Bad Design Hurts the Soul

There are things we have learned this past year in our Master’s Degree program that have changed the way we see the world. For Art Directors, we have learned to appreciate the beautiful design around us.

When we go to movies, we don’t only pay attention to the plot of the movie or the characters, but also how the scene is set up; the design of the set and little design details only a few notice now catch our eye.

Learning about design has helped us appreciate beautiful design outside of school, but it has also made us realize how ugly design is all around us. We now cringe at the sight of bad design and wonder how could anyone every make such an unattractive feature.

Nothing is worse than conducting research only to come across a website with lots of valuable information, but horrendous design. It seems the words are almost always written in royal blue, and the headings in a bold red. The background is an image with a gray overlay, and the information is laid out in paragraph format that seems to go on and on.

Just writing about it makes me upset. If the information wasn’t so crucial, I would close the website and try to erase the vision of it from my memory. Just awful.

Bad design is something art directors have to live with. I know I am not the only one who wishes we could remake it into something more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but there is just too much. Thankfully, this makes coming across beautiful design increasingly more meaningful.