4 ms·
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
by 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 agoNot 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 agoCan you point to some recommended reading for someone looking to learn about these design principles?
- kaivi 12y agoSure! I am probably biased, but I have been following Artemy and his studio from the early 2000s. He publishes semi-random notes on design, some of them influenced by realities of a post-Soviet state. Here is a link to the book: http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/ http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/
- jedmeyers 12y agohttp://xkcd.com/1273/ http://xkcd.com/1273/
- blakeeb 12y agoAd hominem only detracts from your otherwise valid observations. Be careful with how you phrase your opinions. "obvious even to a child"
- bmelton 12y agoThat's not an ad hominem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem