USPS is actually listed as a client. http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023138/http://www.grand-army.com/about/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023138/http://www.grand-a... (Linking to the archive so as not to pummel their server harder.) I think they realize that the design s going to change a lot by the time it actually gets rolled out, that's why they published the original, idealized version on their website.
quink 12y ago
Before even looking at this, I predict Gotham. Edit: It's painfully slow to load, but it seems I was right.
sp332 12y ago
It's slow to load now, so if it goes down, here's an archive http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023941/http://grand-army.com/work/projects/project.php?project=usps_retail http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023941/http://grand-army.... I agree with jrockway that the "Knockout" font is a little hard to follow. The eagle at the end looks... cool, but unnecessarily violent :p
peterjmag 12y ago
Looks like the server's getting hammered right now, so here's an article from Brand New about the redesign, with most of the same images: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_retail_experience_for_usps_by_grandarmy.php http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_reta...
tonywebster 12y ago
The two main typefaces are Knockout and Gotham, both being fonts from Hoefler & Co. — formerly Hoefler & Frere-Jones (H&FJ), until Jonathan Hoefler allegedly never gave Tobias Frere-Jones the equity stake he promised, eventually calling him just an employee[1]. Not only do I think is Hoefler & Co. a terrible company under Hoefler's leadership for that unethical move, the company has refused for the longest time to support web fonts using @font-face — now they partially support it, but only using their proprietary hosting platform, which is just setting a bad precedent for the open web. There are plenty of small foundries producing high-quality typefaces, with @font-face friendly licensing for webfonts. Can we please stop using Hoefler fonts and supporting this guy?! [1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/17/5318206/hoefler-and-frere-jones-lawsuit http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/17/5318206/hoefler-and-frere-...
- imajes 12y ago
  ideologically, i agree, except that HFJ/H&C produce some amazing timeless typefaces and it's really hard to ignore that.
  - Throwaway823 12y ago
    Agreed, they own some of the most well known typefaces in the world. Sadly, their pricing is absurd. For example, I run a forum with a million daily page views. If I wanted to use Gotham, I need to pay $150 for the font, and then subscribe to their cloud service and pay $450 per month for that amount of page views. I might be willing to pay a one-time $100 fee to use one of their fonts, or a $100 per year subscription to use any of their fonts. However, $5,500 a year for my site? That's almost as much as my servers. It's a laugh, I'll stick with the well respected free web fonts.
mcosta 12y ago
I like it, but I ask myself if this design will resist the change of times.
mgcross 12y ago
Is OP affiliated? I like the work, but batch processing images constrained to 2700px, then throwing all 60 of them to load at one time is killing you. Mockups or not, you're getting some traffic, so optimize those images (resize to 50%; save as 8-bit png for fewer artifacts than jpeg).
zomg 12y ago
in my humble opinion, the "look" of the usps isn't their problem on the retail side. it's the fact that it's a complete and total PITA to ship with them, coupled with the wrong incentive structure for their employees. 1. streamline the process - one form to ship something, a letter, a package, whatever. one sticker goes on the package to indicate the shipping class (certified, etc). none of this a sticker here, a red stamp there, etc. 2. incentivise employees to be PRODUCTIVE. i don't know much about their existing compensation plan, but every time i go to a PO, no one seems to give a shit. i ship a lot of packages on my lunch break. the PO is PACKED at noontime... and there's one person at the desk. REALLY? anyway, i could go on, but they have a long, long, long, way to go.
- toxican 12y ago
  #2 is the #1 reason why I don't like dealing with the USPS for packages. It's easier for me to run to the post office and have them walk me through the process of the more complicated shipping (non-domestic primarily), but the people there are ass holes. Between the post office where I live and the office where I work (in two different states), I've never had a good experience. There's always some pissed off, rude middle aged woman who acts like I'm an idiot for not being familiar with all of their complicated protocols and rules for shipping. So yeah, branding isn't their problem. It's the service itself that blows.
  - VLM 12y ago
