We have a pair of new billboards in Minneapolis, placed by Minnesota Atheists, that are sure to spark furious debate.
I know what you’re thinking: COMIC SANS?!?? How could they? (Do atheists ever consult with professional graphic designers before doing these things, I wonder…)
Otherwise, though, these are nice, clear, positive messages that at the same time are sure to piss some people off, and also hit people in that same emotional frame that I see all the time in theists’ billboards. There might be some people driving along who initially mistake them for Pro-Life Across America billboards, and then their heads will explode as the message sinks in.
My guess is they used Comic Sans to make them look more like the Pro-Life Across America billboards.
Isn’t Comic Sans and a yellow background a good way for dyslexic people to read what a sign says?
I am Comic Sans
nevermind the comic sans; that’s the worst yellow in the history of yellows. it’s making my eyes hurt
How can anyone get mad at a billboard with a cute baby on it?
I love this, and want it to be a series.
“No, don’t tell me I’m going to hell, Mommy!”
“Why is there a dead man on a letter t above my crib?”
“Why is God watching me all the time? That’s scary!”
Oh, and:
(boy baby)
“You’re going to cut what off of my where?”
(girl baby)
“But why do I have to submit to men?”
Comic Sans is really easy to read, not just for those with dyslexia.
If you are not in on the joke, you won’t care.
Oh gods! The colors! The fonts! The blurry, oversaturated photo! That’s got to be one of the most offensive billboards I’ve ever seen! It should be taken down on principle.
[Logs another data point in lifelong exercise to understand why people use ‘cute’ in same context as ‘babies’.]
it’s not about being “in on the joke”
Comic Sans (and Papyrus) are nearly universally despised by graphic designers.
That’s not Comic Sans. Look at the lowercase ‘s’. There’s a stupid half-serif on it in Comic Sans. It’s not as hip as Marker Felt, but at least it’s not as brain damaged as Comic Sans.
But yeah, not a graphic designer here, but even I can see that they should have run screaming in terror at this design.
as for dyslexic-friendly fonts, I think I prefer this
Huh, I brought up all of these points when Greg Laden posted the original design at his blog, but the Eric Jayne got all huffy about my nasty tone and didn’t take any of my advice.
I guess I’m not the only huge asshole with two eyes who can see that these are nearly the worst designed billboards ever. Thank you Pharyngulistas, you make me think I’m not crazy.
it’s probably “apple casual” same thing, different copyright
Here is an example of the billboard design they are lampooning and/or being influenced by:
http://www.prolifeacrossamerica.org/currentcampaign/Fall%202008%20Campaign%20Justin.jpg
These billboards are ubiquitous in Minnesota. If the goal of American Atheists was to get people too look at the billboard because they’re expecting another pro-life one, then I think they’re doing it right.
We’re all born without knowledge of evolution, too. Is that relevant?
Why would being born without belief in God mean anything? That there’s no reason to pick up such a belief, on the other hand, does matter.
The message should follow good logic.
Glen Davidson
I also understand that Myriad is an easily readable font, but it’s not as casual as Dyslexie. And I suspecd “casual” was what the “designer” was going for
which is significantly better designed, so they hardly had an excuse here.
But we are born with gods. When we are babies our parents are huge, all-powerful beings who give us everything we need to survive. They are mysterious and must be propitiated which is why being cute has been so strongly conserved by evolution.
and now I see from Nepenthe’s link that they did originally have the real Comic Sans, and replaced it with this almost-Comic Sans.
*facepalm*
Of course, we eventually grow up and realize that our parents are not gods. Sadly, by then the habit has set for many who are eager to invent substitutes.
I really like the Dyslexie font.
Myriad is ugly.
my link to the Dyslexie sample seems to be borked for some reason…
http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/partner/new-font-helps-dyslexics-read.pdf
I dislike the first slogan, as I don’t think it’s possible to teach someone to think for themselves.
Most children I’ve met think for themselves.
It’s not pretty.
Those posters make me feel hungry.
As a teacher in a special school in the nineties when we were all starting to use word-processing instead of longhand to label displays of children’s work etc, we were told to use Comic Sans as it best resembled how we were teaching the children to write (lower case “a” particularly). I know this was the case in a number of primary schools too. It does have an infantile look (and reputation), so I think it is perfect for a statement meant to be coming from an infant.
The yellow however, I’m not so sure. But absolutely love them for the message. Like Carlie I want a series, how about:
“So you promised me Santa, the tooth fairy, the baby Jesus and the Easter Bunny… so which ones were lies… and why should I believe you?”
Um, with respect to the second message – we are also born without the ability to speak a language, which is not exactly an argument for muteness. Perhaps this would be better:
“Religious stories about God, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Krishna, the Buddha, etc. are imaginary stories, just like Peter Pan and Santa Claus and Paul Bunyan and Beowulf. These are all products of human imagination.”
Yeah, the “teach” in the first message should maybe be replaced with “allow”.
I’m more bothered by the fact that the baby in the upper graphic is wider than the baby in the lower graphic. OCD.
@ beer
CDO – OCD, but in alphabetical order… as it should be.
Really ? I am not quite sure what you mean by this, as it is obvious people can be taught the skills required to think for themselves. We normally call that process education.
While I agree that the messages are quite acceptable, urrgh I’m sorry, but they’re absolutely hideous. Please, atheist organizations.. make a call for a trained designer to produce them in the future. I’m sure plenty of us would do it for free (I would!) This is embarrassing!
Wow
Atheists are quickly become a graphic design joke in the industry… Worst billboards ever.
Seriously guys, I will do ANY design work pro bono for atheism.
Whoever made that billboard should be fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. I’m sorry but it makes us look like unintelligent attention whores.
To all future billboard designers – USE A PROFESSIONAL. You wouldn’t do your own dental work would you? It’s the same thing, trust me.
I am sad about the billboard design, so much so I can’t say “well it’s alright because of the message”… Sorry guys, but you’re pissing off graphic designers with your clumsy bludgeonings on photoshop.
@ 32 Matt Penfold
I do not believe a single one of my educators has ‘taught me how to think’ – the worst educators were authoritarians who wanted as much conformity as possible these were against people learning how to think, though they wouldn’t admit it; the best ones have encouraged class participation in the discussion of ideas but even this good practice is not ‘teaching how to think’ IMO.
Ugh. It’s a good idea but this is one of the ugliest goddamn designs I have seen in years. When the godbothering ad you’re satirizing is better designed than your own ad, you may have a problem.
Seriously. I’m nowhere near being a qualified graphic designer but what training I do have is shrieking in protest of this piece.
Personally I’m wondering if these billboards will be erected and if they are, will they be vandalized. Because if the answer to the first part is “yes” then the answer to the second is definitely “yes” as well and I’m willing to bet the cops won’t do a dang thing.
One other thing I’m sure of, this will reach the national level.
I fixed some problems with the banner, but ultimately, the photo of the baby needed to be a lot more professionally lit and posed. if you have no photographer on hand, just fucking buy a pic off a microstock site, ffs.
http://jadehawks.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/mna1.jpeg
I like the “don’t indoctrinate” billboard. All Christians brainwash their children and they know they have to do that. If they wait for their victims to grow up first, they would never believe any of the fantasies.
I’m too lazy to bother with it but it would be nice if these billboards were in god-soaked south Florida.
The problem with atheist groups is that too many of them take the rejection of intelligent design a little too far…
I agree with the criticism of the color and font, but with an additional beef. Too wordy. “Let me decide what to believe” for the first and “You were born atheist, it’s ok to be one again.” for the second. I mean, how much do you expect people to read at 70 mph? (While drinking a Super Mega Frickin Humongous Gulp, checking their hair in the rearview, and texting?)
Ramel
Please elaborate. Atheist groups completely reject ID. Shold they only half reject it?
Or are you just objecting to atheists having a voice?
@ Ragutis
When I pointed that problem out to Eric Jayne, he essentially responded that it doesn’t matter whether people can read it the first time, because they will see it on the internet and the news when some yahoo vandalises it. Also, he expects that people will see it more than once on their commutes and thus read it… in chunks? Serially? Also that since the billboard is placed in a 30-40 mph zone and not on a highway, good design principles don’t matter.
Clearly, the designer’s ego was quite tied up in this billboard. Atheist doesn’t mean rational or reasonable.
Koshka, he’s talking about intelligent graphic design.
It’s a joke, son.
@Koshka
Joke.
–
–
–
Your head.
I wonder if AA even looked for experienced billboard designers to work on this. You’re not Microsoft, you don’t have to do everything in-house for the sake of doing it in-house.
@ Nepenthe
“Clearly, the designer’s ego was quite tied up in this billboard. Atheist doesn’t mean rational or reasonable.”
I really wish it did, you know? This is embarrassing for the rest of the atheists out there.
Is it not just as simple as having child on the billboard, so it’s written in a childish font. Or am I being too simple…..
Duncan:
There are a lot of ways by which we learn to think. Discussion of ideas is part of it, so it seams some of your educators at least did a decent job. For the rest, it seems that you have had been unfortunate in this domain, I’m sorry.
But it’s not obvious immediately what the things that help us learn the most are. Sometimes it’s just a conversation, or something read in a book, or more basically and critically, it’s being exposed to different ideas and opinions, different ways of living and thinking. We need to exercise our critical faculty if we are to have independent ideas. Adults (not just in school, but in the family, in books, TV, etc.) can help children by engaging them to observe, to think, to question everything without prejudice.
Thankfully, most children do have a spontaneous tendency to be curious and ask questions. The job of a good educator is then to encourage them, to make new suggestions when necessary, to help them tease out more complex situations as they grow up.
That’s why the idea of “teaching children how to think for themselves” is not devoid of sense: it means learning by doing, mostly.
It’s very different from religious or political indoctrination, where personal opinions are discouraged in favour of perfecting the parroting of dogma.
Koshka, check your irony meter, it needs recalibrating.
Ramel,
Sorry,
Have been on the child rape enabling thread and have been wound up.
Nah. Never really got into that silly internet meme.
I wonder if the message will sink in for most xians. It would have to penetrate the meters-thick layers of their confirmation bias first – the bias that will lead them to think that any billboard featuring a baby = either a ‘prolife’ ad or one for diapers without bothering to do anything so radical as actually reading the associated text…
And even if they did read it, they would simply slip into self righteousness mode and say something along the lines of;
“Look how awful those evil atheists are; using a baby to attack the religious foundations of our one nation under god. I wonder if they ate it after they were done? There really is no depth that the godless won’t sink to in their war on teh baby Jeebus.”
