Friday, March 24, 2006

It's Friday kids, and we all know what that means. Everyone is giddy excitement because Friday means the weekend is just hours away. We are t-minus 4 hours to beer o'clock and counting. Be safe this weekend and don't do anything I wouldn't do. Or maybe it should be don't do anything I would do...

We need to talk. We need to talk specifically about design. I'd like to introduce a new feature today, a new editorial column of sorts. We'll call it "Your Design SUCKS" because, well, that's what it's about.

As a designer I am very sensitive to things of a design nature, and I am also very picky. So when I see a bad design, I get emotional. I get very worked up, and I cannot help but think to myself, "Someone who thought they were a designer made that." And it hurts me inside. It slowly kills me. It kills me that someone thought it was OK to create something so horrible that my eyes bleed and I want to shove a red-hot fork in my ear and through my brain. Repeatedly. Until I'm dead.

Today's bad design is a morass of awfulness. It is the web site for the Hispanic Contractors of Colorado. And it makes me want to commit homicidal acts against small kittens. Let's start.

First off, the graphics are horrible. I'm not sure what kind of color scheme they are trying to bring across, but to me it says "waste management facility". It's possibly that they were trying to go for some Southwesty looking colors, but they should have stuck with something that says construction. The rivets on those side buttons almost do that. Except not. And who the hell made those buttons, anyway? A four year old child?

By this time I'm sure you've heard the very thing that shocked and horrified me. Yes, that is the Macarena you hear. In MIDI format, too. I can only help but think, "Why?" Perhaps they are trying to undermine any and all chances of race equality. Perhaps they think it's funny. Perhaps they need to have their eyeballs gouged out with dull, rusty spoons.

Let's talk about the design and layout. Or rather, the lack of. It looks like someone just puked up a few logos and buttons, slapped a header on there, and went off to go puke some other stuff up. There is no apparent heirarchy of any sort, and did they even try to align anything? The worst of it is the collection of "sponsors" on the bottom of the page. Dreadful.

I won't even get into the scrolly wanna be news ticker. Mostly because I need to go shoot myself in the face. I hoped you enjoyed this inagural issue of "Your Design Sucks" as much as I did. Please remember: violence against kittens is needless and cruel. Please commit your violent acts against inanimate objects. And no, goldfish are not inanimate.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha, I liked it. Good job. Can't wait for the next installment.

Looking at the website, it just looked like any other crappy website out there, but the Macarena in midi format made it truely horrendous/hilarious. =)

Anonymous said...

Oh, thank goodness for library computers that don't have speakers.