#and i could make a venn diagram of the three ships i mentioned but they are in NO WAY that similar

[notedchampagne]

no i get why ppl were pissed about the fanon davekat content before because when i look at sakuatsu and seriei content now im shocked at literally the exact same dynamics repurposed for characters with different personalities.

i do get that people have a taste for certain tropes and dynamics but there is a difference between headcanons and interpretations that influence a certain perception of a character due to personal tastes and like, reducing complex and meaningful characters down to their most consumable archetypes to mass produce another artwork of twinks kissing

[sissiarte]

Okay maybe the venn diagram between tlt fans and pokemon fans has an intersection point, even if it's small. But I'm sure it exists.

Now the venn diagram between tlt fans who like (or at least find interesting) Jod and company, and the pokemon fans who like pokemon x and y, that's probably two diferent circles.

But just in case there's someone like that other than me I bring to their attention a realization I had the other day when I learnt that in english Proffessor Sycamore has a name. He is called Augustine of all names and I went WHAT wait,,, wAIT

(This probs is going to be a long nonsensical ramble so I'll put it under the cut, there'll be a summary at the end) (Also spoilers for both tlt and pokemon x and y I guess)

So I started conecting dots like haha pokemon x y au where Augustine is,,, well Augustine (Sycamore). Who would John be then who could be Augustine (Sycamore) best friend/ weird whatever they have going on and is also a bad guy or something. WHO I WONDER

Lysandre!!!!!!!! Like I'm looking at this guy's quotes and like bitch!!!!!

"I want to be the kind of person who gives... But in this world, some foolish humans exist who would show their strength by taking what isn't theirs." "They're filth!"

"I tried to save people--and the world--with the profit from this lab. But my efforts had no effect... The world was just too vast...and too full of fools that I couldn't save through my hard work alone..."

HELLO???????

Like obviously they're not the same same, Lysandre is way less complicated bc of the genre of the media and stuff but like. Basically his story is that he wanted to help people with his pokemon but they were ungrateful so he decided to wipe everyone out but the people who were nice. So yeah.

Also this quote Professor Sycamore says about Lysandre

"But what I really wanted was for him to put his ego aside and lead everything to greater heights. I never had this discussion with him, though. So I'm partially responsible for this."

OH BOI YEAH OKAY HM YES I'M FINE AHA

I was like wow okay this kinda makes a lot of sense (and im not even including the stuff of pokemon masters ex). But we are missing Mercy here and that can't be. And okay this may be a bit of a reach but I inmediatly thought of Diantha.

The first time you see her she is talking with Lysandre about mortality and shit. And thinking about it Cytherea fits too with all the themes of beauty and stuff (Diantha is an actress and Lysandre asks her if she wishes she chould stay beautiful forever or something like that) But like her role in the story and stuff, she is friends with both Professor Sycamore and Lysandre, she is also the region champion which is very cool and like they are the three main adults in the game intertwined with the main plot. (Althoug Diantha way less, and she isn't even in the pokemon masters ex storyline I mentioned before which is very sad)

However Diantha is way nicer than Mercy, she is very kind and polite with everyone which Mercy is... not fhdkadf. But she fits still I think.

Also this quote in which she mentions Augustine (Sycamore) that makes me soft bc she calls him dear.

"Then that means that you are also the one that dear Augustine said..."

Also the ship between Professor Sycamore and Lysandre is called perfectworldshipping (pokemon ship names are like that for some godforsaken reason and I hate it but in this case it fits my whatever this is)

TO SUM UP:

- Lysandre= John

- Augustine Sycamore= Augustine

- Diantha= Mercymorn

and I have many feelings about this

Thanks for coming to my ted talk now if you'll excuse me I'm going to look for my copy of pokemon y

[quailthekenku]

Someday I need to make one big Venn Diagram of all my Pinterest boards and how their meanings and uses align. There are just so many of them and so many different ways they interact:

There's the two or three that don't serve a practical purpose, and instead are just aesthetic boards that are nice to look at. There are character boards, and sometimes ship boards with character sections inside; not to mention the larger group ones. It's interesting how they bounce between aesthetics and traits and expressions and quotes, especially since my fandom board does the same thing.