While completely ignoring the fact that fundies routinely employ images of babies in their
propogandamedia campaigns, as well as such nasty tactics as using images of bloody foetuses in order to try to shock people with the supposed ‘immorality’ of abortion.Still, that is no surprise. Isn’t hypocrisy one of the xian sacraments?
Hm.. too wordy perhaps. background should be bright green or pastel orange, not yellow. Font should be legible but not complex. Times New Roman or Arial would be good, if a bit plain.
But plain is good for advertising. overly complex or hard to read fonts just bother people.
Is there a single, solitary atheist in North America who can write a strap-line and design a billboard? I’m starting to think that there isn’t. What an embarassment – made all the worse by the fact that they actively solicited advice for it.
Expanding (expounding!?) on Irene’s point; We never know what challenges us at such an early age. You can either get hammered to conform or be encouraged to learn.
Now that I think of it, is there an inverse relationship between the quality/worth of a message and its billboard design? Where I live, WorldNetDaily had some “Where’s that birth certificate?” billboards up last year. They actually looked really professional, eye-catching, and to the point, so much so that I drove up and down the road hootin’ and hollerin’ “YEAH! WHERE IS THAT BIRTH CERTIFICATE?” until I managed to regain my composure.
Ragutis -From the picture of on billboard I saw, it appears to be at 3rd/Hennepin, downtown Minneapolis. If it’s the site I think, the board is visible from a busy street at a stoplight, so a longer message is OK. There was an anti-animal cruelty board there that had 4 paragraphs on it last summer, IIRC.
The problem here is with the attribution lines. It’s too honest. We need to come up with a think tank like “ReligiousSanity.org” or “People For Religious Freedom”.
Look at what the opposition has learned to do. Do they call it creationism still? No, it’s “Intelligent Design” from the “Discovery Institute”. How can you be against “Discovery” or “Intelligence”? Maybe we need to adopt better marketing practices.
Yeah, except we try really hard to be honest. It’s kinda a major part of what makes us us. They they are the dishonest ones.
BTW, what’s with the “Daddy, save me from the evil abortionist” meme on those “pro-life” billboards?
Ah good they’ve solved the problem of vandalism by using a design so ugly that defacing it can only be an improvement
Ball is in your court theists.
And next…
One nation under 2500 gods, your choice which ones, or none.
Has the donation link been taken down?
It appeals to the fear some men have that they won’t have progeny because disobedient womenfolk, possibly under the influence of feminists, lesbians, or Planned Parenthood, will have abortions every time they become pregnant.
Eric Jayne here. I’d like to have the opportunity to explain a few things. First of all I, along with the other volunteers behind this billboard project, have heard all about the criminal faux pas of using comic sans. Many examples with different fonts were created and evaluated. We decided on this font (NOT comic sans) which is, I believe, called “chalk” because it matched the childish theme of the billboard which, to be sure, is meant to satirize the “pro-life” billboards scattered throughout Minnesota.
Secondly, there is obviously a lot of people who are disgusted with me and my efforts in organizing, and being mostly responsible for, designing and revealing these two billboards. In fact a particular user on this thread has attacked me and my character with accusations including one that suggests I have too big of an ego to take criticism. And now I would like to respond.
I had an idea to create these billboards that would mock the many “pro-life” billboard designs while making a solid argument for atheism that I thought most atheists would find positive. I sought criticism and feedback by sharing a design idea with a leader in a national atheist organization who agreed to assist with the funding but suggested specific wording and gave me a 2-month deadline. I took it to the MN Atheists president and board and tweaked it a little more based on their direction. I then presented it to the aforementioned atheist funder again and he signed off on it.
Then I posted it on the MN Atheists facebook page and group page for more feedback. It was there that the comic sans font was corrected. We went through a series of font changes (as mentioned earlier) and settled on the font that is currently on the billboards which is… *Not* *Comic* *Sans* because it matched the theme we were going after.
I don’t accept the accusation that my ego is too big to take criticism and I think I have demonstrated that I actively sought criticism. I will admit that I have become tired of brutal and disparaging criticism and have developed a little less tolerance of it lately. My skin is still pretty think so I am capable of taking the attacks, but I just might offer a well-earned aggressive response.
It seems like everyone’s a critic and everyone can do a better job…but they didn’t try and I did. It wasn’t easy and it took A LOT of my time which I was happy to volunteer in spite of having a busy family life with three kids and four jobs between me and my wife while also caring for my sick parents in Iowa and volunteering my time with my usual MN Atheists activities.
I’m not a professional graphic designer (although I did learn some basic graphic design skills) but the way I see it, this billboard needed to be bright and bold. It needed to catch the eye of pedestrians and drivers in an environment where there’s a lot of competition for visual attention (buildings, other billboards, signs, sky, lights, people, and interior stuff in a driver’s car). So I think simple and bold is desirable in the case of these billboards.
Okay, carry on with your complaining and dumping on me and our efforts….
@ericjayne
And your post is a perfect example of my point. You didn’t ask for the help of experts; you decided to go it alone, for whatever reason. And when you, unsurprisingly, produced something rather awful, you decided to take all criticism personally and go ahead with your original design virtually unchanged. And now you’re acting all hurt that no one is stroking you for all the good work you’ve done in making this thing. This isn’t kindergarten; you don’t get a medal for participation.
Example: no one cares that the font you used isn’t actually called Comic Sans. Taking the criticism of the original choice of ugly font into consideration, meant, to you, using a font virtually indistinguishable from Comic Sans and then getting upset when people continue to point out the monstrosity.
Good for you and your efforts. I hope that you feel super good about yourself. I suppose that’s far more important than spending donated money wisely on effective marketing.
ericjayne,
The problem isn’t the work that you put into it, which I’m sure was tremendous; the problem was that you asked focus groups of atheists to check your work, when a single graphic designer wold have been far more helpful. For content, sure, ask the atheists. For design, ask an expert.
@68
“For content, sure, ask the atheists. For design, ask an expert.”
For the love of all that is unholy, please ask an expert about the content, as well. The design of these and other atheist billboards is so bad that it eclipses the badness of the copy, but seriously….people hire copywriters for a reason. And, like designers, there are many of us who will gladly offer our services for cheap (or even free) to the right cause.
I appreciate all the hard work you did. But you could have gotten a volunteer to do better work for free. You’re not a professional and that’s ok, but you can get professional help on future projects. Consider it a win/win, it’s less work for you
Wow. I just showed this to my roommate. I could hear his reaction from in here.
DAMN but those are as homely as a mule’s ass.
And lest you misread that, my roommate has a degree in design and he does it both as a job and a hobby. And I know if I bring it up again, he will project a wave of pure hatred in all directions.
So I’m going to go bring it up again. Should be good fun.
I like the design, the color and the font.
These are billboards. If they are near roadways they must catch attention, deliver a message and be done, without being so distracting as to contribute to tail end collisions. There is no time for clever little obfuscations that demand double takes (I’ve used those on t-shirts – works great under the right circumstances). The font is clear and easy to read under lighting conditions that would render many fonts useless. No fluff. No silly baby script. No pretentious nonsense.
And if it annoys some graphic designers (you must say this in a totally flat voice, with no inflection): Well, good.
Nepenthe: I don’t know how my post is a “perfect example of your point”. I took the lead but once I presented it to the aforementioned national atheist leader and the MNA board it was anything but me going alone. I had little control of which font was ultimately selected and implemented the direction of those who had far more decision making power than me. This was an unmistakable group effort with very limited time. I merely triggered it with a proposal.
You’re talking from a very ignorant perspective since you have no idea about the decision making process, but you’ve selected me as your personal punching bag. I’m not “hurt” as you suggested, but I am getting annoyed and weary of your attacks.
I want to reiterate, I asked for and accepted criticism, but when the attacks are been personal (like when you accused me of being irrational and egotistical) or when you attacked the billboard with guns blazing full of disparaging remarks, then yeah I get a little angry. A couple of your original beefs with the billboard image (comic sans font and background) were already fixed before you mentioned them and as far as the line breaks I explained why we didn’t think the line breaks would work.
Your condescending remarks about me thinking that I think people should be stroking me and that I should be getting a medal, and that I am confusing this effort for kindergarten is an example of why I dislike your remarks. In fact I am convinced that you’re an obnoxious jerk–perhaps with a low self-esteem. I’m picturing Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.
…and I want to add that I really like the simple and bold billboard design that we decided on and I’m proud of the work we did.
OW OW OW. That horrid yellow background. That hideous font. The weird look on the kid’s face. The first one is a good message, but the composition is so awful Greg Laden must be to blame.
The second one has a horribly confused message. “born again” Christians have a reputation (deserved) for fanatical jabbermouths. They’re called “godbotherers” for a reason. Too many of them bother everyone who comes near them with their preaching. They are horridly uncritical. The phrase “born-again atheist” plays right into the hands of those who love to brand atheists as fundamentalists.
@eric
If you don’t like the look, don’t wear it. You’re the one who’s decided to take comments about this particular abomination against the non-blind personally. You were the one who decided to make personal remarks first originally as well. Until you decided to parade your hurt ego around, I didn’t think it worth mentioning.
And seriously? The comic sans problem? Not fixed. Ever. If you haven’t understood the problem–that no one gives a shit about the name that your editing software gives the font, we care what it looks like and that looks like both comic sans and a mule’s ass–perhaps you should add “not-too-bright” to that list of character traits.
Btw, I’m nothing like Comic Book Guy. I always make sure that my enormous gut is covered by my shirt and I would never wear red shorts.
I can’t help myself, when I see a poor design I’m compelled to redo it in an attempt to use the concept of the original design in a more appealing manner.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j244/mphage/betterbillboard.png
I did shorten the message as you have only a matter of seconds to get your point across in billboard design. It’s also a much harder to argue against message, IMO. Hopefully I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes too badly in posting this.
you do know that the objection to comic sans is not an essentialist one, but an aesthetical one? using one of the comic sans clones don’t make the design issues go away.
and in all the asking around, did you bother consulting someone whose job it is to make these kind of things?
I don’t accept the accusation that my ego is too big to take criticism and I think I have demonstrated that I actively sought criticism. I’ve seen the thread in which Nepenthe pointed out your line-break issues. You sounded like someone who could have been featured on http://clientsfromhell.net/
no, not “everyone”; but some of us make a living with design. So, again, did you actually ask if there are any graphic designers who are also atheists who would have been willing to design this for you? Or advise you, at least?
no shit
there’s ways to do that without using 1)an incredibly ugly kind of yellow; 2)using an incredibly ugly kind of font; 3)making such atrociously unreadable line breaks; and 4)using a picture that looks like it has been cropped out of a candid family shot with the magic wand tool
yeah! and if teaching creationism pisses off some egghead perfessers: well, good.
moron.
some people rather evidently do need to have their toes stepped on. your design is much better, in all the ways I just described.
