The new American Atheist billboard designs are now online, and I don’t want to disappoint Dave Silverman, so I’ll give my usual review: better than the last set, but still needs work.
Stuff I like: it’s a strong, assertive message, and that’s what I want from AA. The “Atheism: Simply Reasonable” slogan is clear, short, punchy. They’ve gotten away, mostly, from the blocky multi-colored Mondrian look of previous signs.
Stuff I don’t like: the text on the left is 5 lines long. That’s too much for a billboard. The central image is sort of arbitrary — it says religion is silly, but it doesn’t contribute much to the message on the left. The other billboard, on Mormonism, is worse in this regard; why is there a guy in his underwear there? Really, on a billboard, everything must be distilled down to deliver one clear, simple argument.
I know Dave is rolling his eyes right now and wondering why he’s even trying to lead those fractious, critical atheists at all…wouldn’t sheep be so much easier?
This is a joke right?
“Useless Savior” would be about all that needed to be said under “Christianity.” Even if God is sadistic, that’s not really a reason he doesn’t exist, and it’s likely to get defenses up.
The uselessness of it all is the real reason there’s no reason to bother with it.
Glen Davidson
I see a potential lawsuit from Christian Toastmasters groups in the first one.
What is wrong with them? All their signs have been horrible. They know this. Why can’t they admit it and hire a good designer?
@4: To re-use a joke from the last batch of billboards, they reject intelligent design.
Is pareidolia of religious figures in toast even something most Christians or fencesitters will recognize? I’d assume they know it’s Jesus, but will wonder what that has to do with a piece of toast. By the time they’re done thinking about that they’ll be past the billboard.
Seeing Jesus, Mary, and angels in toast or wood knots or spilled milk is certainly something we secular folk joke about, but I’m not so sure that’s a topic that’s instantly recognizable to the religious or apathetic non-religious.
Maybe they did, but they’re clients from hell, ironically.
“Atheism: No god. No graphic designer, either.”
I would have cut the “30,000+ versions of truth” line. it’s a valid criticism, but obviously atheists don’t agree on stuff either and explaining why this isn’t equivalent is too much for a billboard.
All they really needed on the left is Christianity: 30,000+ versions of “truth”. That’s punchy enough, easily read when driving by and enough to provoke thought in a number of people.
That’s a good point.
Atheism: Lets fill an entire billboard full of words for people to read.
Captaintripps:
Even if they recognize it right away, my bet is that people start swapping “I saw Jesus/Mary/Saint/Angel whatever in X” stories.
At least this one isn’t appropriative and racist. It’s a move in the right direction. And this way, we still have our running jokes at the expense of their billboard designs.
Perhaps it’s a regional thing. The billboard might be released in an area known for people seeing Jesus in toast, or trees, or clouds, or feces.
Honestly, mocking Mormon undergarments is… well, it’s silly, because unless there’s a person out there with a fetish for that sort of underwear, most people don’t form their opinions on religions by their minor sartorial restrictions.
It’s the sort of joke that is only funny to outsiders, and wouldn’t really cross over well to ‘well, why are Mormon underwear funny but my religion’s special clothing not?’.
(Actually, I’m not sure what the point of these billboards are, which is why I tend to prefer the ‘we exist and you’re not alone!’ types, as I can easily see the goal of that ad campaign — to give atheist solidarity, especially in more openly-religious areas and make it clear that atheists are part of the community.)
I’m going with the “clients from hell” explanation. Clearly, whoever is on their committee is not really understanding what the problem is.
It’s kind of funny and sad at the same time. heh…
American Atheists take note of Skepticon’s simple eye-catching kitty billboard.
eh. if you remove the smallprint, it’s a serviceable billboard. The Mormonism one is worse, because you need to know about magic underwear to get it, and that’s not good messaging (OTOH, the small-print is easier to fix on the mormon one, since
Mormonism: God is a Space Alien // Atheism: Simply Reasonable
is a good tagline.