Then there's the "relatable" group of boards. Some are funny, some are vent-ish, and one of them is just a fancier way of showing off the headcanons I have... There's so many dude it's kinda crazy

And THE HUMOR BOARDS. Oh god the humor boards. They are so specialized. I have one for every niche reaction I could have to a funny post. One for blowing air out of your nose, one for things only I could possibly find funny, and the ancient tome of specially crafted memes that are so incredibly, powerfully hilarious that reading one almost caused my friend to crash the car while I was reading it out of sheer hilarity.

In short god knows when I'd ever have time to do that but boy, wouldn't it be so cool if I did

[voiceless-terror]

gerryagnes and the og..... jonmartin :)

GERRYAGNES

1.  What made you ship it?

This wasn’t even something I thought about until I saw a bunch of art with Jon, Gerry, and Agnes and a venn diagram...somewhere. it made a lot of good points, from what I remember. And I thought about how much they have in common, and how interesting the three of them together would be....but then you gave me a prompt for gerryagnes by themselves and i had a little oh moment that made me want to write a fic without jon for the first time xD and thats is NOT something i ever thought i would do!

2.  What are your favorite things about the ship?

They both have such fucked up childhoods and grew up fully immersed in the fears... i think about them connecting over their shared complicated relationship with Gertrude too. They just have so much potential for fun escapades as well, and I think they’d make a good book burning team. I want Agnes to get to know someone who’s in her world but doesn’t think of her as a distant, untouchable messiah! I have a very distinct idea in my head of Gerry looking at Agnes with heart eyes when she turns a Leitner into ash with her hand and just goes ‘that was the most badass thing ive ever seen please run away with me.’ 

I wish this was a popular enough ship that I could have an unpopular opinion about it xD

jonMARTIN

1.  What made you ship it?

I didn’t ship this until the end of season one- i got a little warm and fuzzy when jon offered to have Martin stay in the archives, but it wasn’t until they had their heart to heart in the penultimate ep of the first season, and then martin’s statement afterward when he’s so guilty about leaving them behind that I started to have real feelings about it. That’s what really nailed down Martin’s character for me, and I’ve been gone ever since.

2.  What are your favorite things about the ship?

It’s one of the best, romantic slow burns I’ve seen in media tbh! It didn’t really hit me until my second listen just how much foundation was laid for it in canon - the second season lunches, how Martin is so willing to fight for Jon and help him, Jon’s lowkey pining with Georgie, the slow fondness that creeps into Jon’s voice when he mentions Martin’s name (you can hear it early on and it gets me every time!!) While they have a lot of shared trauma, that’s not the only thing that bonds them (let me link Martin to a few dozen AUs on ao3, okay) and I think you can really see that at the end of the fourth season even with just the few interactions we’re given (the episode that launched a thousand ‘good cows’ posts). Anyway now I’m rambling and putting too many parentheses

3.  Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Hmm...this is more of a fandom interpretation one, but I don’t like when people sand off the rough edges of the ship. They’re both profoundly damaged people and not all aspects of their relationship in canon are healthy, and I like when people actually address that in their fics! There’s a lot of ‘love fixes everything’ and very black and white thinking when it comes to who’s right and who’s wrong, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable when people simplify their relationship to fit a narrative. I’m not saying everything has to be an angst fest, of course, but if you’re going to write something that grapples with the tragic elements, you can’t just hand wave certain things away. There’s my two cents!

[reverseopossum]

Why Sci-Fi Isn’t Broken (but can still be fixed)

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of commentary on science fiction now versus “golden age” sci-fi from the mid-20th century that goes along the lines of “back then, people were optimistic, they thought science was inherently good, and the space race had captured the public’s imagination. Now postmodernism, pessimism, and the small and personal nature of technological innovation has left us with drab dystopias and preachy allegories about being on our phones too much.”