But it’s not simple.
Also in general with babies you want cute not “creepy and probably about to turn into a Japanese ghost”
@mphage
Your design is lovely. Now that I would have spread around to friends and perhaps donated a bit of cash to put up.
@We Are Ing
Perhaps he’s using a different definition of simple.
Pre-school finger painting doesn’t really count…
@Nepenthe
Ah then in that case mission accomplished.
Other than the comic sans, they need a few of these signs strategically placed ahead of the pro-life and fear god signs along the highways of B.C. and Alberta. I fear people that think they should fear their imaginary friend.
A look at the ProLifeAmerica site confirmed my suspicions about them. A few months ago, I realized a lot of their signs talk about “Dad”, “Daddy”, “Father”, and “Grandpa”. I never once saw one that mentioned a female family member.
Any that don’t talk about patriarchy talk about god (all but outright saying the Christian god in particular), or they use shaky/made up snippets about the fetal development of structures that don’t matter. Why do I care if it has feet, eyes or a heartbeat? So do pigs. What about the gill arches these embryos have?
PLA- protecting
innocent lifepatriarchy, theocracy, and pseudoscience.Huge improvement.
Ragutis @89: Cuter kid pic too. But you still made the faux pas of using yellow.
but it’s a pretty yellow suitable for images with babies on them. unlike the eyesearing bright-yet-gray-tinged yellow in the original
EricJayne, you can be proud of the work you did, and still acknowledge that mphage’s work is an improvement.
Jadehawk @91: Ah yes…greylow. Isn’t that the derogatory term Cantonese use for foreigners?
So, apparently, there’s something analogous to color blindness, wherein population is divided into those who do and those who don’t see something. I ask, as one of the people who apparently is “design-blind”, what the hell are you people going on about?
I look at the original banner and mphage’s “fix” side by side, and I just don’t get what the difference is supposed to be. Yes, I can see that one yellow paler. Yes, I can see that one child is lower contrast than the other. The children seem equally grotesque to one another and to any other child. The fonts are not the same fonts, but they seem equivalent in legibility.
I do notice that in the “fix”, the attribution line is better separated, making it more obviously an attribution. There’s a change in wording, but that seems to be semantic, so it seems to be outside the scope of an aesthetic “fix”.
So, if there really is any inter-subjective agreement that the proposed fix is better, what’s better about it? Hell, what’s even importantly different about it?
Well your experience is not really worth much is it ? And your view that education does nothing is just silly. How can someone think for themselves if they cannot read or write, or know nothing of the body of knowledge humans have accumulated over the years ? Skills such as critical thinking require knowledge. How can one recognise pseudo-science if one has no understanding of science in the first place ?
@McCthulhu’s new upbeat 2012 nym.
I was using the design elements of the first, just to see if I could do something in the ‘style’ of the original but with what I thought would be a more aesthetically cohesive and pleasing layout. Yellow wouldn’t be my first choice either.
Oh dear. Imagine rejecting the US constitution because the paper yellowed and the font was suddenly out of favour.
Style changes – thats its whole parasitic purpose.
@ericjayne: Ignore the idiots. Thank you for your efforts to get the message out.
Atheists are the most reviled social group in America. Anything that helps get the message out that there are a hell of a lot more of us than the god botherers think is a good thing.
Believe it or not, I’ve actually found a legitimate use for Comic Sans: The Font of Champions
@rogerfirth
Yeah, like, let’s all tie messages around bricks with the words “we are atheists, and we are legion” and throw them through the god botherers’ windows.
After all, anything that helps get the message out there is a good thing, eh?
This post was brought to you by Don’t Really Do This Comments Inc.
Duncan:
I will add to what Matt has said already: if you have learned anything in mathematics or science, it’s that if there is a contradiction, it means that something is wrong. Either in your understanding, or your calculation, or in your assumptions. It is an opportunity to learn something, or to dismiss a false idea, or refine your understanding.
You have a toolkit of ideas, language and techniques that allow you to construct hypotheses and models and to deconstruct things into separate components. You can make generalisations and abstractions and test with examples.
Along side that is the accumulated knowledge that people far smarter than you have spent their lives acquiring.
I think you are being unfair.
Maybe we should set up an atheist volunteer design bureau/service, there are probably enough graphics designers and other professionals in the community who care enough to make it work.
If I wasn’t chronically depressed I’d do it ;)
@rogerfirth
I’m amused by the insinuation that the objections are to the whole idea of having a billboard, rather than the effectiveness of the billboard.
Seriously, making a billboard that fails to get the message across because the text is too long or difficult to parse isn’t a victory, it’s a waste of money that could be spent more effectively. We aren’t at the stage of symbolic gesture here; we could actually put some effort into efficiently getting the message out.
Or we could just stick it to the man. Who cares whether it’s a good billboard? Why bother designing for readability? The whole point is just to get on the news anyway!
Dan Manthey,
The principle differences that I see:
The background color is a soft apricot colour, reminiscent of fruit rather than the poison warning colour that insects and snakes use (Aussie here).
The number of words that need to be read in a few fleeting seconds is halved.
The font is clearer.
The picture of the baby is clearer.
Overall, the cognitive load on the reader is far less in mphage’s version, which is desirable for a billboard.
@ericjayne
I like the message but, having the misfortune to work in the advertising industry (not directly in the process), copywriters and designers might occasionally be unbearable pretentious fucktards but they are paid big bucks for a reason. My significant other, however, does work on the client servicing side and the one of the biggest problems she has is when the client tries to do too much of the design work or otherwise micromanage…
Good luck with the campaign, but please remember that it can be really hard to make a simple message look simple. I’m aware that you said there was a time limit & etc, but it’s definitely worth putting a shout out in your organization as there will be folks who can really add icing to the cake. And, like some of the posters here, could be willing to work pro bono for your cause.
This place is a bit of a shark tank, yeah, but please take note of the suggestions!
//you do know that the objection to comic sans is not an essentialist one, but an aesthetical one? using one of the comic sans clones don’t make the design issues go away.//
–We didn’t understand the criminal severity of using the chalk font.
//and in all the asking around, did you bother consulting someone whose job it is to make these kind of things?//
–No. None of us did. More time and stress was spent on negotiating with billboard companies, fundraising, and coordinating with the MNA board and others.
//but some of us make a living with design. So, again, did you actually ask if there are any graphic designers who are also atheists who would have been willing to design this for you? Or advise you, at least?//
–Again…no. And when you ask again the answer will still be “no”. As I explained there was a time crunch, nobody brought it up, and the vast consensus approved. Nobody thought to bring it up. Of course, you and everyone else could have come up with an idea and gathered enough ambition to organize a billboard campaign–but you didn’t.
//there’s ways to do that without using 1)an incredibly ugly kind of yellow; 2)using an incredibly ugly kind of font; 3)making such atrociously unreadable line breaks; and 4)using a picture that looks like it has been cropped out of a candid family shot with the magic wand tool//
–1) We went with it because it’s so bright and eye-catching. 2) We thought it matched the theme we were going after. 3) With the wording (which I had very, very little control over) it was the best line breaks we could do without making the text too small. And maybe it’s because I’m such a talented reader, but I don’t find it “unreadable”. 4) Most have said good things about the picture, but you don’t like it. It’s been noted.
//If you don’t like the look, don’t wear it. You’re the one who’s decided to take comments about this particular abomination against the non-blind personally.//
–No. I took your personal attacks about me personally. The mean-spirited, vicious, disparaging attacks about the billboards I took infuriatedly (if that’s a word).
//You were the one who decided to make personal remarks first originally as well.//
–You came into the original conversation with “Holy crap that is an ugly billboard…” Until this thread, that was the most unhelpful and irritable comment I received. So I said that it’s not helpful for arrogant windbags to belittle. So if you want to reduce yourself to the grade school defense of who “started it”, it was you with the disparaging attack you opened with.
//And seriously? The comic sans problem? Not fixed. Ever. If you haven’t understood the problem–that no one gives a shit about the name that your editing software gives the font, we care what it looks like and that looks like both comic sans and a mule’s ass–perhaps you should add “not-too-bright” to that list of character traits.//
–I guess a lot of us didn’t understand that. We heard the complaints about the original comic sans font we used when we went public with the billboard (and nobody stepped up then to offer their services, by the way) and we tried very hard to address the concerns. I had comic sans and several other font selections on my software. We went through several alternatives until the current “chalk” font was selected.
//Btw, I’m nothing like Comic Book Guy. I always make sure that my enormous gut is covered by my shirt and I would never wear red shorts.//
–Yeah, but as long as you’re hiding behind the pseudonym Nepenthe, and throwing bombs my way, I’ll think of you, and picture you as the self-inflated, pretentious, virginal, Comic Book Guy.
–We didn’t understand the criminal severity of using the chalk font.
Still not getting it: if typeface A is horrible and people object to it, using typeface B which is virtually indistinguishable from A is not going to solve the problem.
–No. None of us did. More time and stress was spent on negotiating with billboard companies, fundraising, and coordinating with the MNA board and others.
I don’t understand this. You put all this effort into making this billboard happen, but you didn’t bother to even try making the billboard itself an effective means of communicating your message?
–Again…no. And when you ask again the answer will still be “no”. As I explained there was a time crunch, nobody brought it up, and the vast consensus approved. Nobody thought to bring it up. Of course, you and everyone else could have come up with an idea and gathered enough ambition to organize a billboard campaign–but you didn’t.
The point isn’t that you did it and we didn’t; the point is that you could have asked for and got professional help and in doing so made your efforts pay off more successfully–and when you were offered advice you refused it and took any and all criticism of the billboard as criticism of you personally, which it was not.
//This place is a bit of a shark tank, yeah, but please take note of the suggestions!//
–Oh yeah. I’m definitely learning while I’m getting attacked.