I blame the shitty smallprint on the Christianity billboard on the fact that people are so used to the silly claims of mainstream Christianity that they don’t feel sufficiently silly to distill. I’d have gone with:
Christianity: Zombie Uprisings // Atheism: Simply Reasonable
I might even include chapter & verse for the claims about the religions, they don’t take up much space.
To consolidate some the above points: These billboards have the same basic problems as the earlier ones in that they assume familiarity with atheist Internet memes.
Atheism: Jesus toast in my BDSM dungeon.
I hope you’ll forgive my ellipsis, given that the full quote tops the page, but these two ideas go together really well, and represent the biggest fail in billboard design, and the problem with most atheist billboards. We need to go back to square one: find the idea you want to put on the billboard, and if you can’t express it in only a few words and a very simple image, don’t make a billboard until you can.
I think the ad is horrible. Not only does the graphical design suck, but the message sucks from a marketing or public relations perspective.
The advantage of starting out with awkward amateurish billboards is that eventually we’ll be able to point back and say “look how much we’ve improved!!!”
…why is it orange and black?
Solid color backdrop.
Text in contrasting color: “Atheism. Simply Reasonable.” Website address.
Bam. Done. Is that so hard?
Note: I am a proud member of AA. Dave, love the gusto but I agree that billboards must have a succinct message. From someone who drives 267 miles a day and is very cognizant of distracted driving. . Don’t give up….refine.
Is Marcus Ranum the Marcus Ranum of Tenable Network Security fame?
Hmpth. I liked the “You can be good without God” bus ads that I heard about. Simple text on a plain backdrop. Six to eight words of a simple, concise message. Url. Group name.
This is the message they want to send to people going to the 2012 DNC? What the fuck is wrong with them? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to say something in support of secularism or liberalism?
What I like about American Atheists is that suckers are actually donating money for them to waste like this.
I probably shouldn’t laugh, but I do.
I liked the ‘you’re not alone’ ads the best. Those also seemed to get much more outraged attention, when all they did was point out the existence of atheists. I think when it comes to addressing religions directly, they can be too easy for theists to dismiss.
Ads which simply point out that atheists are here and aren’t going away, however, those aren’t so easy for them to dismiss.
Silly hat and all!
The Mormon billboard threw me at first with the “God is a space alien” comment as it made me think of Scientology not Mormons. That may be because I grew up Mormon and we never talked about that until I consider most people know that Mormons believe about God residing on the planet Kolob. (Thank you BoM musical!)
And while I for one was extremely happy to leave the garments behind me, I don’t see how the picture helps since all religions have their own ridiculous dress and behavior restrictions. I guess I prefer the simple messages. I like the tagline of “Atheism: Simply reasonable”, although I suppose that will be perceived as an attack as well, but it should be…
On a side note, at first I thought at least Mormons don’t see Joseph Smith in their breakfast foods, then suddenly remembered the Mormon version which is sightings and stories of the Three Nephites. Basically, Mormons believe that 3 of the 12 apostles Jesus chose when he visited the Americas’s asked to remain until his return and so still wander around the earth. Whenever someone tells a story about a mysterious person who helped when their car broke down and some other situation, it always becomes one of the 3 Nephites who are apparently God’s own AAA service for the faithful…
I know Dave is rolling his eyes right now and wondering why he’s even trying to lead those fractious, critical atheists at all…wouldn’t sheep be so much easier?
Even cats would be easier. But we are what we are… and if any of us are graphic designers, step up to the plate, wave your arm at Dave, and say “Hire me for the next one!”
@Randomfactor #26
You’d think so, but then they’d probably choose ComicSans.
Well, as an atheist organisation, a sans-seraph font is a given.
I agree that one of the simpler messages, “You’re Not Alone” or “Atheism: Simply Reasonable” along with the American Atheists logo seems most suitable for a billboard. They should be drawing attention to the existence of the organization, not trying to lay out a case for atheism in detail.
I still like my idea the best, though. And it doesn’t single out Christianity, although that might be considered necessary in this part of the world.
@31
I am a sucker actually donating money. Why so negative? I see several critically constructive comments and they are duly noted. What is your contribution other than to pee on our parade?
