Posted by Billy Bob on November 22, 2001
Mike Jackson - Texaco's Red on GraySince we all are such great designers, we have no trouble identifying poorly designed items. Right? Well, what do you think is the "worst" designed thing that you have? Mine (most hated) is my cheap "Sears Craftsman" shop vacuum, a horribly made beast that is always a total screaming nightmere to use.
Raymond ChapmanTexaco revamped their stations a few years back and used that med/dark gray as the background and then put the red star on top of it. That combination only works under the best of lighting conditions as far as I am concerned.
The new Radio Shack logo with the single "R" offset inside a red circle is a little tough for me to take, too. Someone probably got paid a lot of money for it, but the real hero is the marketing sales person who "sold" or pitched the thing to the board members.
Just rambling...
Mike
Kent SmithWouldn't you like to have been in the room when these things were sold? I'll just bet that the explanation of all the details and the subliminal message of each was so thick that you had to wear hip waders.
I was on a church building committee one time and had to listen to a $100 an hour interior decorator explain the color scheme she had chosen for our new building. What a joke! It looked like every other church in town....which she had probably chosen the colors for.
Sometimes, I think the reason that we don't get the dollars that other agencies get is that we simply don't know how to talk fast enough.
CarolIt still amazes me how those trained in print advertising have dominated our industry. With very few exceptions, instead of bringing in a sign expert, they blunder along making fatal errors for their clients. I guess if Madison Avenue was where we wanted to be, we would have at least applied though.
Kent SmithThe placement of the cup holders in my truck is terrible. It's just above the heater/AC controls so that if it's in use, I can't see the heater adjustments plus the vents blow directly on the container - cooling your coffee in the summer, heating your soda in the winter. Toyota manufacturers probably don't drink in their cars. Oh, and the driver side visor doesn't have a mirror, only the passenger side does. But it has a lot of miles and is still running.
Rick SacksThe telephone dial that is exactly backward from the calculator. One or the other messes me up regularly.
Mike JacksonA few years ago I was visiting in Phoenix. I saw a trailer park next to a movie theatre next to some residences and a used car lot and some kind of factory with some take out restaurant thrown into the hodge podge. Seeing this certainly encouraged me to arrpreciate the municipal planners that sometimes I disagree with over sign matters. Zoning and the layout of districts can almost be followed by the Mike Stevens concepts. Lay out a sign, a painting, decorating a living room, or municipal overlays all have something in common.
Hi Billy,
I sold it with the shop 6 years ago. Now they have it....
I bought a 6' stepladder a long time ago. Instead of having some sort of V fold up mechanism, the paint can tray had two long "legs" that had to be raised to its upright position before you could fold the ladder. I fought that ladder for 10 years and always said the designer should have been forced to a lifetime of using the stupid thing.
Mike
Mike Jackson
Nikon digital cameras had a bad design prior to the 990s. The flash card was located in a slot on the bottom of the camera. If you were doing studio shots with the camera mounted to the tripod, you had to take it apart before you could get the flash card to the computer for downloading the images. I read about that problem on the Internet, and then waited until the reviewers told us they had fixed the problem. Now the card slips out the end.
Mike Jackson
Sarah
New vehicles. I used to be able to do about everything under the hood of my old 60's trucks. You could change a thermostat in a couple minutes. My 95 Chevy truck it takes over an hour with much cussing and trying to find some wrench that will fit in the opening to get to the bolts. I dont even have the strength to get into the openings to remove the wires to change plugs, they are so inaccessable
Of course this is designed on purpose so people can't or are discouraged from doing their own maintainance. Not very practical for rural areas.