Okay, I see where you’re coming from. As a side note, the kind of sci-fi with big gleaming interplanetary rocket ships is still alive and well, it just doesn’t occupy the same cultural real estate as before. Mainly, though, my problem with that analysis is that it conflates types of stories that were never meant to serve the same purpose.

Science fiction (especially the “hard sci-fi” variety) revolves around scientific ideas or imagined technology as a key part of the world building or plot. A perfect example would be I, Robot, where we’re literally following the progression of a technology across centuries: the robots’ philosophical problem solving with the famous three rules of robotics, how humans interact with the robots, and how the robots ultimately influence and save civilization.

 A story set in the future that revolves around politics or personal events and doesn’t have a science or tech idea relevant to the plot lands in the realm of speculative fiction. Probably the cleanest example of the difference would be The Handmaid’s Tale. Margaret Atwood specifically said that she chose not to introduce any distracting gadgets, and that everything that happens in the world of the story is intentionally based on something that has really happened. (She had really compelling and interesting reasons for doing this, by the way.) Obviously there’s a whole lot of overlap, sci-fi and speculative fiction are like a Venn diagram that’s mostly middle. 

Anyway, years ago I read a lot of the teen dystopia books everyone complains about (why doesn’t matter). And I noticed a common trend across almost all of them: YA-geared dystopias ask the audience to believe that the world in the future will be simpler than the world now. Worse, sure, but simpler. And that’s where I think speculative fiction can go off the rails. The problem isn’t that the authors think the story needs to be dumbed down for kids to like it, it’s that the world building is shaped around the plot and not the other way around. These stories follow a formula, right? Big Bad is an evil government of unspecified ideology but more or less coded as fascist. Ordinary Teenage Girl is politically apathetic and just wants to live her life, but some personal attribute makes this impossible. Once this becomes clear, Ordinary Teenage Girl goes through an inner and then outer rebellion, singlehandedly reinvents the concept of freedom,  inspires her people to rise up, and the ensuing conflict resolves within a binge-able trilogy. 

To be clear, the fact that there’s a formula with a predictable ending isn’t a problem in itself. The Hero’s Journey archetype is a formula with a predictable ending. Shakespeare's audiences knew the ending before the play started. The problem is that this particular formula is dishonest. Ordinary Teenage Girl lives in a world pared down to one city (or twelve). She has no cultural background, religion, or knowledge of history. She can count the people she loves on one hand, and within a timely arc they all agree with her. She can easily avoid government surveillance. There is no internet. 

(All of this is blamed on a nuclear cataclysm that wiped out civilization as we know it, which is ludicrous. If people survive at all, they’ll carry pretty major parts of their culture along with them. And if civilization has recovered enough that Big Bad is a powerful, centralized government, homegirl is probably going to have some kind of access to something resembling the internet.) My point is that the simplistic world the story depends on is inorganic, made for the story. Things never get simpler. High quality sci-fi goes the other way around: use an exciting idea as a world building premise, and let the story grow from there.

As an aside, imagine trying to set a YA dystopia novel’s plot outside of its simplified world. What if Protagonist Girl read George Orwell and Hannah Arendt and had theories about what the hell happened in the 21st century? What if, instead of a solemnly saluting crowd, she had to deal with an internet comments section? What if the government counter-propaganda was actually effective, meant to confuse, divide, and distract via trolls and clickbait? What if the conflict dragged on for a decade and the rest of the world treated Americans the way it treats Syrians? What if the climate hadn’t calmed down yet? (Oh look, it’s the sarcastic, fourth-wall breaking 800+ page monstrosity I’ve been intermittently working feverishly on and trying to abandon for eight years)

So, I’ll probably finish the above-mentioned speculative project, partly because it's been such a formative experience. But right now is a really exciting time to write actual sci-fi? The fact that our technology has gone small and personal instead of big doesn’t have to be creatively stifling. If anything it should make it easier to write emotionally and psychologically complex stories around hard sci-fi concepts. 

