5 Finds - Bad Typography

During the '08 election season I couldn't put my finger on why the GOP web site was so unappealing, yet the Dem site was so nice to look at. Now I know that the type had a lot to do with it. Where do you even begin on this site? It has a bazillion fonts, point sizes and colors.

Ok, I must admit that I found this on another blog site, and I probably wouldn't have noticed the terrible typography otherwise. The spacing in line two is wack, and then line three has the words crammed together. You would think that the FBI could do a little better, especially since this is shown before EVERY movie.

I found a web site called papyruswatch.com, and I will never look at the font the same way again. Here is one of the worst examples posted on the site. Not only are the graphics bad, but everything else is crammed and ugly.

I'm not sure if this is a magazine ad or newspaper insert or what, but I can count at least three different fonts that don't really compliment eachother. Zoe's is in this fun font, but everything else is in a serious font with only color to add spunk to it.

This reminds me of a "before" from Cardon Copy. Whoever designed this should have been fired, unless they were color blind or nearly blind.

5 Finds - Magazine Layouts

A lot of the spreads I saw used some sort of mirror effect on the two pages. One would have a picture of someone's head, and the other side was an oval shape that was similar in shape. This does it too with the lines forming a circular pattern like the plates. I like that they split the word "meal" up and then carroted in the word "family" in the actual article.

If the smudge wasn't down the center of the picture, I don't think I would have taken a second look at this spread. The messiness of it, combined with the large amount of white space draws me right into the words.

If this spread didn't include Richard Gere, I probably wouldn't have included it. However, the black, grey and white mixed with real photography and animation makes the viewer want to know what is going on here. I like the quirkiness of it.

I suppose I really like black and white pictures. Once again, there is so much white space that you have to read what is written on the business card, and you want to know why that suit-clad man is walking off the page.

I love that this is spread over two pages, and it is just one giant picture. If this doesn't make you want to read this article, then I don't think anything would. It is also very personal because everything is written by hand, not typed.

5 Finds Menus

The word "boring" comes to mind when I see this menu. There are words everywhere, and they are crammed as tight as possible on the pages. If they invested in at least one other color, it might break up the monotonous amount of words a bit.

This design is more interesting with the background and look of torn paper. I would like to know the atmosphere of the restaurant because at first I thought of a place like Joe's Crab Shack, however they serve breakfast and the prices aren't high.

This menu is visually nice to look at, however, I don't know how easy it would be to actually order from. The colors and shapes are super fun, though, and I would want to eat here just by looking at this menu.

A place called Rico's probably needs all the help it can get (just kidding). At first I didn't like this at all, but then I looked at how everything was grouped. It actually very simple to order, but no descriptions are provided. It's alright, but maybe they could split it up on two pages to give more information about the food.

The colors on this menu are beautiful, and I love the white and yellow print they use. This is probably my favorite find this week because of the subtle details and also because of the bold graphics they use.