“Opposite Of Bad Design”: 50 Brilliant Design Ideas That Went Viral And Totally Deserved It (New Pics)

If there's one thing Mad Men taught us (aside from how to cheat on your wife with multiple women), it's that working in advertising takes a lot of creativity and pizzazz. Some of the awesome design examples you see on this list are from advertisements, and their genius often lies in a perfectly executed idea through beautiful graphic design.

Take the WWF campaign urging people to protect wildlife. The Twitter bird turning into an X is a clever representation of what happens when we ignore conservation efforts, but in the animal kingdom. The campaign was created by a German chapter of WWF in 2023 together with the advertising agency McCann Germany.

"The whole world mourns the loss of the Twitter bird," the caption of the ad reads. "Around 1 million real animal species are threatened with extinction. Today we are in the midst of the greatest extinction of species since the end of the dinosaur era. A quarter of mammal species, one in eight bird species, more than 30 percent of sharks and rays, and 40 percent of amphibian species are threatened. Help us save the animals. An initiative of WWF Germany & us!"

Fountains shaped like dandelions sure look pretty. Many cities know that; that's why they've built similar versions of the one you see in this list. Our example is from Baku, Azerbaijan, aptly named Fountains Square. There's also one in Houston, a small version in Dresden, and one along 6th Avenue in Manhattan.

Sydney, Australia, also has one. It was built in 1961 as a commemoration of the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt during WWII. It has 211 "stalks," but it's the hundreds of saucer-shaped films that extrude water, making it look like a giant thistledown. The fountain's artist, architect Robert (Bob) Woodward AM, became so famous after designing this piece that he gained prominence internationally.

The "Less Plastic" campaign in the UK that depicts plastic knife heads as shark fins was created by a U.S. ad agency, Project Worldwide, in 2018. Other posters included in the campaign used other plastic cutlery as symbols. Forks resembled the hands and arms of a possibly drowning person. A plastic straw looked like the Loch Ness monster. And a plastic bag formed a wave, reminding people that there might soon be more plastic in the oceans than water.

The "One click could change your future. Belt up. Drive safe. Arrive safe" poster you see on this list is one of three that Western Australia's Road Safety Council made for its road safety campaign in 2008. It was the creative baby of the Perth-based agency Marketforce, and the other two posters depicted X-rays of a brain and a skull detached from the cervical spine.

The incredible posters for the Korean stage production of Macbeth are the creation of the Japanese photographer Yuni Yoshida. Many experts praised Yoshida's use of negative space and incorporation of the play's themes into the artwork. The director of the play, Yang Jung-woong, described how his staging is still relevant to modern audiences. "It vividly portrays the inescapable downfall that follows ambition, along with the sense of loss, guilt and moral conflict that come afterward."

The lizard gate at the Atlanta Botanical Garden looks cool and fits its location perfectly. Created by blacksmith Andrew Crawford, it was installed at the Gardens' entrance to the Japanese Garden in 2012. That year, an Atlanta Blooms event took place, and the gate was the addition to the Gardens for that occasion. Crawford has also designed another gate for the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, the "Herb Garden Gate."