The truth is that science is moving faster than ever. I want to be a neuro PT, right? On a given day, I’m a lot more excited about small-scale technology that lets people control a computer with their brain than I am about space travel. I personally see more stories in neural lace than in plans for a Mars colony. Like, we’re just starting to figure out how brains do the braining. Give me some tragic heroes with otherworldly mental powers born of hubris. What are the consequences when we share too much of ourselves, or start to lean on technology controlled by someone else to inform our own inner monologue? Good old-fashioned warnings about unchecked surveillance? If you uploaded every synapse in your brain into a computer, would it be you? And if it turned out to be horribly otherwise, what rights would that entity have? If we could peer inside someone else’s consciousness, would enhanced empathy necessarily lead to enhanced compassion? Small-scale technology sci-fi is going to be so much more interesting than “our phones are turning us into zombies and Mark Zuckerburg owns your toaster” 

Long post. If a potato became sentient, what would happen?

[periru3]

End of Year Vidding Meme 2021

I’ve starred co-vids with @tafadhali!

I Feel Like This Isn’t About Me (Utena)*

Lost on You (She-Ra)

Eat Them (Multi-Horror)*

Lookin’ Up (Parks & Rec)

Maneater (Multi-Horror)*

All I Want Is to Be Your Girl (Person of Interest)

Rose Garden (Utena)*

Vexercise - Turtle (Over the Garden Wall)

Rose Bride My World (Utena)*

Welcome to Hell (Multi-Horror)*

Operation: Ketchup (Spy Kids)

Dammit Janet (The Good Place)

Ironic (Twilight Zone)*

I Feel the Earth Move (Multi-Disaster)*

Favorite vid of the year: “Rose Bride My World” was such a labor of love and I am SO happy with how it turned out. It is maybe the second-best thing Taf and I have ever created together, after our Buffy limericks, and honestly I don’t think there’s a second of it I would change, which is rare in a two minute vid, let alone a ten minute one. 

Least favorite: Well it’d be really easy to say “Turtle” but since that was a vexercise I don’t think it counts lol. I’m honestly very happy with my vids this year, but the one I rushed the most and feel could be a little tighter in the editing would probably be “Dammit Janet,” but even that one I love.

Vid most underappreciated by the universe: The population of the center of a four-circle venn diagram including Utena-fans, RHPS-fans, Vid-fans, and people with the attention span for 10-minute videos is probably fairly small, and we knew that when we made “Rose Bride My World,” but, as Taf said in her post, I do with we could somehow beam our magnum opus to all those people. I also wish more people appreciated “Lost on You,” but admittedly some of that is competitiveness with the other vids to the same song for the same ship I noticed on YouTube after completing mine... they are... very popular. 

Most fun vid: God, I feel like I made a lot of fun vids this year. “Operation: Ketchup” and “Welcome to Hell” are strong contenders, but I might have to go with “Dammit Janet” on this. It’s just so goofy and was so fun to make. EDIT: scratch all of that, I just rewatched “Lookin’ Up” and that’s the winner.

Vid with the single sexiest moment: Uuuuh I think there’s like eight moments in “All I Want Is to Be Your Girl” that vie for the top space, so I’ll just give it to that whole vid. Honorable mentions to “Maneater” for obvious reasons and to “Operation: Ketchup” for Carla Gugino’s (and Antonio Baneras’ and Alan Cumming’s) existence. 

Most successful: Weirdly this seems to go to “I Feel Like this Isn’t About Me” - on YouTube at least. Not what I expected, but I’ll take it!

Biggest vid fail: Bailing instantly on Vexercises, and also how crappy so much of my video quality is. I’m getting a new converter. 

Hardest vid to make: “Rose Garden” took a LONG time to make. I think it’s that we had so much we wanted to cram into such little space, trying to cover basically every character’s arc and how it relates to Anthy with only a few lines to give to each. We had to be very economical and it took a long time to get it how we wanted it. Funnily enough, “Rose Bride My World” only came about because of a joking conversation after we finished “Rose Garden” and it took maybe 1/4 the time to make even though its three times as long. 

Most unintentionally telling vid: Let’s just say “Lost on You” hit very close to home while I was making it and might for a while yet...