@Brownian #37
What about sans-nephil?
Too small.
You win one internets.
God, this is horrible. The “sadistic god” part will enrage and turn off any even nominal Christians before they even read the rest of it. “30,000 denominations, 30,000 versions of truth” is something to think about, however. And the black on orange at the bottom pretty much disappears; i always assume that a different color box in the bottom corner is the billboard company (the way all the ones in Missouri say “Lamar” on them).
Mostly same info, better graphic:
Split in half down middle. Left title: Christianity. Right title: Atheism. Under left, “30,000 denominations” on one line, “30,000 versions of truth” on the next. Under right, “Simply reasonable” on the first line, “Atheists.org” on the next. No stupid Jesus toast in the middle.
Nah, he’s the Marcus Ranum that opened a safe with a big freaking gun. Much more impressive.
You, however, get one internet taken away.
The color scheme is rather uninviting. Looks like an invitation to a Halloween party.
Lol! I’m not negative. I’m having a great laugh at your expense.
Not by AA they aren’t. You’re just going to keep throwing your money in the toilet. For years now AA has been fucking up their billboards. It’s a meme.
I’ll be happy to point you toward another organization which makes somewhat less shitty billboards: http://www.americanhumanist.org/
If you switch your donations, you’ll amplify your efficacy.
(You’re welcome.)
But an invitation to a Halloween party is inviting.
That’s what its for.
Well, I already licked the one you just gave mythbri.
If you’re a novice graphic designer, and you’ve got a chance to design your first billboard, your first reaction may well be, “Hooray! I’ve got this big huge canvas to play with! I can cram all kinds of stuff on there with impunity.”
Unfortunately, despite their physical size, billboards are actually the smallest canvases you have to work with. Conceptually, they’re even smaller than business cards.
If you zoom out while you’re working on the design to the point that the canvas is an inch high on the screen (hold up a ruler and keep zooming out until the image on screen is one inch tall), then you’ve got a decent shot at designing a good billboard. Do not zoom in, period, ever, while working on the design. And don’t lean forward or otherwise try to get a closer view.
(When you’re all done, go ahead and zoom in all the way to tweak kerning and the like — but only after the design itself is complete.)
Do that with the billboard in question, and you’ll see where they first went horribly worng.
I hope somebody can get this advice to American Atheists and their graphic designers….
Cheers,
b&
Just awful.
C’mon, there’s a reason that there are professionals who do this sort of thing.
Awful and embarrassing.
@Brownian #48
I’m torn between “Ewwww, tongue-cooties!” and “Hmmm. Well, Brownian cooties.”
Done by committee, with each person’s pet put in.
Glen Davidson
@Ben Goren
Now I want to design a fractal billboard.
Ben @ 49 is on the money – there’s a distinctly n00bish quality to this one, as if the designer was trying to include all the client’s talking points as well as a quick stab at pareidolia. Frankly, it’s an overly busy mess and I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone driving by wouldn’t get the message.
Guys, it’s a billboard, not a blog post. Lose the toast. Pick ONE sentence – a short one. Try and understand people will be driving past and only have a few seconds before they need to look at the road. Try and understand that the majority of people looking will be religious. Don’t make your target (CHRISTIANITY) bigger than your product (Atheism). Um –
You know what? Scrap the ugly fucking thing and try this:
Grab some stock images of pleasant-looking people of various ages and ethnic and professional backgrounds. Put them on a pleasant blue background (or something similarly eye-catching and offensive). Next to them place the slogan “I’m your doctor and I’m an atheist.” Throw your logo in there, nice and big. Repeat with teacher/professor/local cop/OB-GYN/lawyer/neighbour/child/parent/firefighter/spouse.
My approach is simply to move away from the argumentative atheist who finds fault with the faith and laughs at Jesus-toast. Everyone’s familiar with that atheist – in fact, a lot of people ONLY know that atheist. Move toward simply making atheism visible and non-threatening. Your doctor is an atheist, and she saved your mother from breast cancer. Your lawyer is an atheist, and he got you justice after that car accident. Your mother is a freaking atheist, and in your eyes she’s a saint. Can atheism really be that bad? Look at all these people that are atheists!
