It's Monday and we all know what that means. More email. Big thanks to MyFonts.com, Threadless, and Design Observer for providing the content and inspiration.
Strike My Fancy is a weekly sneak peak / collage into the most beautiful emails I received the week prior.
It's Monday, and that means Strike My Fancy 06 is here. Threadless caught my eye this week with a funky, kelly green hero image for their eco tees. Other image credits go to Counter-Print (books), Art Co-op (text), and Design Observer (bottom bar). Strike My Fancy is a collage of my favorite email marketing pieces to hit my inbox from the previous week.
I've got a secret. I kind of like ugly design. Shockingly (or not), I don't seem to be the only person in the design community who harbors this secret. In fact, a few months ago, Design Observer posted an article on How To Be Ugly. It was a controversial article that included 84 comments with varied responses.
You may laugh, but there is a definite difference between bad and ugly design. Bad design typically means the designer failed. Ugly design is intentional.
I've collected a few ugly sites that I love and want to hear feedback. Do you secretly love ugly too?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Base Design Let's start off with an easy one. Base doesn't classify as completely ugly. The structure and visual impact of the site is great but they've got a great start on ugly with the navigation.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Toormix I'm a sucker for yellow and black, so combine a little ugly with those colors and Toormix has me swooning. The hovers and navigation interaction on this site are genius.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Irregular Choice I gasped when I first saw this site, and it wasn't just because of these shoes. Irregular Choice, a fairly high-end online store, took ugly to an entirely new level. Can you imagine trying to get something like this approved at Nine West? A totally different target market, but I digress.
I ran across Accidental Mysteries on Design Observer this morning from their weekly recap email and love it! How did I not know about this? The column is currated by John Foster and appears once a week.
From The Possibilities Are Endless
Claire Pestaille from Paul Stolper
Kurt Schwitters postcard to Hannah Hoch, 1921 on defacedbook