I’ve done a few posts now about bad design and bad English, so i think it’s high time i blogged about something i actually admire.

We picked up this bottle of Root: 1 wine at HyVee a couple of weeks ago, and i’ve just been staring at it ever since. It had a high rating, but more importantly, the design is beautiful.

The type looks like it was actually written to fit in this design. I can’t get over how beautifully spaced it is, how it looks even and perfect despite being force-justified, and the way it works despite that root running down the middle of it. The colors are simple and beautiful, and the illustration is also very simple yet very elegant.

The only small thing i would have changed in the design is the kerning between the two Os in “Root”, but seriously. If i had a more developed palate i’d tell you all about how the wine tastes, as well – but suffice it to say that it’s no disappointment!

I need another paragraph here… Hm… Oh! I won a free canvas print from my friend Niki Brown’s Design O’ Blog, so thank you Niki for that! I’m thinking of printing the photo i took of my charcoal self-portrait which no longer exists in hard from. I hope it will work well!

This is a really bad redesign, if you ask me, for several reasons:

• The brand name is flat color, it’s smaller than it used to be, and it’s VERTICAL. I didn’t notice it for quite some time.
• It’s not as easy to tell what kind of oj you’re getting, ’cause it’s labeled in a tiny strip up at the top of the carton
• That text running vertically along the entire carton…? Who’s going to put her head on sideways for five minutes to read that?
• It just looks nothing like what it used to. It’s not recognizable.

Photo found on TheDieline.com – check out their post about the redesign

I’ve been complaining a lot lately about packaging redesigns – but seriously, what are these companies thinking? At least Tropicana’s new package isn’t as bad as the Sierra Mist bottle, though.

Ugliest, most ineffective design i’ve ever seen. What were they thinking?

So i got this little Target coupon book in the mail yesterday. I guess the former resident of this apartment was on their mailing list for one reason or another, and i’m benefiting from that. It’s two dozen or so pages long, and each spread has three coupons on one side and a portrait on the other, like so:

I needed a bunch of stuff anyway, so i took it with me to Target today. I found a couple of things that i thought were blog-worthy.

I didn’t even need any pasta, per se–or have a coupon for it, for that matter–but this packaging grabbed me. I thought it was lovely, especially compared to all the other bread-and-butter pasta packages.

I checked out the ice cream ’cause i happened to have a coupon for it, and – lo and behold!:

Green tea Haagen Dazs?? Hell-o! I’ve been looking for green tea ice cream for years and all i could find was some dairy-free crap that tasted as bad as it sounds. But now A. i’ve found some, B. it’s freakin’ Haagen Dazs, and C. I saved a dollar on it, which makes it extra-sweet.

I bought a ton of stuff, and when i got home i flipped through the coupon book again to see if there were any coupons left that i might use, and suddenly the design made a whole lot of sense:

How clever!

And the final reason that i love Target is that soon, with the help of my dear friend Kelly who occasionally works at Target and therefore gets an employee discount, i shall acquire a new iPod touch for as much as $57 off the retail price. Hell. Yes.

I think i need to re-write my resume and re-think my cover letter strategies. I suspect i just don’t have enough experience to satisfy most employers, which is a major drag.

Anybody know an easy way to print light colors on black paper? Embossing a stamp would be too craft-y, i think. I’d better call some local print shops.

I want to go buy things to console myself. I’m in need of a cute track jacket (i.e. hoodless hoodie with stripes on the sleeves) but can’t ever find one i like. I can’t figure out what the heck happened to the black hoodie i used to have… every once in a while i just LOSE an article of clothing–not just socks, mind you, but bigger things that i like and ought not to just lose track of randomly.

I’m looking forward to playing some Mario Kart tonight. Get my mind off things.