I’m always noticing work that flies in the face of everything I’ve learned in school. It can be downright annoying to mentally critique everything you see, a common problem among designers, but what I didn’t expect was to start appreciating some very ugly work for the same reasons. It could be a personal factor of coming from a school and city over-saturated with design students, as you can only see so many clever phrases set in Helvetica before you start WANTING to be assaulted by some crudely scrawled electric type with no rhyme or reason, just to keep your sanity and challenge your eyes. We do things so cleanly and deliberately here at Mode that I get the occasional urge to stretch type at random, maybe throw in some neon unicorns. You know, just to mix it up. I guess many designers regularly embrace this type of stuff from an ironic standpoint, and normally I’m appreciating it only for its comedic value too, but sometimes it really is perfectly appropriate.

I see this a lot in music, cd art, apparel, concert posters, etc, design that I know is bad but can’t imagine any other way. Nobody does it better than metal and punk bands. The truth is, “professional” is not for everybody…sometimes I actually want to see dirty, amateur-level, barely-coherent layouts. Case in point: one of my favorites, Gogol Bordello. This east-european gypsy punk band projects a care-free, bohemian, wild drunken and reckless vibe. Have a look at their latest release. If they had an amazing meticulously-designed album cover, even though its a project I would love to have myself, I may in the back of my mind wonder how and why. Now of course I don’t know any transient gypsies, but I don’t imagine them being particularly concerned with high-end design, so it raises questions of authenticity. Could they have conveyed this same scene better and more easily without the heavy-handed compositing and worst of all, the flood of green? Sure, but in this case I really don’t mind believing that some roadie’s nephew whipped this up in an ancient version of Photoshop in exchange for a fifth of Jagermeister and a pat on the back. I feel kind of drunk just looking at it…mission accomplished! It’s not so much about their degree of exposure or underground credentials, its about persona. If that persona is completely guerilla, refinement is not necessarily going to do it any favors.

The same principle applies to a lot of small businesses and their signage. I will take an awful hand-painted weathered sign or mural over designed but mediocre backlit plastic lettering any day. My favorite parts of any given city are always those with buildings painted in noisy color schemes and saturated with signage, posters, and fliers, most of which are great examples of awesomely bad design. Have those of you in Charlotte ever driven by the Thirsty Beaver on Central or the Rat’s Nest in NoDa? If you have, you’ll remember it, you’ll almost certainly have a conversation about it, and chances are good you’ll be tempted into visiting. Maybe there’s something to this…in fact I think Thirsty Beaver knew exactly what they were doing.

Don’t get me wrong, the world has more than enough bad design, but even with all the useful guidelines we designers swear by, from a marketing standpoint ugly isn’t nearly as bad as forgettable.