    The most polite way to put it is people who willfully refuse to learn any market, are only given the alternatives of being frustrated or ripped off, often without understanding which is about to happen to them. So in this individual concrete example, basically you're saying that for a willfully uninformed customer, the USPS has made a policy decision at a high level to frustrate you instead of ripping you off, and you'd like to do business with someone who will rip you off instead of frustrating you. I donno if that's a huge win or if most people would really prefer that, especially if the alternative were explained to you. I've shipped exotic electronics prototypes to Canada, all by myself, gettin it right the first time, about as exotic as you can get without involving ITAR, with only minimal and brief research. If you get ITAR involved, then I do feel your pain, but ITAR isn't the USPS's fault, even if they're the easiest people to lash out at.
bluedevil2k 12y ago
A little nit-picky thing I have with the USPS's choices are their add-ons for tracking: USPS Tracking (end-to-end), Return Receipt (proof of delivery), Signature Confirmation (update to date tracking and proof of delivery) & Certified Mail (allows receiver to track delivery). WTF - these are barely differentiated and only confuse people who don't mail things often. WWSJD (Steve Jobs) - probably have a single add-on choice he'd call something like PackageKit which would be $2 and include up-to-date tracking (for buyer and seller) and proof of delivery.
- vadvi 12y ago
  nobody cares about this in this thread.
  - ejr 12y ago
    nobody cares about this in this thread. I care. The branding, no matter how good looking it is - and it is good - must in the end enhance the product. But if the product itself is confusing, the branding and styles can only do so much. Concise product goals make the work of the designer more focused and the end result would be beautiful to use as well as look at.
coldcode 12y ago
Having worked on web projects for the USPS before 2000, I remember they had the design sense of a rock at that time. One web app I worked on was for internal use, I had to work with IE 2.X since they had actually paid MS for a license and shipped it to PO locations on a CD. They wouldn't consider supporting Netscape which actually functioned even though it was free. I guess "Welcome to the 21st century".
whistlecrackers 12y ago
Time to bring back the American Letter Mail Company... though I'm sure some redesigning could be in order.
maximumoverload 12y ago
Everything looks better with Gotham, whether it's Obama, DC Comics, Twitter or USPS. I also like Montserrat, free typeface kind of similar to Gotham, yet kind of different. http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Montserrat http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Montserrat http://www.fontspace.com/julieta-ulanovsky/montserrat http://www.fontspace.com/julieta-ulanovsky/montserrat
o0-0o 12y ago
Not many people realize that the USPS is the ONLY federal government department authorized and mentioned in The Constitution. Cut the other departments, and give it all to the USPS because constitution.
- burnte 12y ago
  Except it also delegate authority to Congress and the Gov't to do a number of things, and does not specify how those things should be done, allowing Congress and the gov't a great deal of freedom in implementation. So no, the USPS isn't the only constitutional government agency.
pteredactyl 12y ago
Looks good. I wish the US Government wasn't hosing the USPS...
kaivi 12y ago
A fine example of design for the sake of design. Is that an amateur proposal, or was this accepted by USPS, polished further and paid for? Based on the amount of text fillings, looks like the latter is true. In any way, what I see is highly impractical, and the brand book is far from complete. Here are some things I dislike about it: -All caps. This is wrong, and it should be fairly obvious even to a child, when pointed out. Millions of people will see media based on it, and a generation will grow up, struggling to read all-caps price lists, all-caps footnotes and navigating all-caps menus on their smartphones. What's worse, is that they will subconsciously accept it as part of their lives and surroundings. -Too much visual clutter: completely unjustified use of borders, underlines and dotted lines – also in between semantically same elements. -What does "→" mean? -Clickable elements are indistinguishable from statics on self-service terminals and smartphone apps. Footnotes are impractically small even for a HD screen. Overall impression: somebody, truly oblivious of basic usability principles, thought that infographics (the Daily-Mail-grade ones) and UITableViews are cool, and built a company identity around them. And the other guys sold it.
- atamosk 12y ago
  Not to toot these kids horns and all but they have worked for draft and Weiden + kennedy. I think your pure design analysis of this has missed the mark as in their approach has a much more story driven purpose, creating a look and feel. To leave this out of your analysis or crit, is as though you are only judging half the equation. Purpose and design go hand in hand, And while I agree with the type comment I think that the work itself can illicit an emotional response of pride and accomplishment that the post office can champion. I mean they seem to be using patriotism and while that can be bad in some cases for the post office, which is a government body this would be a perfect place to use it. *edit for spelling
- duney 12y ago
  Can you point to some recommended reading for someone looking to learn about these design principles?
  - kaivi 12y ago