Thanks :-)
Eric, it’s understandable that your billboard made a lot of design mistakes, because you’re not a professional. I think the point being made is that since you’re an organization with a budget big enough to pay for billboards, you ought to budget in using a professional graphic designer in order to maximize the positive impact of those billboards. Saving a few hundred dollars by not hiring a professional doesn’t help in the long run if the only message you’re conveying is “ew, ugly billboard”. They’re professionals for a reason; they understand color combinations, and have studied which fonts have maximum impact at varying sizes and amount of time spent looking at the message, and how to distill a thought down to the minimum number of words needed. It really is worth it to have an expert do the design, and you’re helping the economy at the same time (since a lot are freelancers!) I would even caution against trying to get someone to donate their time or work at a reduced fee; this is their actual job, and they’re worth getting paid to do it.
ericjayne, your biggest problem here is that you see criticism of the product as criticism of you personally. This is not a professional’s attitude. It gets in the way of creating a better product.
@ericjayne: feel free to stop digging. I appreciate your hard work to have the billboards done. I also know it’s incredibly difficult to accept criticism of something that we’ve invested so much time and effort in, but sometimes we need to realize that maybe we could have done it better. In the past when a lot of people have said they didn’t like some project I did, I didn’t like their responses, but I realized that they were right in the sense that it didn’t work for them. It doesn’t mean that what I did was bad, just that it wasn’t right for what I was trying to accomplish. Take your lumps and do better next time.
//Still not getting it: if typeface A is horrible and people object to it, using typeface B which is virtually indistinguishable from A is not going to solve the problem.//
–No, no, no. I AM getting it.
//I don’t understand this. You put all this effort into making this billboard happen, but you didn’t bother to even try making the billboard itself an effective means of communicating your message?//
–Let me try to help you understand. We felt (and still do confidently feel) that we had (and currently have) bothered to make an effective billboard that communicated our message. I’m getting the message, loud and clear, that several here have become nauseous and received unbearable optical pain from looking at the billboards. Many others, however, unassociated with the billboard leadership have given positive accolades. So I get the points that are being made and I’m actually taking notes as I decipher helpful pointers from obnoxious attacks.
//The point isn’t that you did it and we didn’t; the point is that you could have asked for and got professional help and in doing so made your efforts pay off more successfully–and when you were offered advice you refused it and took any and all criticism of the billboard as criticism of you personally, which it was not.//
–Then your point is simply based in untruth. As I mentioned (several times now) I asked for feedback but time was severely limited since we were given a particular deadline. In hindsight, we did have more time and we could have sought out professional graphic designers, but we really felt that we were under the pressure of a time crunch. Your accusation that I “refused advice” is completely ridiculous. If you spent anytime with me while working on this project you would have seen me taking direction from several people and employing their ideas many times over–which I was happy to do. We all took the advice of people who let us in on the comic sans faux pas and genuinely thought we were satisfying their concerns. And again, accusations of me (by people who have never even met me!) being egotistical and irrational are personal attacks. There’s not way that those are criticisms of the billboards.
//I also know it’s incredibly difficult to accept criticism of something that we’ve invested so much time and effort in, but sometimes we need to realize that maybe we could have done it better.//
–I accept the criticism. I reject the harsh derisiveness and, additionally, I don’t enjoy the unfounded personal attacks. I readily admit that it could have been done better. I am not denying that, but I am also saying that I’m pleased with the end result of this project. Again, that’s not to say that it couldn’t have been better.
//It doesn’t mean that what I did was bad, just that it wasn’t right for what I was trying to accomplish. Take your lumps and do better next time.//
–That’s exactly what I intend to do.
@ericjayne
It is because, oddly, the people here care about getting the message out and do not sugar-coat criticism.
Not getting a pro to at least consult on design is a major oversight, and I agree with folks saying that this could detrimentally affect the billboards’ message. You don’t go through all the hoops of getting the signspace, funding, etc to then throw up an afterthought.
However, if it’s done it’s done, and put it down as a learning experience!
//ericjayne, your biggest problem here is that you see criticism of the product as criticism of you personally. This is not a professional’s attitude. It gets in the way of creating a better product.//
First of all, there actually have been personal attacks unrelated to the design of the billboard leveled against me on this thread. I’m a big boy so I can take it, but I also want to address it.
Secondly, the biggest issue I have with the criticism in regards to the billboard is that it has been unnecessarily mean-spirited and brutal. That said, I’m parsing out and noting the good critical parts from the mean and abusive parts.
Thirdly, I have taken criticism (past and present) and employed it when directed, when it seemed possible, and I’m noting it for future possible projects.
ericjayne:
I’d like to say, “Thanks.” I too have aesthetic issues with the signs (which have already been covered), but my overwhelming thought is, “Thanks for representing.”
//It is because, oddly, the people here care about getting the message out and do not sugar-coat criticism.//
–I appreciate non coated criticism (sugar coated or otherwise), but much of the criticism here seems to have been coated with dog shit soaked in bitter, and rotten fruit.
//Not getting a pro to at least consult on design is a major oversight, and I agree with folks saying that this could detrimentally affect the billboards’ message. You don’t go through all the hoops of getting the signspace, funding, etc to then throw up an afterthought.//
–To be sure, the current billboard design/message wasn’t an “afterthought”, but I accept the rest of your point.
//However, if it’s done it’s done, and put it down as a learning experience!//
–Yup.
//ericjayne:
I’d like to say, “Thanks.” I too have aesthetic issues with the signs (which have already been covered), but my overwhelming thought is, “Thanks for representing.”//
Thank you for your kind words. It is greatly appreciated, and I promise that we’ll do an even better job the second time around–which should be easy since we’ve set such a low precedent ;-)
Eric – well, at least you’re in good company. Have you seen the kinds of things the FFRF has put out? And they’re much more able to afford a graphic designer. :)
Italic fail!!!!
Of course, when I’m talking about design, I fail to check and correctly designate my own type.
I think a perfect sign satirizing the pro-life billboards would be a dark background, picture of a fetus on the right, slightly shifted to the top, with the words:
“I am an atheist.”
OR:
“Choose reality.”
Of course, I’m not a copy writer, nor a graphic designer. In fact, any attempt I made at a sign would be sure to fail in epic and wondrous ways. I’d be inventing new ways to fail at design.
Needs less Comic Sans, less eye-hurting yellow and more brown baby.
Your response to the early criticism on the thread was to castigate the commenters because you did all the hard work and they didn’t. This was a pretty unconvincing argument, and also showed that you cared less about what you were doing than the fact you were doing it. Based on this, I think the fact that people are stating the obvious – that your billboard is a sick joke – isn’t really surprising.
ericjayne
Fair enough, but looking back at #74
It’s design-by-committee which always winds up being a last minute shite-fest. Hell, I’m in the middle of one of these (professionally) right now and I know that when I finally get to implement it no-one will be happy. C’est la vie. But it doesn’t make it right. ;-)
@ nigelthebold
Like this?
coldhope:
Stay out of my head!
Uhm, I mean, yeah. Just like that.
echidna@104,
Thanks for trying to explain. But I’m afraid you’ve mostly made it worse.
Are you telling me that the fixed sign actually makes you think of fruit and that this is an important improvement? As I said, I can see the two yellows as different colors, but I don’t understand how the lighter yellow is actually better.
The picture of the baby is more in-focus in the fixed picture, but is that actually true for what the real sign would look like? The fuzziness of the first one looks exactly like the kind of image degradation you get from scaling a picture down, and I’d been interpreting that as a feature of the image here, not the actual billboard. Similarly, the crispness of the edges of the new font seems misleading to think of as a change.
The new baby picture is substantially lower contrast to its background. Doesn’t that decrease clarity?
Now, certainly the change in wording is significant, and having fewer words means there’s less cost to perceiving what’s on the billboard. But isn’t there a trade-off there? The shorter version is faster to acquire, but what is acquired is different. For instance, cdesign proponentists are famous for claiming that they want students to decide for themselves what theory is correct. That claim, while a disingenuous lie, does seem to fit within the phrase “think for myself”, so having the first sentence precede it completely changes the possible interpretations by some of the intended audience.
Surely “good design” doesn’t consist of thinking that considerations of form and presentation can completely dismiss important differences in content. Using half the words may be twice as effective at getting a message across, but that’s a loss if the message is substantially different.
@ nigel
I actually really like the idea. Maybe someone will actually make a billboard along these lines.
//Your response to the early criticism on the thread was to castigate the commenters because you did all the hard work and they didn’t.//
–Actually it was to provide some previously unknown background information that included imparted some constraints and other variables so that maybe there would be a better understanding of what my efforts, and the efforts of others, entailed since I had been mentioned by name a couple of times before I knew about this thread. Then after I addressed that I got a little salty about some accusations made about me, personally, and I addressed those followed up with a comment about how I, not they, at least had a vision and ambition to pursue this particular project. That’s where the castigation came from, and it seemed pretty well earned from my perspective.
//Based on this, I think the fact that people are stating the obvious – that your billboard is a sick joke – isn’t really surprising.//
–To be honest, I really think the billboards look great when you see them up in their outdoor environment. There are so many other colors and visual simulations around the billboards so a nice, bright and bold yellow background may not look good when staring at it on a computer screen, but outdoors among buildings, signs, cars, blue/white/gray/dark sky, pavement, etc. I think it looks great. I honestly do.
I get that we should have probably consulted a professional (and we likely will in the future if we do this again), I know people are gouging their eyes out here on this thread, and I get that we should never use anything that is kind of like comic sans (but isn’t actually comic sans), but I really think the billboard is effective and a great lampoon of the “pro-life” billboards. The responses have varied from “fantastic” to “sick joke”…I’ll obviously put your opinion under the latter.
@ericjayne
I have a question that I don’t think has been brought up amongst all the talk of the design problems: why did you choose to lampoon anti-choice ads with a purely pro-atheist message? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use a pro-choice message (or else lampoon a church’s ads)?
Also, I’m curious who your audience is for these billboards.
Thanks!
//@ nigelthebold
Like this?//
Yes! That is great! It would be great if our apparent blunder inspires other talented graphic artists to come up with “pro-life” lampooning billboards that promote atheism.
I would be happy to offer my experience in the coordination part with billboard companies, atheist organizations, and possible fund raising.
Just to warn you though, I’ve been told by a user on this thread that I’m “egotistical”, “irrational”, and “unreasonable”…
Share your talents on this thread!
//I have a question that I don’t think has been brought up amongst all the talk of the design problems: why did you choose to lampoon anti-choice ads with a purely pro-atheist message? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use a pro-choice message (or else lampoon a church’s ads)?
Also, I’m curious who your audience is for these billboards.
Thanks!//
Oh, those are great questions! I love satire and I think it’s a great way to argue and promote a position. I also think it’s great when two completely different genres are mixed (like when Tori Amos covered Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit–a reference that might date me) so after seeing these “pro-life” (i.e. anti-choice) baby-themed billboards just about everywhere I drive throughout the state, I thought that it was a product/design begging to be lampooned.