But if you’re going to go down the confrontational road, avoid ugly dark colours that shrink the space and busy, small-fonted word-filled corners and Jesus-toast. Pick ONE thing and magnify it. Pick Hell, for fucks sake – the most hateful doctrine ever espoused. Pick Original Sin. Pick Pat Robertson! Hell, just drive along the highway for half an hour, have your passenger take pictures of other billboards, then spend another half hour analysing them.
TL;DR – far be it from me to be prescribe an organisation’s PR strategy, but this is my honest reaction to this billboard, which I presume is what this org wants. It’s busy, it’s unattractive, it’s confusing and it’s vague. Noone will know what you’re getting at with the damn toast! In-house PR is all well and good, but at least get a pro’s opinion before you send your proofs to the printers.
It’s a challenge to make one that can easily be differentiated from its background.
The three lines on the left are a good demonstration that even good arguments can sound like the rantings of Gene Ray if you compress them into a few disconnected phrases.
Exactly. In a debate, you have enough time to argue how God is either malicious or non-existent, how the Bible contradicts itself and how hate is relabeled as love. A billboard only has time to deliver one message.
The “Millions are good without God” (and similar) message is my favorite so far; the “There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy life” is another great one. Just one complete, memorable sentence.
I think the “3000+ versions” reference will be lost on most people. To them the bible is the bible is the bible.
I didn’t realize that was toast until someone mentioned it. I thought it was a shroud of Turin type thing.
I think the underwear thing is stupid. Who cares what style your underwear is as long as it is clean. Boxer, briefs or magic — no-one in public is ever going to see it anyway.
01jack @ 50:
Agreed. As if the last crop weren’t enough of a wake-up call. Did AA just ignore the criticism of the last few boards, or did they not receive it?
Glen D @ 52:
That’s entirely possible. I’ve seen more than a few websites/ads/album covers needlessly cluttered up by too much content – almost always to avoid offending somebody by the omission of their awesome idea.
I might be harping a little here, but two things irritate the arsecheeks off me: shoddy/lazy/over-complex design (both graphic and product) and poor advertising. This board happens to be poor advertising and overly complex. The point of a billboard is to engage someone for, what, five seconds? Maybe a couple of minutes if you’re lucky – say if they’re at a red light or caught in traffic. If I had to look at this thing for 120 seconds while I waited for a green light, every second would make me like it less.
Come on, AA, do some research please – or at least listen to peoples’ criticisms. My design teacher would’ve given me a C for this.
Are these two billboards targeted at the God of Good Punctuation and Writing Coherence? If they don’t, they still defy it pretty well.
I agree. Not just that, but a sentence which is relevant and directed to some group in particular.
These aren’t supposed to be generic signs promoting atheism, getting atheists involved in AA, or saying something like “fuck you, Christians/Mormons.” These are going to be in Charlotte, NC, ostensibly for the Democratic National Convention. But they clearly didn’t have convention-goers in mind when they made them, unless they think they ought to remind liberals or convention-goers that believing in Jesus toast or magic underwear is silly. So even if they fixed all the graphic design problems, there’d still be a fuckton of design problems with the message itself.
I don’t know. Maybe they’re not totally incompetent. Maybe they just forgot who the audience is and/or what they wanted to say to them. Or maybe their dog ate the good billboard, which said or did something useful.
Billboard rage! Them that can, do. Them that can’t, give well-intentioned advice. Others just get snarky.
I posit that it is not necessary to be able to design well in order to recognize a poor design when you see it…
From a graphics perspective the worst part of both of these is that there is far too much empty and thus wasted space. The Toast image has possibilities but first is too small and probably too vague a message. Remember with bill boards there is a very limited window of visibility considering how fast the average car is going by and hopefully how much the driver is looking at the road. Because of this the KISS principle is even more important than in other campaigns. For this reason the Mormon billboard fails in every conceivable way. It took me over a minute that the image was mocking someone in “magic underwear” and not a large yellow X looking at it on my monitor, in a car that’s too much time.