36 points by idan 12y ago

It is quite bold and certainly makes an impression. If the post office looked like this, I think I would be confused for a few seconds as I wondered how I accidentally stepped into a personality-infused government building. That said, I find this font incredibly hard to read; it almost feels like it's not English, and my brain has to work extra-hard to form words from the pixels on the screen.

peterjmag 12y ago
I agree. It's almost painfully difficult in some places. I think the biggest problem here is the fact that everything is set in all caps, which is a pretty big typographic no-no.[1] The wide tracking and narrow characters of the secondary copy don't help either. [1] http://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html http://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sp332 12y ago
I was assuming that this was a "portfolio project" but the USPS is actually listed as a client. http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023138/http://www.grand-army.com/about/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023138/http://www.grand-a... (Linking to the archive so as not to pummel their server harder.) I think they realize that the design s going to change a lot by the time it actually gets rolled out, that's why they published the original, idealized version on their website.

quink 12y ago

Before even looking at this, I predict Gotham. Edit: It's painfully slow to load, but it seems I was right.

sp332 12y ago

It's slow to load now, so if it goes down, here's an archive http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023941/http://grand-army.com/work/projects/project.php?project=usps_retail http://web.archive.org/web/20140703023941/http://grand-army.... I agree with jrockway that the "Knockout" font is a little hard to follow. The eagle at the end looks... cool, but unnecessarily violent :p

peterjmag 12y ago

Looks like the server's getting hammered right now, so here's an article from Brand New about the redesign, with most of the same images: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_retail_experience_for_usps_by_grandarmy.php http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_reta...

tonywebster 12y ago

The two main typefaces are Knockout and Gotham, both being fonts from Hoefler & Co. — formerly Hoefler & Frere-Jones (H&FJ), until Jonathan Hoefler allegedly never gave Tobias Frere-Jones the equity stake he promised, eventually calling him just an employee[1]. Not only do I think is Hoefler & Co. a terrible company under Hoefler's leadership for that unethical move, the company has refused for the longest time to support web fonts using @font-face — now they partially support it, but only using their proprietary hosting platform, which is just setting a bad precedent for the open web. There are plenty of small foundries producing high-quality typefaces, with @font-face friendly licensing for webfonts. Can we please stop using Hoefler fonts and supporting this guy?! [1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/17/5318206/hoefler-and-frere-jones-lawsuit http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/17/5318206/hoefler-and-frere-...

imajes 12y ago
ideologically, i agree, except that HFJ/H&C produce some amazing timeless typefaces and it's really hard to ignore that.
- Throwaway823 12y ago
  Agreed, they own some of the most well known typefaces in the world. Sadly, their pricing is absurd. For example, I run a forum with a million daily page views. If I wanted to use Gotham, I need to pay $150 for the font, and then subscribe to their cloud service and pay $450 per month for that amount of page views. I might be willing to pay a one-time $100 fee to use one of their fonts, or a $100 per year subscription to use any of their fonts. However, $5,500 a year for my site? That's almost as much as my servers. It's a laugh, I'll stick with the well respected free web fonts.

mcosta 12y ago

I like it, but I ask myself if this design will resist the change of times.

mgcross 12y ago

Is OP affiliated? I like the work, but batch processing images constrained to 2700px, then throwing all 60 of them to load at one time is killing you. Mockups or not, you're getting some traffic, so optimize those images (resize to 50%; save as 8-bit png for fewer artifacts than jpeg).

zomg 12y ago

in my humble opinion, the "look" of the usps isn't their problem on the retail side. it's the fact that it's a complete and total PITA to ship with them, coupled with the wrong incentive structure for their employees. 1. streamline the process - one form to ship something, a letter, a package, whatever. one sticker goes on the package to indicate the shipping class (certified, etc). none of this a sticker here, a red stamp there, etc. 2. incentivise employees to be PRODUCTIVE. i don't know much about their existing compensation plan, but every time i go to a PO, no one seems to give a shit. i ship a lot of packages on my lunch break. the PO is PACKED at noontime... and there's one person at the desk. REALLY? anyway, i could go on, but they have a long, long, long, way to go.

toxican 12y ago
#2 is the #1 reason why I don't like dealing with the USPS for packages. It's easier for me to run to the post office and have them walk me through the process of the more complicated shipping (non-domestic primarily), but the people there are ass holes. Between the post office where I live and the office where I work (in two different states), I've never had a good experience. There's always some pissed off, rude middle aged woman who acts like I'm an idiot for not being familiar with all of their complicated protocols and rules for shipping. So yeah, branding isn't their problem. It's the service itself that blows.
- VLM 12y ago
  The most polite way to put it is people who willfully refuse to learn any market, are only given the alternatives of being frustrated or ripped off, often without understanding which is about to happen to them. So in this individual concrete example, basically you're saying that for a willfully uninformed customer, the USPS has made a policy decision at a high level to frustrate you instead of ripping you off, and you'd like to do business with someone who will rip you off instead of frustrating you. I donno if that's a huge win or if most people would really prefer that, especially if the alternative were explained to you. I've shipped exotic electronics prototypes to Canada, all by myself, gettin it right the first time, about as exotic as you can get without involving ITAR, with only minimal and brief research. If you get ITAR involved, then I do feel your pain, but ITAR isn't the USPS's fault, even if they're the easiest people to lash out at.