I thought that we could promote a positive message that would just about be ubiquitously supported by atheists in while lampooning the baby/innocence theme. It’s meant to remind everyone that religious beliefs are the result of indoctrination (usually with young and impressionable minds) and encourage and inspire those who already identify as atheist (or agnostic, or on the fence) to visit our websites. We definitely tried to broaden the audience.
As a person with design experience, reading through this thread was just maddening. First, to see a great idea and a rare opportunity to get a message out end as an embarrassment because someone let their ego get in the way of creating a good product.
Second, the missed opportunities to make it right; several comments on the other thread already pointed out many of the design mistakes made in this billboard BEFORE it went up. Unfortunately, the person failed to address his mistakes, instead putting on blinders and then offering up a pile of stinking excuses.
Lastly, 90 comments later, with the vast majority of folks here agreeing on what went wrong, the response is still: excuses and butt-hurt. AND the person still maintaining that he really likes what he came up with. Seriously?! Maybe madness is not the proper word…I think I’m just baffled
So, lesson learned, apparently atheists can be as much an embarrassment as the fundies. So hopefully next time will be better. And perhaps an idea for next time…why not hold a design contest, atheists can design & submit their own billboards…I’d be interested to see what everyone comes up with. If I have a moment, perhaps I’ll whip one up in a bit.
Of course we can. (Hell, I do it all the time!) The difference is that we, as atheists/freethinkers/humanists/whatever-the-hell-you-call-yourself is that, unlike a fundogelical, all of our answers are not already laid out in front of us in a divinely inspired format.
Hey ericjayne: you’re definitely not the only person who doesn’t quite understand that design matters. In fact, most people don’t but here is the thing: IT DOES. Renting a billboard is extremely expensive hiring a freelance designer for something like this would be a mere pittance in comparison. I’m not piling on (cause I know what it likes to be at the bottom of that pile) but just consider this a lesson learned.
Graphic design student here… surely there are plenty of universities in MN with graphic design students who’d LOVE a crack at their first ever billboard?
Anyhow, if you think that this site is bad, the CiF thread post-Atheist Bus Advert is an amusing troll-fest…
//As a person with design experience, reading through this thread was just maddening. First, to see a great idea and a rare opportunity to get a message out end as an embarrassment because someone let their ego get in the way of creating a good product.//
–I’m glad to see that you liked my idea. But you know that that will undoubtedly inflate my ego…
//Second, the missed opportunities to make it right; several comments on the other thread already pointed out many of the design mistakes made in this billboard BEFORE it went up. Unfortunately, the person failed to address his mistakes, instead putting on blinders and then offering up a pile of stinking excuses.//
–The design mistakes were corrected to the best of our abilities in the time we had to work with. It’s a fair observation that we neglected to consider this earlier and allow more time to bring in a professional designer with better abilities. I also agree that in hindsight we might have had more time but that’s not even certain given other factors dealing with the contractual/printing part. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest we had blinders on and refused to consider the criticisms. There were already many cooks in the kitchen with ideas, and one of these “cooks” provided a lot of the funding and had a lot of say into the wording which limited our ability to create the preferred line breaks (which I readily acknowledged when it was brought up a couple weeks ago). By that time, however, the decisions had been made that the design was submitted for printing any way.
//AND the person still maintaining that he really likes what he came up with. Seriously?! Maybe madness is not the proper word…I think I’m just baffled//
–Yeah, I’m still satisfied with it and I think it’s an over all good billboard with a good enough design. I acknowledge that it could have been done better. I have heard the concerns (along with the abuse) and I get it. I thought I made that point clear, but at the same time I’m happy with the end result of this particular billboard campaign–with the understanding that we will be better prepared and seriously consider bringing in a professional if there’s a future billboard campaign.
//And perhaps an idea for next time…why not hold a design contest, atheists can design & submit their own billboards…I’d be interested to see what everyone comes up with. If I have a moment, perhaps I’ll whip one up in a bit.//
–I think that’s a fine idea. It’s one that was mentioned before, but again, we simply didn’t have the time to hold a contest once we got the go-ahead and significant money to move forward.
@nigelTheBold
No. Let’s not perpetuate the myth that foetuses are thinking, independent persons (who therefore have a right to legal protection).
JUST COME UP WITH $200 and hire ME
Contests? Free student work? You’re likely to get the old pile on again!
I don’t get the comic sans hate. I just…are people seriously that uptight about a font? Hell, it practically fits the child centered message of the ads.
Killertapir: it actually doesn’t matter if you hate it or not, people do and it looks bad. When you’re designing you have to consider the audience at large not your own personal taste.
Ibis3:
I realized that after I posted. It wasn’t a serious suggestion anyway, more just a fantasy to set up some fundamentalist head explosion action.
You are right. It’s better to not feed their myths and misconceptions, even to satirize them.
//I’m not piling on (cause I know what it likes to be at the bottom of that pile) but just consider this a lesson learned.//
–Definitely!
look I do not care if the billboard is “beautiful” or “ugly”. At highway speed much is lost compared to looking at something at leisure.
does the billboard get get your attention?
Is the message short enough to read?
at highway speed?
Does it get you to think?
Is it true enough?
Is it none threatening?
this billboard works on all of those important aspects.
I remember only one faith base billboard, big picture of Jesus the only thing it said was “I stand at the doorway and knock”
nothing else much but it was enough to get their message out
uncle frogy
Kudos to Eric Jayne for coming up with the idea and putting up the billboard. The Christofascist Talibangelists are going to hate it, no matter how good the color and how tasteful the font selection. Some may even get arrested trying to blow it up in the name of God’s-Love(tm), and a few others may catch onto the inherent irony. That’s good enough for me.
.
Yeah, next time, either take one of the pro bono offers or hire a designer. It’ll be an even better ad. Live and learn. You still deserve praise for putting in the work and getting out the message.
Thank you unclefrogy and Jerry Alexandratos.
@ericjayne
Oh my dog, I cannot believe that you’re still harping on the “It’s not really Comic Sans!!!1!” point. Just keep on demonstrating your egotism, unreasonableness, and mild stupidity. The evidence speaks for itself.
Dan Manthey, this is a billboard. People will be passing it at various rates of speed. That means the message has to be short and punchy enough for people in vehicles, but the design has to stand up to the scrutiny of people who will be glancing at it a bit longer.
If you are colorblind, it would be hard to explain the differences in shades of yellow in ways you will viscerally get. However, you are dismissing the crispness of the new font as not really a change (to paraphrase you) because, honestly, you do not have any understanding of how the vast majority of people react instinctively to visual presentation.
And neither does MadTom1999. Tom, are you an engineer, by any chance, or a programmer? Because stereotypes of same are what occur to me when I hear someone say that there is no purpose whatsoever to style except to perpetuate itself. I can only imagine how drab the inside of your home must be.
There’s a reason companies spend so much money on advertisers and marketers. The reason is that content itself does not win people over and never has. None of us are entirely rational and none of us ever will be. Presentation matters. Therefore, style matters.
Unclefrogy, it’s a billboard in the middle of a city. Some people will be driving or riding by it at moderate speeds, others driving or riding by at low speeds, including walking speeds. Also, see my above comments.
Eric Jayne, learn how to use blockquotes, learn how to take criticism, and learn that you personally are not the target audience for this billboard.
Nepenthe: You forgot “passive-aggressiveness.” Apparently, if someone with any sort of personal life takes on a volunteer project, we should grovel to them in gratitude no matter the actual quality of the results.
//Oh my dog, I cannot believe that you’re still harping on the “It’s not really Comic Sans!!!1!” point. Just keep on demonstrating your egotism, unreasonableness, and mild stupidity. The evidence speaks for itself.//
–I bring it up when it’s suggested that we didn’t address the comic sans flub. So when that is done being harped about I’ll stop reminding everyone how our use of “chalk” (which in retrospect I understand was not the right substitute–as indicated in comment 113 and elsewhere) was our way of correcting the mistake that had been brought to our attention.
I’ve been here responding to many comments. I feel that I’ve been very accommodating and reasonable. I’m satisfied with my efforts and my approach. I’m satisfied that I’ve learned a few things from reading the comments and exchanging comments. If anyone has come across as egotistical between the two of us, I will say it’s been you, Comic Sans Guy…er, uh, I mean, Comic Book Guy…er, uh, I mean Nepenthe.
//learn how to use blockquotes//
–It’s my first time on this board and I really don’t think I’ll be spending a whole lot of time here so I don’t know how to blockquote. If you want to tell me how to do it I might start doing it.
//learn how to take criticism//
–I have and I do. I am also criticizing others in the way they’re criticizing me, with the abusive, berating tone and personal attacks. It seems like when I bring up these criticisms they are not taken well by the proverbial bomb throwers.
//Nepenthe: You forgot “passive-aggressiveness.” Apparently, if someone with any sort of personal life takes on a volunteer project, we should grovel to them in gratitude no matter the actual quality of the results.//
–No, you should definitely go out of the way to insult them and withhold any shred of decency.
I was about to mention MCAD but wow, their website sucks!
You know there’s a very interesting paper by J Kruger and D Dunning that I think you might like to read. Let me just find the reference…
ericjayne
<blockquote>copypaste stuff you are quoting</blockquote>
=
…
This “board” isn’t the only forum on the internet that uses HTML. I think Nepenthe at #155 has your number, Eric.
Eric Jayne, thank you and the group you worked with for getting those billboards out. The hostility you are receiving over this from the atheist is, well, mind boggling to me. I’m sure there can always be a better design made. I’m sure that even THAT design would then be met with criticism.
I personally liked the design. I understood right away how it mimicked the style of the “pro-life” billboards. But I also recognized right away with the yellow background and the comic sans (the difference between that and chalk would not really be noticeable to the average person) would receive negative remarks.
But given that, I would be happy to see 100 of these billboards out there. When it comes right down to it, you guys went out and did something in a niche that has very little atheist exposure and often faces direct opposition. More needs to be done. A lot more.
I rather doubt theists will use the design layout of the billboard as the basis of their arguments of denial. And if they did even your most ardent critics here would shred them for their pretentious silliness.
Thanks Rick. Your comment is very much appreciated.
Perhaps the critics would like this one better.
Thanks for your effort, Eric. My only criticism would be related to my own discomfort with putting words in the mouths of babes. It’s kind of presumptuous, somehow, and little too “e-trade baby,” if you know what I mean.
But maybe it’ll look better once it gets vandalized. That gets a certain point across, too.