At least the designer went with San-seraph. There is always a temptation to go with something fancier that is pretty but illegible. But once again this was a huge waste of space. It could have been used better with a larger font.
From a marketing perspective… feel free to disagree with me on this one, but for this venue i think it’s better to spend the space endorsing Atheism as the product rather than spending most of the copy attacking the opposition something like “EMBRACE REASON” in bold or something similar…
Just my ten cents.
Now look what I’ve done.
Serif/seriph vs. Seraph.
Atheism: No god. No graphic designer, either
LOL!
Tip: make sure your review committee is not stacked with speed-readers.
I wonder – is this why you skipped the pub crawl this past Saturday night?
(I keed, I keed!)
As for the billboards, I think they fulfill their objectives perfectly fine; they’re not meant for theists in the first place, as the AA has clearly stated.
“Our billboards’ target audience is not religious people: the target audience is our fellow atheists, especially closeted atheists.”
oh, don’t be silly. Atheists are smarter than that.
They’ll choose a ComicSans lookalike with a different name, too many people don’t like ComicSans.
no, dear. those that can, get paid for it. Those that don’t want to pay those that can, create messes like this.
Sadly, if you took the messages from just the bottom line of that billboard, you’d have an effective message. The slogan, “Atheism: Simply Reasonable” is good and punchy and should be taking centre stage instead of being relegated to the corner in poorly contrasting colours. The rest is unnecessary.
hockeybob @ 67
As for the billboards, I think they fulfill their objectives perfectly fine; they’re not meant for theists in the first place, as the AA has clearly stated.
Taking that into account, closeted atheists are in no lesser need of clear messages and good design than anyone else.
-general comment-
This board is unprofessional and vague from both a marketing and design standpoint. I know AA mightn’t have the funds for a multi-board campaign, but that’s no reason to attempt to cram half a dozen of your favourite talking points onto the one billboard – if anything, limited budget should be motivation to be as clear and concise as possible. And the less said about the colour pallette used the better. Black and brown and grey does not say “Look over here at this great positive message of belonging and support!”, it says “Very Serious Stuff Here. Feel free to gawp at the bright orange Hooters billboard down the road.” Plus the Jesus-toast will not be an obvious “get” for everyone – some people don’t spend much time online catching up with the latest religious silliness. Finally, it seems more of an attack on Christianity than a shout-out to closeted atheists. If the intention is to advertise a safe space for non-believers, this board is unclear on that. It says “Religion is silly and hateful! Join the AA!” Why? Do you guys do more than just identify the most obvious flaws in Christianity?
We here on the webs have the luxury of being able to stare at this board as long as we want and appreciate its message fully – and then to read statements by its creators explaining its intent. If I had only a handful of seconds to take this board in as I drove by I don’t know if I’d be able to read everything on the left hand side (the formatting and syntax there is, um, less than ideal as well). My take-home might well be “It wants me to join American Atheists? Why? Because of 30,000 Truths and Jesus-toast?”
TD;DR: The fact that so many people are discussing/arguing over this board’s message, target, intent, design and grammar speaks very loudly to the fact that it is in fact potentially very ineffective. To stop being charitable, I’ll add, again, vague, cluttered and unattractive.
Honestly, the AA needs to think a little harder about how it spends its marketing money.
Bah. Blocky fail in aisle 71. Feel free to rag on the poor design!
How about “Which religion is right?” on one side, “Atheism” on the other?
And that just increased its value, you know.
Watch out for the inevitable clones being created from that sample.
Seriously, I mean WTH? Silverman is a nice guy, although in person he comes across as a kid alone in a toy store with dad’s credit card, but these billboards are just going from bad to worse.
Which part of “it takes a car half a second to zoom past this, so make your message short and memorable” is so hard for AA to understand?
Meh, assumes that atheism is a religion. I would prefer “They Can’t All Be Right” next to a bunch of religious symbols, then “They Can All Be Wrong” by some empty space.
Actually, it seems like the only good thing people have to say about this one is that it’s better than the one with the slave on it.
