Visual Insensitivity.

Back when it was Design Questions Week Russell asked, 'what are the 5 worst bits of graphic design you can think of?'.

At the time I could only think of four. Now, here's the fifth. I'm not sure whether to call this typographic insensitivity, graphic insensitivity or design insensitivity so let's settle for visual insensitivity.

Take a look at this ordinary high street.

Take a closer look at the signage. Forget the fact that they've done that thing where they're too posh to admit they have to have shops and they've made all the signs out of bronze and look a little closer at the typographic insensitivity.

(might be worth clicking on this to make it bigger)

Now I know all these signs were put up by different people on different days from different companies, but this sort of visual insensitivity really annoys me.

I was planning to put this right using the power of Photoshop but unfortunately I took the photo at a funny angle so we'll revert back to theory. I've recreated the street signage in plan form. Obviously the fonts and logos aren't correct, but as an exercise it gives you an idea.

Currently everything is a different font, a different weight, a different size and on a different baseline. See?

Nothing anyone can do can make that eye Clinic logo look OK. In the ideal world everything would be the same height. Like this.

But that's not going to happen, is it? Probably the easiest and simplest thing to do would be to put all the type on the same baseline. Same size as they are now, same mix of fonts etc, one common baseline.

That looks a little better doesn't it? This would be easy to achieve, the council or the street could manage this. You see this insensitivity all the time and it annoys me. You see how this isn't really centred? It's not justified one way or the other. It's just sloppy. And annoying.

Comments

[miscmash]

Completely empathise with your view here, as will most of your graphic design readership I expect. But inevitably, I expect this could strike some people as being a bit on the 'anal' side so to speak - yunno, those 'process' types! ;-) Personally, I think I could write a whole book on 'powerpoint visual insensitivity' within the broader branding field, but anyway, to my key point ..

Rather like the 'simplicity vs complexity' issue that has popped up on this blog and others from time-to-time, your example seems to impinge on a 'perfection vs imperfection' (or structure vs chaos) type issue. Where, because signage generally lends itself to a 'structuralist' (or perfectionist) assumption, it somehow looks wrong (or annoying) when this isn’t the case. At the other end of a spectrum there has - as you subsequent post illustrates - been a strong design trend towards ‘keeping it real’ recently, which has rekindled our appreciation of raw, ‘imperfect’ human handwriting. Clearly Russell’s presentations make good use of this (isn’t it funny how handwriting somehow makes a point or quote seem more spontaneous, creative, and credible now, whereas in the past people sought the trust and authority of typewriters and computers?)

To bring this point home then, if we view ‘perfection and imperfection’ as a kind of continuum, is there an optimal point, or must it be one or the another? Your redesign of the retail signage is clearly about optimal spacing, perfect alignment etc. But sometimes the limitation of this, is that unless everything is ‘perfect’ (i.e. signage across the whole high street) it’s somehow forever annoying. Whereas a more ‘mash up’ approach (i.e. Camden High Street) succeeds because it sets out to be ‘imperfect’ by way of design. Interesting, I’ve noticed a lot of magazine fonts in lifestyle magazines recently that almost make a point of being ‘imperfect’, using ‘primitive’ fonts, harsh highlighting of key points etc. In this sense, it’s almost like an ‘organised chaos’ – and thus a middleground perhaps? Sorry if I’m making an over theoretical point about all of this - just a random thought I thought I’d throw in (imperfect of course!). In which case, perhaps there’s some ‘proper’ graphic design theory out there that could build on this?