The article I read tells how easy it is to make a bad design, tamper with a great design, and how to make the successor of a great design inferior to its predecessor. As mentioned in the article, examples of bad design include things that are dangerous, things that don't work properly, and things that are needlessly complicated. Alice Rawsthorn, the author of this article noticed a clumsy design of a "Diverted cyclists" sign. She found is clumsy due to the "D" in "Diverted" being given the most visual weight by being bigger than everything else on the sign. As a result, many people are distracted by the letter D, gaining much trouble concentrating on what the sign says. Alice also talks about inconsistency in sign designs. When there are signs that say "Tower Bridge", one sign may have both words in the phrase start in capital letters, while another may have only the first one be capital. Finally, Alice discusses the importance of "pleasing the eye". Despite how she felt about London's congestion charge, she believed that its logo did its job well with its clearness and coherency. Another example she brings is the previous logo designs for companies like UPS and Citroen. Alice, alongside many other people find the current designs we have for these companies to be similar, yet inferior to their predecessors. She considers this a result of the "unworthy successor syndrome." Overall, I find this article to be really impressive. It does a really job at knowing when a design has flaws and inconsistencies. While Alice states that many artists are guilty for committing crimes against design, I believe that some today will learn from their mistakes.
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