A Designers Dilema?

My brother found this postcard around Leeds University and gave it to me to add to the postcard museum, that is my room. I personally really like typography and was particularly intrigued by the wording in the left hand corner (shown above). The reason I do not want to write the word that is seems to have caused somewhat confusion amongst the masses. Take a moment to see if you can read it, and then scroll down to see if you are right.

Personally to me, it was as clear as day. The beautifully designed word read, “Be” (confirmed by the website name.) However, to others it wasn’t so obvious, as they read the word “Do”. I thought this was particularly interesting, and I began to ask random friends and family what they thought the word read, with distinct results. To put it bluntly the designers could read the word perfectly, everyone else couldn’t.

Undoubtedly this is a beautifully designed word, with the postcards pattern being incorporated into the text, a design in which anyone could, and did appreciate, however somewhere in the design process it would seem the aesthetics maybe have been more important than the readability of the actual word. I have begun to notice that this is maybe a huge flaw in graphics today. As designers we are trying to create work, which is “subtly genius”, simple yet send a clever message, but in the end the message is getting lost being the single graphical elements that make it up. This has only become clearer to me, when my own work has come under some scrutiny.

The images below are sections of my revised posters for our first year project based on promoting a 2 hour lunch break for city workers.




Several people have seen these posters, and again I have received a mixed reaction. As always the designers can understand and appreciate the movie concept although they are not alone as others, although it may take a little longer also “get it”. When showing my mum, doctors in the making and future economists, they just couldn’t grasp why I had turned a W side ways, but to my sister it was glaringly “obvious”, when clearly it wasn’t as obvious as I thought. These two examples have certainly made me more aware of a huge problem facing a designer. Now more and more we are trying to be clever in our designs, but it seems we are beginning to design work, perhaps not realising it, but for our fellow designers, rather than the people we are aiming for, a balance we need to regain before non-designers are completely left out the loop.