bluedevil2k 12y ago

A little nit-picky thing I have with the USPS's choices are their add-ons for tracking: USPS Tracking (end-to-end), Return Receipt (proof of delivery), Signature Confirmation (update to date tracking and proof of delivery) & Certified Mail (allows receiver to track delivery). WTF - these are barely differentiated and only confuse people who don't mail things often. WWSJD (Steve Jobs) - probably have a single add-on choice he'd call something like PackageKit which would be $2 and include up-to-date tracking (for buyer and seller) and proof of delivery.

vadvi 12y ago
nobody cares about this in this thread.
- ejr 12y ago
  nobody cares about this in this thread. I care. The branding, no matter how good looking it is - and it is good - must in the end enhance the product. But if the product itself is confusing, the branding and styles can only do so much. Concise product goals make the work of the designer more focused and the end result would be beautiful to use as well as look at.

coldcode 12y ago

Having worked on web projects for the USPS before 2000, I remember they had the design sense of a rock at that time. One web app I worked on was for internal use, I had to work with IE 2.X since they had actually paid MS for a license and shipped it to PO locations on a CD. They wouldn't consider supporting Netscape which actually functioned even though it was free. I guess "Welcome to the 21st century".

whistlecrackers 12y ago

Time to bring back the American Letter Mail Company... though I'm sure some redesigning could be in order.

maximumoverload 12y ago

Everything looks better with Gotham, whether it's Obama, DC Comics, Twitter or USPS. I also like Montserrat, free typeface kind of similar to Gotham, yet kind of different. http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Montserrat http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Montserrat http://www.fontspace.com/julieta-ulanovsky/montserrat http://www.fontspace.com/julieta-ulanovsky/montserrat

o0-0o 12y ago

Not many people realize that the USPS is the ONLY federal government department authorized and mentioned in The Constitution. Cut the other departments, and give it all to the USPS because constitution.

burnte 12y ago
Except it also delegate authority to Congress and the Gov't to do a number of things, and does not specify how those things should be done, allowing Congress and the gov't a great deal of freedom in implementation. So no, the USPS isn't the only constitutional government agency.

pteredactyl 12y ago

Looks good. I wish the US Government wasn't hosing the USPS...

kaivi 12y ago

A fine example of design for the sake of design. Is that an amateur proposal, or was this accepted by USPS, polished further and paid for? Based on the amount of text fillings, looks like the latter is true. In any way, what I see is highly impractical, and the brand book is far from complete. Here are some things I dislike about it: -All caps. This is wrong, and it should be fairly obvious even to a child, when pointed out. Millions of people will see media based on it, and a generation will grow up, struggling to read all-caps price lists, all-caps footnotes and navigating all-caps menus on their smartphones. What's worse, is that they will subconsciously accept it as part of their lives and surroundings. -Too much visual clutter: completely unjustified use of borders, underlines and dotted lines – also in between semantically same elements. -What does "→" mean? -Clickable elements are indistinguishable from statics on self-service terminals and smartphone apps. Footnotes are impractically small even for a HD screen. Overall impression: somebody, truly oblivious of basic usability principles, thought that infographics (the Daily-Mail-grade ones) and UITableViews are cool, and built a company identity around them. And the other guys sold it.

atamosk 12y ago
Not to toot these kids horns and all but they have worked for draft and Weiden + kennedy. I think your pure design analysis of this has missed the mark as in their approach has a much more story driven purpose, creating a look and feel. To leave this out of your analysis or crit, is as though you are only judging half the equation. Purpose and design go hand in hand, And while I agree with the type comment I think that the work itself can illicit an emotional response of pride and accomplishment that the post office can champion. I mean they seem to be using patriotism and while that can be bad in some cases for the post office, which is a government body this would be a perfect place to use it. *edit for spelling
duney 12y ago
Can you point to some recommended reading for someone looking to learn about these design principles?
- kaivi 12y ago