Maybe DarkMatter2525 could help them. He does an awesome timelapse drawing of Carl Sagan at the end of this video, and it’s at $375 on eBay right now!
Ah, I see, looks like the right side answers the left side. I was going for the concept of what you said instead.
in that case, the sniping at assorted religions is entirely useless anyway. it really should just be “Atheism: Simply Reasonable”
Atheism doesn’t kick puppies.
Join us in not doing so.
(URL)
Hmm, how about:
Atheism doesn’t kick puppies.
People kick puppies.
(URL)
Yeah…
hehehe! Source derogation.
I gave you well intentioned advice. You didn’t want to hear it: “I’ll be happy to point you toward another organization which makes somewhat less shitty billboards: http://www.americanhumanist.org/ If you switch your donations, you’ll amplify your efficacy.”
+++++
Well yeah.
A lot of theists are suckers too, but if you want the suckers who’ll donate money to AA, you gotta target atheists.
Still, they could be more successful if they’d break out of this rut.
If they are using those fancy new electronic billboards where the image changes every few seconds, I think the billboards need to have a lot less on them. Print billboards you might see dozens of times if you drive by it every day. The electronic ones you might only see once for a few seconds (while you’re also keeping your eyes on the road), depending on how many other billboards are in the rotation. How about just a big “Join us…” above Atheists.org which takes up most of the billboard.
BTW PZ: The “Switch to our mobile site” at the bottom of the page is a malformed link and generates an error.
The only thing good I can say is that it’s so ugly and unreadable that perhaps no one will notice it reads like an angry undergrad who just discovered The God Delusion last week.
It’s just a coincidence, but just this week I had unveiled my billboard campaign called ‘American Atheists who don’t hire a professional, experienced designer: You’re not helping!’
Don’t like. As previous posters have pointed out, too much text, too busy, too confused.
Don’t much care for the content. The toast thing, it seems to me, is just adolescent snark and reinforces some unfortunate stereotypes about atheists.
There’s nothing wrong with comic sans, it is just trendy to trash it. It is not the most elegant font, but it can be very functional. There are scores of fonts that are worse that you never hear about.
The serifs exist to lead your eyes along the page, the serifs like the trunks and tails of a line of marching elephants. So if you have a body of text, it is REALLY annoying to have to read a sans serif font. But you can squeeze more text in a small space in, say Helvetica than you can with Times New Roman, so we see a lot of text on labels and posters without serifs.
On a billboard, you don’t need serifs. But if you have enough room you might choose to use one. You would not use comic sans because it really wants to be purple or pink and to announce the meeting of the cat ladies crochet club.
My idea for a billboard is thus:
Overall billboard is black, the black of space, it turns out.
the top half of a photo of Earth from space fills the bottom half of the frame. Large headline in bold centered above the domelike shape of the planet: GET REAL
in smaller text below that: There are matters HERE that require your attention.
And then the website address.
I rather fancy a garamondy sort of font. Could just be from years of using computers that actually work. But keep it simple and elegant. We aren’t selling product, but we are trying to sell an idea. Representing atheism with the toast billboard is like showing up for a job interview in Birkenstocks and pajama bottoms.
I would rather not have the subtext be that atheists are tacky, petty and not too sharp.
I’m not a genius with billboard messaging so from my perspective I’ll leave the critique to others. However I am very good with money so for me the only issue in my view is does it work and how is that result quantified? What is the return on the inverstment? If the people that spent the money that commissioned that billboard can’t answer those questions and get a quantifiable result then that is a questionable business decision. I have strong views about that. And, if money continues to be spent on a questionable return on investment, that in and of itself is a more significant issue than a billboard.
Holy crap, that’s bad. what is the matter with these guys? How hard is it for them to find someone who can design a decent billboard? All those browns….
Hows about an open vetting process, or run it by the FTB bloggers in the way a company does external as well as internal audits? Obviously the final decisions are made by
A: the wrong people
B: too few people
I have a couple of ideas. Feel free to critique, etc.
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/9t5zz
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/2xzc5
I’m thinking there was a committee involved.
I think this is uglier than the last one, at least from a visual standpoint. The one PZ has posted has way too much going on in it. Overall I feel like this is pretty much a carbon copy of the last thread. I am just waiting for Silverman to say that they are a success because they are getting media interviews due to them and ignore all criticism, again. Anything involving atheism in the public sphere seems to get press, that is the easy part and hardly a good measure of how successful a campaign actually is. But billboards are not just about getting press attention, you want actual people to take notice, maybe even think a little bit, and check out your website. I do not think that will happen with these designs.
“Sadistic god”? That’s an argument for misotheism, not for atheism.
I hate that.
Ni dieu, ni dessinateur, ni maître !!!
*carefully hides Jadehawk under the desk*
Definitely! Few people would get the connection otherwise.
*hands Internet right back to Brownian*
Again, these are arguments for miso-, not for atheism.
The German version of that works much better than the English one, alas: it’s ES GIBT _ KEINEN GOTT (“there is no god”), with MIT AN SICHERHEIT GRENZENDER WAHRSCHEINLICHKEIT crammed (in 3 lines or so) into the space where I put the underscore. That means “with probability that borders on certainty”; it’s a fixed phrase that is fairly common in some technical contexts, and unfortunately it lacks an English equivalent. :-(
Can’t be said often enough.
We have a winner.
that’s because people don’t abuse them so regularly. You don’t see design n00bs trying to “friendly” things up with Giddyup or trying to convince you they’re being “retro” just by adding Hobo nearly often enough to warrant non-internal criticism.
OTOH, the abuse of Papyrus, Lithos, and the “ugly handwriting” fonts is nearly as tragic as the ComicSans abuse, and insufficiently widespread.
and criticism thereof is insufficiently widespread. I don’t want font abuse to spread. O.o
Gross. Somebody licked this one.
I’m currently looking at a chapstick that uses both papyrus AND comic sans on the label. No joke.
@dysomniak, darwinian socialist,
Yep, that’s one ugly chapstick package. Don’t like that style of cartoon and there are kerning issues.
Thankfully, it is very small, not like a billboard. I don’t believe I’ve ever purchased a chapstick based on the font choice. I’m more interested in the scent and, sometimes, the sunblock.
Perhaps that ugly design is intentional. Perhaps if you flinch every time you look at your chapstick, you will be less likely to throw it in your pocket and then forget about it until you pull your clothes out of the dryer.
I’m a graphic designer, and knowing how the AA billboards have been historically, I’d be leery of taking the job if offered — the string of failures makes me suspect a Client From Hell.
I can picture the meetings that lead to this all too easily: “But THIS idea is important, too!” “We have to include X” “And Y! Because it’s my pet peeve!” “OOOH, TOAST! THAT’LL GET ‘EM WHERE THEY LIVE!” Add in a few extra “Can’t you *just* add this one little line…” and pretty soon the designer gives up and heads to the liquor store.
There’s this unfortunate idea that designers are only hired for our pixel pushing skills and not our actual skills and marketing knowledge, see. It can be an uphill battle against the client, who is fighting against their own best interests.
Clearly we need to market ourselves better. :P
Captaintripps
13 August 2012 at 2:21 pm
From personal experience, it’s certainly not something that anyone considered important or meaningful.
When I was a Christian, I never heard anyone bring up Toast-Jesii as reasons for faith.
I didn’t know or meet anyone who would have thought an image of Jesus on toast was any more significant that (for example) a cloud that looked like a cat riding a bicycle, and people who did think like that.
People who did think such things were Important (invariably forigners reported on the And Finally section of the news) were AFAIK seen as sill.
But then, I was in a relatively liberal Church of England church. (Also, insert disclaimer about anecdata).
A post by Stephanie Zvan just reminded me that there are actually AA billboards that are really well-designed.
More of these.
I didn’t even recognize the toast as toast until it was pointed out, and I’m not speeding by at 65 mph.
I used to do ad layout for a paper. There was nothing quite like the feeling of coming up with a striking, eye-catching design that matched the theme of the sale or client, that led the eye through the various points, only to have them reject the proof and ask for a box with a black border filled with text without even a heading.
Or when they would come in just at deadline and hand you their “camera-ready” ad, straight out of their dot-matrix printer.
Their graphic designer needs to stop using web banners for billboards. Or alternately, AA needs to stop demanding web banners when they’re going to put it on a billboard.
#100
Oy… As an Illustrator with adequate graphics skills, I’ve had those clients too. “The right is on our side” are the worst ESPECIALLY if its a cause you believe in. They have a bad tendency to use up their “store credit” way too quickly. I had to do a work twice once they nitpicked my original version so much.
Actually, those are terrible too. Condescending and sneering and definitely with a superior tone, and the only response they’ll get is “NO IT ISN’T”.
As a means of procrastinating the design work I’m supposed to be doing, I made this. In hindsight, it should have been green or red, not blue, but I accidentally deleted the vector-file and I can’t be bothered to recreate it.
Anyway, I think “keep it simple” works a lot better, visually. So do bright-but-not-garish colors.
But Jadehawk, how will you convince anyone without including half a dozen loosely connected talking points shoddily distilled to a few words each? I think your sign needs a bulleted list. And maybe some animated GIFs.
Damn, Jadehawk, that’s beautiful.
animated smileys, actually. People should not be able to tell the difference between American Atheists’ billboards and the Rapture Ready forums ;-)
I thought the ‘you’re not alone’ billboards would have been the most effective. The people with doubts are looking for that nudge to get more information, and what better way to do so than to let them know there’s other people just like them doing the same thing.
And the last one, “You KNOW it’s a Myth”, sounds fucking desperate, before we even get to the ugly font.
Yes, but the gray may be a bit too light to be readable at high speed, given the relatively bright background.
The sky-blue is fucking awesome. Not only is it beautiful, it takes the sky/heaven out of the of religion!!!
Signatures with 15 animated smileys!!!
Jadehawk managed to put all this into a single word: “Join”.
I disagree on part of that. These ads are targeted: they’re aimed specifically at the nones who are sitting in church pews, not really believing, but just going along with the charade. So “You know it’s a myth” is a good slogan to wake up that subset.
Unfortunately, where it fails is in looking really unattractive. Yeah, I don’t believe in this stupid church stuff, but why should I go to the atheists, and swap kitschy Catholic iconography for graphic arts ineptitude? They need to do a better job of focusing on why you should be an atheist.
My suggestion:
Since the target of these billboards is the president election, I suggest the following billboard with three figures:
1) A figure of John Quincy Adams putting his hands upon the Book of America’s Constitution ( or Constitutional Rights?); Below the figure, the words: “In “He” we and the atheists thrust”
2) A figure of pastor/priest putting his hands over the Bible – A Foreign Book not American; below, the words: “ He (This) is wrong”
3) And at the right side a fat politician putting his hands over a Book “Corporations – Power and Money”; bellow, the words: “He (This) is wrong”
A second billboard could be a well dressed politician saying to a dirt worker: “You shall eat bread by the sweat of thy face”. And above him the words about what he is actually thinking: “this is for you, not for me” And the title: “How politicians uses religions”
What do you think about?
Jadehawk, awesome, and I love the blue background. My only minor criticism, like DM’s, is that the grey text might not be contrasty enough nor, IMO, are the ‘atoms/electrons’ clear enough. But that is just tweaks as the basic design is simple but classy.
Yes, “You know it’s a myth” would be good. But “You KNOW it’s a Myth” looks desperate. It looks like the person who says it is trembling.
How about: “You don’t really believe that.” Too long?
Incomprehensible. That doesn’t even change if you turn “in he” to “in him”.
What’s so great about J. Q. Adams? How many people would even recognize his face???
*facepalm*
You’ve been sleeping for the last few decades. Politicians aren’t fat in America; the poor are.
Hasn’t actually happened in at least 100 years.
(Also, you switch grammars in mid-sentence.)
Waaay too much text, and inaccurate as well.
…though, frankly, that logo is silly twice over anyway.
Methinks someone need their sarcasm detector recalibrated.