

Design Doesn't Matter - kadavy
http://blog.kadavy-inc.com/post/455871317/design-doesnt-matter

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samdk
Provocative, general headline with an overly specific example. I know I'm not
the only person who's tired of posts like this. There's a point to be made
here--a good point. But it's completely ignored in favor of making a broad,
meaningless, eye-catching statement.

Design doesn't matter _some of the time_. In this case, the aspect of the
bottle design we're discussing--the label--is completely irrelevant to the
functioning of the product. Its only real purpose is to sell the product. So
when the product is ubiquitous enough that you instantly recognize it and want
to buy it regardless, then the label design doesn't matter at all.

But when you're trying to get to the point of ubiquity--the point where
everyone already knows your product and everyone seeks it out--then design
usually _does_ matter. Sometimes it gets trumped by other factors or someone
gets lucky. But that doesn't mean design doesn't matter.

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ziadbc
It does say at the end of the post "Sometimes" design doesn't matter. I don't
think the point of the article was to say "Design Never Matters."

My takeaway was more that sometimes a fancy facade is no substitute for a
great product.

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gprisament
I think design and profit margins go hand-in-hand. If you have a low margin
business selling something cheap in large volume then design doesn't matter so
much. If you want to sell higher margin, boutique, premium goods then design
matters more (hence the word "designer").

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brandnewlow
Going to take a shot in the dark and say hi, greg.

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gprisament
holy cow! hey Brad... it's funny who you run into on hn!

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ziadbc
This reminds me of times I've heard non techie people say that one reason
Google got popular because "it just had a weird name." There are tons of weird
named websites, but once one gets popular then people think the name sounds
nice, familiar and special. Ycombinator's orange and logo seem iconic now, but
its the company not the design that does it.

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patrickg
This person mixed up design and style. This bottle is of course designed and I
bet it is designed like this on purpose. But to the author's eyes, it doesn't
have style. He (as I) lives in a different culture than the manufacturer, so
this is probably a cultural clash.

~~~
kadavy
I'm not clear on how I'm confusing design and style. As I try to explain, the
bottle is lacking in what are considered fundamentals of good typography and
design. I would say the bottle definitely has "style." It has it's own
attitude in the naivete of principles of good design.

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jpcx01
He's right that design sometimes doesnt matter. But most of the time it does,
especially if you're trying to break in.

