WaMu at present time.

WaMu at present time

Bad and Good Design example in 2 pictures

Bad and Good Design examples just in two pictures.

Design and usability Sucks:

Usability sucks

Design and usability OK:

Usability OK

Design Fail FIXED: Adobe HQ got rid of ugly gallows at their roof

In respond to my recent post about ugly look of Adobe HQ because of “gallows” on the roof, Adobe got rid of them after a few years of public exposure:

FIXED (September 2008)

How it was before:

Design Fail: Gallows on the roof (August 2008)

Good job, guys! And thank you for reading DesignFail.org

Design Fail factor: 0 (out of 10)

Stop here and we will slam turnpike at the roof of your car

Another non-official road sign designed with high attention to details. Here it is: “Stop here on red and we will slam railroad turnpike at the roof your car and six particles of it will be airborne”.

Road sign

Design Fail factor: 6 (out of 10)

Digg.com: Registration Usability Sucks

Afghanistan, Angola and Antarctica

That’s super lame! How many subscribers from Afghanistan, Angola and Antarctica do you guys have?
Why not to spend some of your time and work a little bit on the website’s registration page usability?
Is it too hard to organize the ‘country’ pool down list based on number of registrations? Or is it too hard to detect the user’s IP, convert it into ‘country’ info and then preselect the country name in the list (HTML tag <option> in tag <select>)?
Tip: Go check out how Google’s Gmail does it: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

Design Fail factor: 1(out of 10)

A Physically Handicapped Cat as a Creamer

Here is another sample of “made in china” brutal tableware creativity: a physically handicapped cat with tear off paw to serve you as a creamer.

Physically handicapped Cat as a Creamer

Design Fail factor: 9 (out of 10)

Washington Mutual Logo transformation and their possible future

Re-branding of “Washington Mutual” into “WaMu” should have serious reasons. One of the reasons perhaps could be that most of the bank’s mortgage clients (who “no qualifying: OK, no credit history: OK, bankruptcy: OK”) could hardly read and pronounce “Washington Mutual” in English. The word “WaMu” of course is easier to read and remember.

The next logical step will be to do re-branding into “WM”:

WaMu logo transformation

Logo shrinkage follows the bank financial situation (check out the ticker symbol – they are actually traded as “WM”):

WaMu chart

Links:
Washington Mutual, Bank (www.wamu.com)
Waste Management, Garbage company (www.wastemanagement.com)

WM truck

Kaiser: “Don’t Taze me Bro”

Kaiser Permanente (health care organization in the US) recently came up with a fresh creative idea for billboard ads:

Baby boomers to vote for themselves

It is hard to say what message does Kaiser send to us. Am I also eligible to vote for myself or I am not qualified by age? Or only baby boomers are welcome to vote for themselves?

There is more. “You are under arrest. Step away from the vehicle, turn around and put your hands on top of your head”:

Am I under arrest?

Impression I got after observing these billboards after a week:

You are under arrest

Design Fail factor: 4 (out of 10).

Update: 7macaw’s suggestion:

Don

Atoyot

Atoyot

It is lame to expose logos this way when the text does not read in both directions (i.e not a palindrome)

California Disaster Potato Chips

California disaster chips

I bought this bag of potato chips at a nearby gas station just because of it’s brand name.
Wow! Let me take it from here. Here is an idea for the company to expand product line with the following:

• “New Orleans Chips: Mama of all Floods”
• “Southern California Chips: Wildfire on 1000 acres”
• “San Francisco Chips: #1 Earthquake and now Final”
• “Texas Chips: Hurricane Ike”

Possible initial Design idea: “The Earthquake taste of our chips will knock you down”.

Where the Fail is: In California, the word “earthquake” means “disaster“. However this is good name for a first aid and survival kits.