JUST COME UP WITH $200 and hire ME
you know what might work?
linking to a website, that you designed, that isn’t your facebook page maybe?
I just read throug the original criticism before the fact on Greg Laden’s blog. Nepenthe lays it all out, and you, Eric, instead of thinking, just get defensive.
The real tell that you are not used to getting feedback from other people is the discussion on line breaks: that the words are parsed in chunks, and each chunk should make sense on its own.
This isn’t even just graphic design, it’s true for engineering writing too, such as emergency instructions.
But you totally fail to hear.
And here’s what actually happened…
Nepenthe introduced himself into the discussion with “Holy crap that is an ugly billboard…” so I pointed out that I didn’t like his disparaging remark. It didn’t seem like good, constructive criticism to me. Instead it came across as mean-spirited derision and I thought it was worthy of a mention. Now I realize that being a dick and anti-social is routine, and even celebrated, among particular users on this thread.
Now then, after I confronted his very unpleasant tone I addressed his complaints and proceeded to ask him to elaborate more on the line breaks.
Nepenthe then responded by explaining how he thought the line breaks should be and said that it doesn’t make sense. I then responded with the following reply:
**@Nepenthe: Okay. I see your point about ideal aesthetics and we originally tried to make it fit with the second line end with the period. However, in order to keep the text and image as big as it is the lines had to be broken up the way they are listed.
Grammatically, it’s fine and I don’t see how it “makes little sense”.**
…I feel like my reply acknowledged his point and I explained why we decided to keep it as it is. I still stand by that decision given the amount of words we had to work with (which, again, was a group decision that I had very little individual control over). When we broke the lines up as suggested (which we tried!) the words had to be significantly sized down. It came down to reduce the size of the text by a lot or keep the line breaks as they were.
Now this is an important point. Just because we didn’t employ Nepenthe’s idea doesn’t mean that we weren’t thinking or that we weren’t listening.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/xblog/2012/01/11/help-with-the-minnesota-atheist-billboard-campaign/
Eric Jayne – Thanks a lot for your work and that of the group! I like the billboards and suggested that PZ make a post about them.
For whatever reasons, many people seem to be sensitive about billboards. I once had a job where I was responsible for putting up billboards for an organization. Rather than using canned designs, we decided to use a photo of some local youth, and they were thrilled. I hired an award-winning designer/photographer who took multiple photos and creatively designed the billboards. The kids were very happy, and I sent off the job to be printed. Then one of the parents became upset because she didn’t think the photo was good enough. So I had to cancel the print job, and embarrassingly ask the award-winning designer/photographer to return to take additional photos. The designer/photographer kindly redid the photo for the billboards, and off it went to the printer and installer. I was feeling good until my phone started ringing off the hook with complaints. One of the billboards of the wholesome local youth had been placed next to a beer billboard! In the end, it all worked out. I just look back at it and laugh, especially whenever I see billboard complaints.
EricJayne:
Nepenthe is not a he and we frown on gendered insults/jokes/descriptors here. (Don’t use dick.)
I didn’t bother to weigh in earlier, but I think the billboards are incredibly ugly too. That’s just me, okay? There’s no need to take it personally. I really can’t stand any ad with some kid’s head* stuck on it, so it wouldn’t have resonated with me anyway.
*I do not think babies are cute, I do not think toddlers are cute and so on. Just not my thing. Doesn’t mean other people don’t go all mushy over it.
Daisy Cutter@151,
You’ve definitely misunderstood me. I wasn’t saying that crispness of the font or picture don’t matter. I was saying that the JPEG posted here on the web can’t be presumed accurately reflect whatever degree of crispness would actually occur on the billboard, so if reactions comparing it and a proposed fix rely on the improved crispness of the fix, those reactions don’t actually indicate that the proposed fix is better.
Likewise, I wasn’t saying that it’s not important to have a short message. I was saying that a proposed fix with a shorter message that conveys something significantly different than the original long message does not indicate that the proposed fix is an improvement. If there’s a separate argument that the modified message is good enough, even if with less of the desired impact, it might still be an improvement, but that relies on facts not in evidence, and it seems kind of presumptuous to say that the shorter message is an improvement because it’s better presentation, without at least acknowledging that the content is changed.
Another fact not in evidence, which you seem to consider true, is that the “vast majority of people” have strong instinctive reactions to the kinds of differences under discussion. Obvious some fraction of people do; they quite vocal in this thread. What makes you say that they’re the vast majority? It seems like about half the people expressing these strong reactions are claiming to actively work in graphic design or something closely related. As far as I can tell easily, it looks like ~10% of the US population is graphic designers (http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag511.htm), and assuming that estimate is not wrong by more than a factor of two, that suggests that less that half of the populations have these frothingly offended reactions to color choices. Just for comparison, something like 98% of people are color-sighted (http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/c/color_blindness/prevalence.htm), so it seems rather odd to compare wanting an explanation of comments like “[T]he only message you’re conveying is ‘ew, ugly billboard'[.]” (@110) to relying on most people to understand a perception shared by 98% of everyone.
And when you add to that comments like “I can only imagine how drab the inside of your home must be.”, you sound awfully patronizing, and it’s really much less surprising that the author of the billboard has taken a lot of the comments as insulting. (Leaving aside the additional irony of accusing engineers as a class of not caring about “design”.)
and every time you say this stupid thing we will remind you yet again that using a Comic Sans Clone does not in any way correct the mistake, since chalk and apple casual and other comic sans clones have exactly the same problems.
actually what you did was dismiss her point with a crappy excuse that made it obvious you know shit about design (FYI, readability is improved more by better chunking than by larger fonts. Meaning, you’d have been better off shrinking the text to make it bunch less incoherently)
yep; criticism of a professional designer by a clueless parent is totes the same as criticism of a Dunning-Krugering design-n00b by various artists and graphic designers.
It’s completely laughable to think that after the abusive condemnation and vicious attacks regarding our group’s efforts, my efforts, and my character, the idea that I observed “being a dick and anti-social is routine, and even celebrated, among particular users on this thread.” is crossing the line? As if to suggest that the decorum hadn’t tanked before I originally logged in? Ha!
A few points: 1) If you’re hung up on the word “dick” then substitute it with the word “asshole”. 2) If you’re suggesting that Nepenthe isn’t a male, then s/he has had the opportunity to correct me earlier. However, if you’re suggesting that gender specific pronouns shouldn’t ever be used here, then I’ll just roll my eyes and move on.
Yup. Got it. And you haven’t given me a good reason to take it personally. If you would have attacked me personally (as Nepenthe has) then I would address those attacks differently.
Duly noted. Maybe if you understood that these billboards were designed to satirize and playfully mock the very billboards you can’t stand you might appreciate them more….but maybe not. Either way, it doesn’t matter much to me at this point.
Notwithstanding the toxic hostility unleashed by a few message board bomb-throwers (I’m not including you in this group Caine, Fleur du Mal) whose self-importance seems to be fueled by rants, insults, and complaints, I am very proud of what our group has accomplished with these billboards.
Those of us who worked on the design and content, and those of us who were involved in the coordination of this billboard campaign think they look great. The donors think they look great. Many MNA members said they look great. Many non-MNA members said they look great. Others have said that they don’t look great and some may not appreciate the satire, and that’s fine too. Ultimately, art and beauty is subjective.
With that said, they’re not perfect (few things are). They undoubtedly could have been improved (most things can). So next time (if there is a “next time”) a graphic design is needed for something, we will seriously consider seeking a professional graphic designer. And THAT is the main concern among those on this thread that I picked up on after weeding through all of the brutal nastiness these past couple of days.
I encourage everyone to drive/ride/walk/bike by one or both billboards while the billboards are up. I think they’re much more appealing when viewed in their respective outdoor environments. One is on North Washington Ave. (two blocks south/east of 10th Ave. North) in Minneapolis. The other is on University (2-3 blocks west of Lexington Ave.) in St. Paul.
Thanks! I appreciate your kind words and hearing about your own billboard experience.
danmanthey,
Right! The jpegs on this thread are incredibly blurry and don’t do the billboards justice. The billboards are much more crisp and the font is a much darker blue, and the yellow background isn’t as intense when washed out by the rest of its outdoor environment (which is why we went with the color we went with…for better or worse)
And completely I agree with your other points in your last post as well.
I meant to also say: …but since you brought it to my attention I will refer to Nepenthe as s/he when applicable until (and if) s/he let’s me know if s/he is “she” or “he”.
EricJayne,
You really don’t listen well. I told you that I read the original thread, and you ignored my subsequent points and instead went back and recounted it for me.
See, that’s the part that went wrong. I tell you what, mate, you’d never cut it in Australia if you can’t cut through to the guts of what is being said without getting into a flap. You need to get out of defense mode, and recognise that there are some people with real skills trying to be constructive. But you didn’t hear them, because you had invested your ego in what was a prototype that ended up the real thing.
When you said you had changed the font from comic sans, you really should have said what you changed it to, so that you could get feedback. But you didn’t really want feedback, you just wanted a pat on the back.
@ericjayne
I’ve always thought my ‘nym was fairly obviously female. My pronoun is “she” but it’s not something I bother much with. I was just basking in the novelty of having someone be irrationally pissed at me and gender me male as a result. (Over at Wikipedia, I have a neutral ‘nym and am universally assumed to be male unless I fuck up, at which point I’m either a fascist or a stupid woman depending on the biases of the other party.)
Shit, I just cannot fucking stand people like you. In my mind, Dolores Umbridge was a far more upsetting villain than Voldemort. Evil can be defeated, but soul-sucking, unreasonable bureaucrats just have to be tolerated, worked around, and mitigated.
This is a joke. The over-inflated egos seemed to be attached to those who insist on rationalizing and celebrating their extraordinarily non-constructive, rude and disparaging remarks. As mentioned many times, I have weeded through the crap-fest on this thread and taken the few worthy points. I haven’t given you any indication, though I’m sure you can manipulate something, that I haven’t heard the criticisms. I’ve been hearing them before and after the billboards went up. I, and the billboard planning group, addressed the criticisms to the best of our genuine and sincerest abilities. For those that didn’t get changed, an explanation was provided. Because Nepenthe’s ideas weren’t implemented doesn’t mean that they weren’t heard.
Maybe this is an uncomfortable concept for you and/or her to accept but neither of you are entitled to demand anything. Ideas can be heard and considered without being implemented. The fact that I didn’t share the font on the thread (which I don’t even know how to do) doesn’t suggest the only thing I was hoping to get from this project is a “pat on the back”. The accusation is simply too ridiculous to respond to.
