Examples of Effective vs. Ineffective Design
Effective Design

As I sat at in my grandfather’s living room last week, I happened to glance down and notice a small, white flashcard perched on the edge of the coffee table. When I leaned over to observe it more closely, I discovered that it was my uncle’s business card. However, it was quite unlike any other business card I had ever seen before. In my mind, the ideal business card should capture two main personas: the person who owns the card, and the company the employee belongs to. A business card should be able to tell a story about what the employee is like and what their work entails. This is nearly an impossible task, as business cards are notoriously small and often filled with cluttered, indecipherable text. My uncle’s card was an exception to this norm. It consisted of a simple, clean white background with his picture placed roughly ⅓ from the left edge of the card. Instead of flooding the card with contact information, there were three, pared-down lines of text: his name, his title, and his email address. What was remarkable to me was that when I looked at his card, I didn’t just see a business card; it felt like I was looking at a portrait of my uncle himself, with a little blurb about his position floating next to his head. Seeing his card actually made me feel like I was meeting him in person. The design of his business card was, simply put, beautiful.
His card captured many of the design elements and principles we discussed during our first lecture. The negative white space in the background is filled perfectly with my uncle’s portrait and the small lines of text. In addition, a great sense of balance is achieved by having the text float right next to his body; the card feels neither cluttered nor crowded. My uncle’s image is the clear emphasis on the card, which serves as a powerful reminder that the business card is meant to represent him, and not just a bundle of words and labels. And finally, the way my uncle’s name is bolded on the card offers a subtle contrast distinguishing his name from the rest of the text on the card. In every sense, this card is all about Eric Liu. There are no distractions, a very clear message is immediately communicated, and I can easily identify the elegance and grace with which my uncle and Human Inc carry themselves.
Ineffective Design

I’ve always been an avid sports and baseball fan, which means much of my past internet history revolves around MLB.com. However, it’s only been in the past few years that I’ve noticed how archaic and cluttered MLB.com’s site actually feels. The website homepage consists mainly of assorted panels that each contain various information. There is a “Scoreboard” panel on the left side of the page, a “Latest News” section on the right, and a larger, central panel depicting headlines and videos. Although the panels are technically equally spaced from one another, the site itself overall has poor spacing and design. A very clear example of this can be seen in the middle-right side of the page, where there are two small, blank panels that are only there to serve as space filler. The overall panel layout is fairly chaotic and disorganized, and each of the panels contains excruciatingly small text that is difficult to read and decipher. In addition, the page as a whole has various distractions in different locations. At the top is a bright red banner, while there are other assorted flashing lights, videos, and colors spread throughout as well. When I look at the page, my eye does not know where to go, and I end up scanning all over but never engaging with the page content itself. The page is not balanced, there is no negative space whatsoever, and there’s a complete lack of unity. Each of the panels contains content that does not relate to the others and the styles of each of the panels is different as well, leading to heavy clashing throughout the page. The webpage does not feel cohesive, bound, or complete.
