My sister and brother-in-law sold their house in Madison, Connecticut, and moved into a lovely and practical townhouse, which they extensively remodeled. They couldn’t bear to change the inside of the downstairs bathroom door, but they did admit it was getting a little old for them.

I agreed it looked somewhat dated, but I also suggested it could be modified slightly to make it seem fresher and more modern. So I sent them my idea.

I’m still waiting to hear back.

I’ve shown this type of thing before. Having a bit of graphic design background, I’m (once again) appalled. There’s essentially nothing good about this design, from busy background to type and color choices. Which I guess is kind of an accomplishment in itself.

 

 

Waiting for the car’s oil to be changed, I started looking through the freebie local business advertising mag. This not only occupies time, but challenges my Spanish vocabulary, and having some experience in graphic design, allows me to amuse myself by mentally redesigning ads.

But oh, an article about baking soda — always interesting.

Unless it’s basically illegible because of garbaged-up type. And not because of  low resolution or image compression—

— it really is that bad. So, OK, not I’m not going to read that article.

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Below it on the page, a “spot the differences” image. Not my favorite, but worth a minute or two.

But immediately I am stopped by a quandary: is the fact that the two images are cropped differently meant to be one of the differences, or does it simply represent more design incompetence?