You claim to have me and my motives all figured out, yet you’ve never met me and you were not around during the planning and organization process. I think that says a little something about your ego. …oh, and yeah, you’re from Australia. Got it. And I’ll “get it” again when you bring it up.
Eric,
You had some sympathy from me until here:
*I’m assuming you meant insults, as “dick” generally isn’t a pronoun.
You learned the importance of thinking about the target of your sign. The same is true of words in any forum. Here, gendered insults are not appreciated. Instead of rolling your eyes, maybe try learning something new.
“nuh-uh, it’s fine the way it is” is not an explanation
Got it. You’re a “she”. It’s my mistake that I used “he” when I didn’t know for sure. It might have helped if you weren’t hiding behind your message board pseudonym, which wasn’t obvious to me. I suppose you can use that as more fodder against me. Whatever.
Keeping with the fictional character theme, I’m picturing you as the pretentious, self-entitled, mean-spirited, belligerent character from Little House on the Prairie who’s actually insecure and unhappy deep-inside about who she is: Nellie Olson.
@Therein,
You assumed wrong. I meant exactly what I typed. I was referring specifically to the use of pronouns.
that’s fine. we’re all picturing you as the embodiment of the reason why the website clientsfromhell exists
Ok, for what it’s worth? I “get” what the billboards are satirizing, I love the message and it would make me incredibly happy to see one out in the world. However, there is one major problem, and it’s not that the billboards are fugly– that’s a rather subjective judgement anyway– it’s that they’re unprofessional.
I also don’t care for the font choice and the washed-out oversaturated photo, but not because they’re ugly. My problem is that they so clearly are not the work of a professional designer. Now, Eric, you’ve explained the story behind the billboard’s genesis to us, so we are aware of why you didn’t choose to hire a professional. We are also a group that can be assumed to have some inherent sympathy for, or even prior knowledge of, the Minnesota Atheists. However. An passer-by with no knowledge of the organization or the billlboard’s history would see only an image that was quite obviously by someone with no knowledge and little experience with design. The impression left would be that the group behind it is small, fringe, inexperienced, unprofessional, or too disorganized to employ or hire professionals– all of which are exactly the opposite of the message I imagine you’d like to convey.
I realize it’s nigh-impossible for a layatheist like myself to generalize such a diverse and of the fractious group, but the common theme to most ad campaigns by atheist orgs is that we aren’t a bunch of fringe loonies knocking together ads in MS Paint, but that we are a substantial and growing population of intelligent citizens with reason on our side. That’s the problem with these ads. Not a subjective judgement about whether or not they’re ugly, which is why you’ve apparently received such mixed feedback.
You should read “Nellie”‘s autobiography. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch.
Oh wow, typos galore on that last post… In my defense, I’m writing this on an iPad and I always have trouble double-checking when I type on this damn thing. Not to mention its rabid autocorrect.
Anyway, I wanted to follow up with a personal anecdote about designing ads. I was organizing a conference at my university, and my supervisor wanted some posters made up to advertise two public lectures that were a part of it. I was going to offer to do the posters myself– I’m no graphic designer, but heck, I’ve seen posters before and I know how to use photoshop! Surely I could come up with something that would work just fine without the need to pay for someone’s servicel. My supervisor was adamant about hiring a professional, though, so that’s what we went with. And the resulting posters were beautiful. I was absolutely blown away by how good they looked. And, as I was liaising with the designer, I got to hear his explanations behind his design: why he chose the colors, how the color and images tied in with the themes, even down to fonts and word placement. All things that I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years. It was a definite lesson for me in checking my own hubris.
Oh, and the public lectures were very well-attended, with many more people than we’d expected. Perhaps they would have shown up after seeing my paltry unprofessional design– we can’t know. But the eye-catching posters certainly didn’t hurt.
Thank you, Eric Jayne! I might have joined Minnesota Atheists now that I’ve relocated to your lovely state. (I was actually rather excited about that, having come from a place where saying one is an atheist is somewhat akin to announcing your preference for cannibalism.)
Instead, you have so poorly represented your organization with your defensiveness over the billboard design (or lack thereof, in this case) that I’d prefer not to be associated with you or your group.
Well done! *applause*
So, I’m pretty confident it’s Chalkboard Bold. We can put that to rest now.
Fwiw, Jadehawk, the capital L gives it away (as Chalkboard and not Apple Casual)! Good eye though! It was your comment that sent me in the right direction. It seems pretty apparent to me that one is derived from the other — http://www.identifont.com/show?G47
No, don’t do that! Minnesota Atheists is really an excellent organization — August Berkshire is a friend of mine, and he runs it well, with tolerance for a wide range of views. Check out their website, get their e-newsletter — you might find it appealing.
Hey, there’s a property of text called readability and it can be measured. It’s OK to not know about it (but you could look it up on the Internet!). People with expertise in marketing know something about it already, and it’s one of the reasons they are better at visual messaging than amateurs.
Also, per #107, is there something wrong with being virginal? Consider why you use this as an insult.
wait a minute! i have read through the comments here and eric jayne has been unfairly raked over the coals by several people here.
he was forced into a defensive position because people violently went after him, personally. the attacks were not just the billboards he helped create. the billboards look great by the way.
if any one of us were attacked we would defend ourselves too. everyttime he defends himself the attacks get more nasty and evertime he tries to explain what happened in the process he gets ridiculed even more. i think he should have quit trying to reason with you people a while ago.
PZ: I’ll reconsider my decision, but only because you’re vouching for them.
I fail to see this. I actually addressed Eric very politely, thanking him for the effort and gave constructive criticism in a non judgmental way.
I’m not sure what you expect when that’s brushed aside and the most helpful suggestion (you could get people to volunteer or work on the cheap for this as they were offering) was explicitly rejected. How do you handle “I could do it better but won’t”
@therrin:
he didn’t call anybody in particular a dick, and did you bother to read your own link? probably not because it acutally puts male genderd insults at the same level as non-gendered insults:
“Male gendered insults do not carry any of the historic and political baggage that female gendered insults do. (Pulling something out of the air about goddess cultures or some historical matriarchy is not going to be a very good argument about the state of the world then and now, so save your breath.) Furthermore, “male” is “normal.” Male is the default assumption for just about everything, and so a male gendered insult is no worse than a non-gendered insult like “asshole” or “bag of hammers.”
baab
You are out of your depth.
You should quit now.
Yes, MNA is a wonderful and diverse organization. Try attending one of their events. I would like to think that no one would really make a judgement on the organization based on a comment section spat.
i do not think it is fair to expect somebody to respond to every post. especially when the one you are refering to was comment that suggested getting volunteers to work on the project after the billboards already went up.
It is fair when someone is complaining about the over all tone they’re getting and ignores contradicting data points.
It is also fair when they specifically said they wouldn’t if they could.
The right answer would be to consider it for next time. No is fucking telling them to rip it down and start again, they’re giving advise for next time. Which one would presume, indicates a hope and encouragement FOR a next time with improvements.
baab, I suggest you shut the fuck up, NOW, before you make yourself look worse than you already do. You have proven you’re apparently tone-deaf and illiterate; adding to that list is not advisable.
@183
This is what I was trying to get at. Apparently at least some graphic designers can explain what does into deciding what is and isn’t good design. As somebody who is baffled that and individual color can be “eye-searing” or that a font with seems perfectly legible to me is a “mule’s ass”, I’d find it education to hear some hint of an explanation of what people with these strong opinions about them are seeing.
That hasn’t happened on this thread. Apparently, there’s too much baggage from the discussion thread at Greg Laden’s, where Nepenthe certainly started in that thread with invective before any sort of explanations. She did follow up with a good explanation of the line-break issue, but without an hint of realizing that shortening the text could also change its meaning. That’s exactly the sort of behavior that makes “engineers” describe style criticism as things like “parasitic”.
@ericjayne I hope you can ignore these judgmental idiots. I like your billboards. I think comic sans is a great font to use, for the very reasons you used it, or a very similar font. The fact that “professional designers” scorn it only makes me want to use it more. Bunch of pretentious jerks. These people really have no understanding of art. My guess is they would never appreciate kitch, for example.
Many of the suggestions and comments made me facepalm so hard it hurt, especially the one that wanted you to lose the reference to being a born again atheist in the interests of brevity. That’s a great play on the meaning of being born again. Brilliant copy. Good going.
Thanks for doing what you did. You have my appreciation and gratitude. If some people find your design ugly, they should consider the value of ugliness. Maybe the whole world doesn’t want to bow down to their refined sense of taste. I, for one, don’t. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Oh yes, and thanks again. We need more of you, and less of them.
Wow, aren’t you a mature, reasonable human being?
Grow the fuck up.
Avatar The Last AIrbender was a great story. It can’t be adapted to movie though.
The medium affects what you can and can’t do. You can’t put all of common sense on a billboard and you can’t publish a tweet as a novel.
@AylaSophia:
Yes, that’s a very fair criticism and it’s one that I readily accept. I just want to point out that the jpeg images on this site (which were probably taken from the MNA web page) don’t show the real quality. They were created on Photoshop 7 with the required high resolution CMYK/500 ppi, at the billboard company’s measurement specifications. I offer this just as FYI. But again, your point is genuinely well taken.
@BCPA_Lady: I hope you’ll give me a chance to redeem myself to you. I’m actually a friendly, nice guy who can be tenacious (for better or worse) when I feel the need to be. But I try to be a very caring, passionate, and fun-loving guy. I think I have a lot of friends at MNA who would vouch for me. Maybe I’ll see you around?
@baab:
Thanks. I appreciate your defense.
@danmanthey:
I hope it’s okay if I say that I agree with you again.
@darwinharmless,
Thank you! I think I smiled for the first time today after reading your post.
I am burnt out trying to discuss, explain, decipher constructive criticism from abuse, and reason with those who have pure contempt for me….and with that I will bid you all adieu.
@Eric, 201:
It’s not the quality of the jpeg that’s the problem, it’s the quality of the photograph. That’s what people have been objecting to. (Well, that and the folks that just plain don’t like babies, but I personally am not in that boat!) It isn’t that the resolution is bad– it’s that the photograph is obviously not professional. The lighting looks like the flash from a point-and-shoot camera and the eyes show clear signs of having red-eye edited out. A professional photograph, like the one mphage posted (78, http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j244/mphage/betterbillboard.png) just looks way more polished and goes a long way towards making the ad look more appealing.
If I saw your baby photo posted by a friend on Facebook, I would be squealing all over about how cute their kid is. But on an advertisement, I expect something more professional.
