Does design ever stop you in your tracks? You know, like the sleek Italian leather sofa in a store window. Maybe the decor of a new restaurant? How about the reverse?— does bad design cause you to turn your head to stare?
I admit bad design can be eye-catching. On a recent trip to Los Angeles I stopped to muse over a delivery truck. The entire side of the truck (that was delivering restaurant supplies) was a photo of lush green produce. Beautiful… yes. But the logo missed the mark because an element of the logo was also green and became completely lost in the “jungle” of produce. It was actually the logo that stopped me because I didn’t recognize the name of the company!
Perhaps I pay too much attention to these kinds of things. What about the people who don’t? If the purpose of a logo and branding a delivery vehicle is name recognition, then how often does it miss the mark when the brand name can’t be read? Logos on trucks have to pass the test of whether they can be read quickly (by drivers on say a busy highway) and from afar. Camouflaging a logo element in a sea of green means it won’t meet the barre.
I run into WordPress sites where logo display is fraught with a similar issue: how to make the entire logo visible over a colored background or an image. There are solutions like using an all white version of the logo so it will POP over darker colors or images.
There’s always a solution. Designers just need to recognize the problem.
