Design seems like such a simple, elementary thing when you think about it, but hordes of people keep getting the basics wrong, often with hilarious and side-splitting results. Buildings are hard to design, as are other objects, but we usually take the lettering and layout of sentences and phrases for granted, as though everyone will be able to understand us no matter how.we.words.our.place.
Well, the truth is, designing text so it’s readable isn’t as easy as you’d expect. There’s a system to it. There are processes that must be followed. Typography rules that ought never be broken. Except that those rules are broken all the time by some oblivious people. Bored Panda collected some of the best examples of incredibly bad text design that is wonderfully enjoyable to make fun of. From lame ads to funny posters, nodofy is safe from bad design. So upvote the best/worst fails, see if your friends can figure out what’s actually written, and let us know in the comments if you've seen design fails that compare to these ones.
We know how much you enjoy these funny fails concerning design, so you can read Bored Panda’s previous posts about them here, here, here, here, and here.
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How Do I Apply?
Noted
Apparently Scary Jesus Is A Thing
One of the online communities where similar text design fails are shared daily is the subreddit ‘Don’t Dead Open Inside,’ which prides itself on collecting the most egregious examples of signs and media that don’t make any sense if you read them normally. The community, which was established in May 2014, is large, having grown to over 513,000 members.
Bored Panda reached out to the 'Don't Dead Open Inside' subreddit moderators. According to one of them, the community was inspired to form because of the 'Don't Dead Open Inside' frame from the very first episode of the hit TV show The Walking Dead.
According to one moderator, people make mistakes while designing text because "they're either not thinking or they want to be original. Our main mission statement is to show them that they are wrong."
They also had advice for those individuals willing to step up their game design-wise: "People in the west read left to right, then top to bottom. Do not "liven up" your text by making it "quirky". Hard to read means lost attention which translates to lost revenue."
Five Extremely Slow Children Playing
This Terribly Worded Sign I Saw Today. Sorry, I’ll Pick Up My Dog’s Poop... Wouldn’t Want To Ruin Your Child Eating Experience
Well, Uh... I Guess That's A Good Motto
Canva has some handy tips for those of you willing to up your design game when it comes to words. For example, Canva suggests that you limit the number of fonts that you use and use simple ones, rather than complex ones that might not mesh together well.
Attention
Thanks For The Advice
Baby Needs Beers & Wines
Spacing, something most of us rarely think about, is also important and can bring about radically different effects simply by eliminating the negative space between letters, words, and sentences.
Experience
This Habitat For Humanity Van
So My Campus Had A Suicide Awareness And Prevention Day
Meanwhile, colors are equally important: use them to your advantage to create harmony between different parts of the text. Use contrasting and complementary colors. Lines can be used to guide the reader’s attention and create symmetry; however, badly used lines can turn a sign or a design into a catastrophe. Think you’ve got all that? Good. Let us know how you’d fix the text designs in this list.
No Safety. Smoking First
Who Else Is Donating To End Children?
Don't Save A Life. Be Afraid To Give Blood
Do I Push?
If You Hard, Then You Hard
Sorry Guys, You Can’t Let Your Pets Cook Bicycles Here
Hood On vs. Hood Off
It's kinda like "turning your coat" but much easier.
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Why do we even need a club for this? If the animal is crying or whining or growling or starving, stop doing what your doing. Poor aminals.
I have this as a t-shirt and I didn't know my hair covers up the "Anti." Needless to say someone FINALLY pointed it out to me by asking if I was making an "edgy" joke.
anti animal cruelty club is a pretty bad choice of wording, too... sounds like a bunch of people who are anti animal and into cruelty... oh wait, ...must be peta!
Even as "Animal Anti-Cruelty Club", it's an awkward phrase.
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A nun that worked at a hospital had a windshield shade that said “abortion kills babies” but it was often misaligned so all you saw was KILLS BABIES in a vip parking spot at the hospital 😂
I saw this once face to face and almost yelled at the person until that hood going up suppressed my anger.
that moment when your teacher tells u to put your hoodie down "was I unaware of the storm INSIDE"
The first is for Peta employees when they are in public. The second one is when they are working in the shelters, where no one can see them.