Suppose you have severe headaches, blurred vision, and recurrent dizzyness. Do you then say:
(a)”The fact that ‘professional doctors’ scorn leeches and blood letting only makes me want to use them more! Bunch of pretentious jerks. These people really have no understanding of art.”
or do you say:
(b) “This could be something serious. I need to see a doctor.”
As part of my job, I dabble in design work (no choice in the matter even though I am not trained). I am a professional at what I do (cultural interpretation and public history). I am also well aware of my limitations and welcome any input by professionals. Why? Because they are professionals. They have training and experience that I do not have. By the same token, though, if a designer decides to give me advice on how to interpret steam technology, or labour history, I will most likely ignore the input. Why? Because, in my profession, I have training and experience that they do not.
I have no idea what line of work you are in, darwinharmless. But, whether you are a scientist, or publicist, or work in sales, or construction, or what ever your career is, should I dismiss your professional training and experience out of hand claiming that you are pretentious because you know your job?
When buying a car, I prefer to work with someone who is a professional at what they do. When a truck passes me on the highway, I hope that driver is a professional. When a tooth abscessed (actually turned out to be two teeth), I did not ask a friend with plyers to take care of it, I went to a professional. When I suffer physical pain, I know that my doctor is a professional. I may not understand all that she says (though I do ask for clarification), but I do not dismiss what I do not understand as pretentiousness.
Art and design are part talent, and part a lifetime study of design, composition, layout, colour, texture, etc. To dismiss it as pretentious because you do not fully understand the profession is the height of arrogance.
@Eric
I get that you’re going for a stylistic suck, but you have to realize that it is actually hard to be bad in a coherent way. OOTS for example is a webcomic done by someone with actual graphics training and experience. It’s that training that lets him use simplistic images to generate complex representation.
baab,
Did you actually stop reading one paragraph from the end of the essay? To continue quoting from where you left off,
hahahahahaha
idiot
I can’t stop laughing at darwinharmless’ comment… it’s like the pointing at a Picasso and saying “my kid could do that”, but in reverse.
And it shows!!!
I’m not being sarcastic. It’s awesome.
lolwut?
I hear you. All professional scientists are in that position nowadays, too, because they have to make their own figures for their papers. The amount of time I’ve spent in Illustrator… and I’m young, so I’ve only published 6 papers so far, 1 of which lacks illustrations. My art education ended with highschool, 12 years ago.
Heh. “about to turn into a Japanese ghost” is right.
I think I’ve seen worse (some 1960s beige-ish yellow on walls maybe), but I seriously prefer not to remember.
Nice. I wonder if the spaces between the letters aren’t too large, and if b and d aren’t still too similar – but they’re probably as dissimilar as you can get in the Latin alphabet outside of actual handwriting (cursive)!
I like that.
I don’t know… the font… :-/
Does this smell like the fallacy of sunk costs?
I fully agree on this. There are brighter and bolder colors than this hideous yellow…
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Seconded. I get the pun, and it’s good, but it’s not good enough to overcome this fact.
Oh the rapier wit. “Grow the fuck up”? I’nm stunned by your sparkling intelligence and the originality of your use of language.
@Jadehawk Good line. Made me chuckle. But I think if we were to have a conversation you would find a bit more sophisitcation behind my opinion than that.
The issue here is the subjectivity of aethetic judgments. I happen to think body piercings and tattoos are mostly ugly but I’ll bet there are a few being displayed by this collection of juvenile cake hole flappers. What I find REALLY ugly is a bunch of armchair admirals on OUR side flaming a guy who actually got off his ass and accomplished something. Instead of “Awesome dude”, “Well done”, “Great to see you strike a blow for reason”, we get rude carping criticism by admittedly amateurs designers.
There are two main goals for a billboard – get attention and generate discussion. Given that this will be comment 211, I think ericjayne’s efforts accomplished both in this community. The fact that most of you find it ugly is totally beside the point. My guess is it will do at least as much when it isn’t preaching to the choir.
So how about a fast STFU about your ever so personal aesthetic judements and giving the guy a well deserved pat on the back. We need more of him, and a lot less of you. And if you just can’t stomach his results, go out and try to do better. Put your ego where your mouth is and give us a chance to flame your efforts.
and if this were a conversation about someone’s self-expression, you’d have a fucking point, albeit a trite and condescending one. But since we’re talking about an advertisement, artistic self-expression doesn’t enter into it.
interesting that you glommed onto the part where two of the critics admitted to being amateurs, but ignored the part where several professionals offered criticism. nice confirmation bias
no, the main purpose of any advertisement is to sell an image of oneself. satire can sell you as a clever satirist; mock-ugly can sell something else entirely; amateurish only sells the image that you’re a small fringe-group who can’t afford a to pay for a billboard (which sometimes is the point, but I have some doubts that’s the message the Minnesota Atheists were trying to send)
none of us are going to drop our religion (because, you know, we don’t have one) or join the MinnesotaAtheists because we felt the urge to critique these ugly signs. Despite that “common wisdom”, sometimes bad press is just bad, and that’s especially so when it’s self-created bad press.
I haven’t expressed any, so bite me. My critiques were based on having studied design and color theory.
knock yourself out
yeah, I was trying for something similarly whimsical, but wasn’t going to actually buy Dyslexie (which would have been perfect) just for a thought experiment.
alternatively, I’d use a smoothed out, fattened up version of Dakota Regular, if I decided to mock the child-scribble in the forced-birth ad
and did you read this part of your precious arbitrary commandment? – “If your skeptical community is a place where lots of people use lots of insults, it’s not very welcoming to anyone.”
are you just cherry picking from this article’s “sage” advice? because she is clearly saying that all insults are not welcoming. you along with your other self-worshiping morons are miserable hypocrites. you spend your time in this pathetic bubble here bitching and complainging about everything and because you or they didnt get to work on the billbord. maybe if you’d turn your fucking computer off and try to do something constructive you idiots might feel better about yourselves instead of dragging others down to your anger filled rage.
no gendered insults? fuck you and fuck that. the skeptical community here has already violated the advice (do not be rude and do not use vulgarity and insults) from the same source that advised against using gendered insults. i guess that makes you and your friends here
a bunch of assholesa bag of dicks and a box of cunts.baab, fuck right off and don’t come back.
yeah, at this point it’s a pretty safe bet that anyone who starfarts all over themselves when being told that sexist/racist/etc slurs are very much unwelcome is not going to be doing much rational discoursing.
“My critiques were based on having studied design and color theory.”
Oh, sorry. My mistake. I didnt’ realize that having “studied design and color theory” means that your opinion on aethstics isn’t subjective or personal. I guess I just didn’t understand the words.
no it means I wasn’t giving an “opinion”. from a design perspective, those billboards send the message of cheapness and amateurishness, which I’m guessing is not what people donated money to have themselves represented as.
and it’s rather obvious that there’s a lot you don’t understand, not just the meaning of words
What do you have against professionals? Seriously, what the fuck is your problem? Do you have professionals do your taxes? Are you represented by a professional in a court of law? Do you have a post and crown done by a professional? Or your appendix taken out by a professional? Do you expect the person who waits your table at a nice restaurant to be a professional? Or the person who fixes your car? What the fuck is wrong with you that you refuse to admit the possibility that art and design are professional careers? Careers people train for?
@Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe I’m the one with the problem here? I guess I should take responsibility for your your inability to get my point. I’ll try to make this simple. I admire professionals. I use them every time I want to accomplish something important. It takes at least 10,000 hours of effort to achieve mastery, and it always shows. I struggle to be professional, and to achieve mastery in several areas. Okay. Do you get that? That isn’t the point. That is beside the point.
Here’s the point: You say the billboard design sucks. I say it is perfectly okay by me. I believe my opinion is just as valid as yours, whether you are a professional and have studied design and colour theory or not. It’s just possible that I have done the same, and still don’t fucking agree with you. It’s an opinion. Got that?
I admire professionals and I admire good work. But more than that, I admire accomplishment. Every time there is a public art project, there are critics shitting all over it. This happened with the big hunk of Canadian shield in Toronto’s Yorkville, but of course it’s turned into a landmark and very popular fixture in the city. It happened with the Terry Fox memorial in Vancouver, with everybody screaming that it was ugly. No doubt it will happen to you if you ever put anything out for public evaluation.
I don’t happen to give a flying frog what your opinion is about these billboards. And it isn’t because I don’t value design or professionalism. We have here a guy who got something done. I approve. I think it’s great. Bitch and whine about it all you want, it only makes you look like an asshole.
I say @ericjayne accomplished something important. I hope his enthusiasm isn’t dampened by people like you, because we need people who get things done a lot more than we need people who criticize their efforts.
Now, go ahead and pick holes in what I’ve written. Go ahead and flame me with your ad hominems instead of arguing my actual points. Nobody likes to be told they are wrong, and you obviously react badly when somebody has an opinion that makes you feel… what? Small?
if you’re a professional designer, I’ll fucking eat a broom. but you can prove me wrong easily. I’ve shown you my work, now it’s your turn to put your money where your mouth is
not every effort is laudable. that’s just silly.
“if”? lol. pay attention.
and now you’re back to not understanding the meaning of words, I see. I’ve insulted you plenty, but I’ve not actually uttered a single ad hom against you.
false dichotomy, since eric could also get that stick up his ass removed and next time ask a professional to get his banners designed.
plus, like I said, what he’s accomplished is to make the Minnesota Atheists look as… “quaint”… as those car companies that put self-made, cheap ads on local TV networks.
lol, I have issues with other people’s opinions? HAHAHAHAHAAA. considering we witnessed eric become idiotically defensive of his designs even before they were placed, I can say with a great degree of certainty that in terms of accepting criticism of my work, I’m a fucking buddhist saint compared to him
and i note that in your whining about how people laughed at other designs, the ones you’ve pointed out were all art, not advertisement. the fact that you can’t tell the difference well enough to know that different criticisms apply are one big clue to you not being a designer. or maybe you do know the difference and are simply being dishonest when you conflate them.
The organization put the proposed billboard up on their website and facebook page when they asked for donations. Everyone who donated their money saw what the billboards were going to look like.
I saw it and I didn’t care too much for it.
I donated my own money to the billboard and I saw what it was going to look like. I liked what I saw and I donated the money. They made it look like the pro-life billboards because they were making a statement of satire and they made it so the billboards would be noticeable….and what is wrong with “quaint” anyway?
I have read through your comments and I am sure the Minnesota Atheists would not want to work with anyone as rude as you no matter how talented you think you are.