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What Would Jesus Buy? A Nintendo Wii for His apostles' down time, me thinks. ›
$25,000 dessert? I bet it tastes like crap. ›
Coal miner. I'm speechless. And he's smoking. ›
Broken camera. Would you get yours fixed? ›
GlassBooth. Sorting through candidate positions broken down by category. Very cool tool. ›
Black-OPs bunny. This is just wrong. Gotta love the Internet. ›
Montecito residence. Beautiful lines, spacious interior, slightly Mad Max'ish (which can be a good thing). ›
An (obviously) old Iraqi banknote. Saddam seems to happy. ›
I know some people that swear by Olive Garden's superb food. I'm not one of them. They're okay, not great. But at least we can now all agree, their food is fattening as hell. ›
The ghosts are here, at least in Thailand. Worth watching just for the weird factor alone. ›
"Do Not Call" violators seriously violated. Muahaha. ›
Qi Zhong Stadium in Shangai, hosting the Tennis Masters, opens up like a flower. Amazing! ›
Breaking down the history of Pentagram. Thank you Curtis. ›
"Why do so many companies risk destroying their design heritage - one of their most valuable assets?" Fear of risking being, oh, how do you say, unique? [do] ›
Decca. A lovely vinyl sleeve. ›
Said elsewhere:
By month:
November 14, 2006
When did design become so bland and run-of-the-mill? Design is meant to inspire, inform, and possibly educate. Corporate design is so hell bent on not offending anyone, that it's now simply used as a sedative (or laxative).
My biggest beef with corporate design these days is the completely uninspired use of photography. While there are cases where true creative photography is used, for the most part we're forced to smile along with the zombies. Specifically, I'm sick of constantly being under attack by attractive, smiling, unemotional white models, with a few minorities sprinkled in for balance. Politically correct and happy never looked so damn boring.
So this is it, huh folks? This is the highest level of good design? Smiling white people running across the beach? If it's not a happy (and obviously doped up) couple running through a a Robert Frost scene in a prescription drug commercial, to the couple hosting a party of deranged smilies (who seem to be most happy sitting in a kitchen) in the condo ad, it's the business man--arms crossed, acting highly educated-- smiling from his massive oak desk (insert old-fashioned globe of the Earth for no reason whatsoever).
Are these used based solely on the notion of "feel-good"? We're at the point now where it's considered bad karma not to use happy-happy-joy-joy images. As a designer I've used them numerous times. I'm no better. And I'm not knocking stock photography! There are some amazing gems to be found in the world of stock, but unfortunately they're usually found after wading through a pool of zombies.
Good design should push boundaries, typographically and imagery. We are communicating a feeling through the visual. If we invoke the same feeling over and over through the same image over and over, all we're doing is adding to the drowning pool.
Unexpected, intriguing, engaging, thought-provoking. That should be the goal of the visual.
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