Imagine if a longer hoodie would also cover the -im- from the second word
Please Do Not Take It Home. Leave Litter Here
Just Purchased This Low Quality Fried Chicken At The Grocery Store
If You Were In A Car, Would You Know What Accident To Do?
This is so stressful no I wouldn't know what accident to do, this is too much responsibility
Smash Immigrants Welcome Racism
Honey, I Think We're Supposed To Turn Right
I Only Saw The Left Window At First And Got Very Confused
This New Wall Art In My Office
Our To Help Trollies You Move
7 Surprising Black Ways To Use Beans
I get the stupid title, but seriously black bean smoothies sounds gross!!!!!!!
So I Fart Old Dust
They Are, In Fact, A Particular Sub-Species Of Rock
The Design School I Graduated From Sent This Postcard Out
Stand Hong With Kong
When Your Gym Tryies Hard To Motivate You But Fails To Make Any Sense
Truly Inspiring
Vicious Inc... What?!
This Monstrosity
From Afar, This Sign Has A Completely Different Meaning
Wet Private Clay Parties
Burn Increase
Never Ever Ever Beef. Frozen Always
Note: this post originally had 108 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
Do people learn to read from top to bottom and then from left to right these days? In my time we went left to right, then top top to bottom...
There is such a thing as separated columns, and many try to accomplish that effect. Without success :)
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The above photos were giving me a headache. the above headache were giving me photos. Either migraine way I have.
I understand how many of them came to be. I often have to write signs and do display boards. Sometimes you're focussing on the spacing, shapes, colours, fixing the words up etc so much you forget basic spelling.
I went to Toys R Us and used their bathroom. The sign there said For Brst Customer Service Please Flush..... how would they know? Lol
It amazes me what people write on signs don’t they read them through before putting them up.
Reminds me of The Walking Dead. On the Back one side said Don't Dead-the other side said Open Inside, so it was supposed to read Don't Open Dead Inside, but it didn't really work when one of the doors was open.
Some (or maybe all!) of the people who wrote those notices will be shouting, 'You know what I mean, though!', and often, sadly, we don't.
These remind me of a Volvo TV commercial of a decade back. Touting advanced safety features, it said "Brakes apply automatically in case of an accident." Nice--but too late, no?
Proof, if more were needed, that one should never edited their own writing. On the other, these signs could have passed through several levels of management and still were approved.
I think I'm going to delete Bored Panda. I don't understand the 1st one, & can't find the other 39! Must have missed when I went straight & turned left...
I don't understand why these scrambled sentence are considered 'artistic'.
Do people learn to read from top to bottom and then from left to right these days? In my time we went left to right, then top top to bottom...
There is such a thing as separated columns, and many try to accomplish that effect. Without success :)
Load More Replies... The above photos were giving me a headache. the above headache were giving me photos. Either migraine way I have.
I understand how many of them came to be. I often have to write signs and do display boards. Sometimes you're focussing on the spacing, shapes, colours, fixing the words up etc so much you forget basic spelling.
I went to Toys R Us and used their bathroom. The sign there said For Brst Customer Service Please Flush..... how would they know? Lol
It amazes me what people write on signs don’t they read them through before putting them up.
Reminds me of The Walking Dead. On the Back one side said Don't Dead-the other side said Open Inside, so it was supposed to read Don't Open Dead Inside, but it didn't really work when one of the doors was open.
Some (or maybe all!) of the people who wrote those notices will be shouting, 'You know what I mean, though!', and often, sadly, we don't.
These remind me of a Volvo TV commercial of a decade back. Touting advanced safety features, it said "Brakes apply automatically in case of an accident." Nice--but too late, no?
Proof, if more were needed, that one should never edited their own writing. On the other, these signs could have passed through several levels of management and still were approved.
I think I'm going to delete Bored Panda. I don't understand the 1st one, & can't find the other 39! Must have missed when I went straight & turned left...
I don't understand why these scrambled sentence are considered 'artistic'.