Last year’s goals: N/A

Goals for next year:

Use a new, better video converter and make higher quality vids

Get experimental with premiere! Download new effects and transitions and play with the stuff already in there I’ve never used

Finish some of the vids I’m going into the year already in the middle of instead of endlessly starting new stuff

Make at least 2 of my BNL-Sitcom vids

[bellabooks]

The Lesbian, Bi and Queer Year in Television 2017: Love, bravery, and found family

2017, if you ask me, has been an absolute toothbrush of a year: cleaning out the toxic plaque, bloodying the gums a little in the process, and hopefully leaving us with a minty fresh start to 2018. Optimism, in the face of that exhaustion which December almost always dredges up, is a tough sell. Personally, I find it helpful to take a look backward, to find something productive if not inspirational to stand on in the past twelve months — something to arm yourself with, essentially, as the calendar turns over and the seasons begin anew. Though media remains, by most accounts, leaps and bounds behind where we’d all like it to be in terms of representation, there are some occasions in which the stars align between the creator’s vision and the viewer’s hunger, and characters have an impact larger than could be predicted. The 100’s Clexa, for example, along with Wynonna Earp’s WayHaught, and Supergirl’s Sanvers — all characters and couples subject to their own individual issues and idiosyncrasies, and yet have left lasting marks on the current state of queer women television fandoms, inspiring fans to show up in droves at conventions and signings. Sanvers, in particular, seems to have left its mark on 2017 as the ship to discuss, even if (like me) you’re a season behind.   HONORABLE MENTION: ALEX DANVERS OF SUPERGIRL Coming out stories have become a staple for lesbian, bi and queer character introduction, and variation on them is rare — Alex Danvers stands apart, in company with One Day at a Time’s Elena Alvarez in its focus on family. Where Alex Danvers is concerned, we’re given the epitome of the late bloomer that tugs itself away from stereotypes and corrects for them — soft and cautious at first, pulled out of her shell by an unforeseeable, intense connection, exploring a world not just new to her, but finally the right fit after purported years of her character struggling to understand the more intimate relationships in her life (or lack thereof). Alex, and her subsequent relationship with Maggie, has undoubtedly meant so much to so many. Bold, then, that they should separate — but in a world where the buried gay trope is, ironically, alive and well, a parting centered not on fatality but on future plans is unfortunately refreshing. A little haphazard, a little slapped together in its reasoning, but the decision to have Alex hold strong on something evidently so important to her is respectable. In the way that we watch straight main characters on shows run through seasons of love interests and deal with the aftermath, it’s just as refreshing to have an opportunity to see how Alex grows into herself as the series continues.   Looking back on my watchlist from 2017, I can track four distinct characters (and their respective relationships, romantic and otherwise) that struck a real chord with me this year. I’ve tried to focus on characters from brand new shows, with one exception, as the story arc snuck in pretty much under the wire and absolutely blew me away. Tying the year together with a neat knot is impossible, but if I had to pin it down, the discussion of family, when we find our own and when we let them go, seems to sum it up pretty well. -cue Seasons of Love- SPRING: DEVON OF I LOVE DICK I Love Dick is a show that (at least in my corner of the internet) went largely unnoticed. Its story is a mess of threads, a triangle that’s not really a triangle so much as it is a Venn diagram of desire and insecurity, and Devon is little more than a B story to that plot. But her cool, collected search for artistry in a town that traps her as much as it inspires her, creates the foundation for an amazing character. We see it in her backstory, in the show’s fifth episode, “A Short History of Weird Girls”, where the three main female characters tell a brief history of their lives and their artistic journey. Devon walks us through her battle for identity, her unwillingness to conform to gender stereotypes, and the college girlfriend who left her heartbroken when she was unwilling to jump wholeheartedly into a relationship. Devon ends up dropping out of school, moving back to her hometown, and getting a job fixing other people’s problems. It’s when Devon opens up and begins mingling with the artists gathered in Marfa that she begins to let go of her control a little. She may not agree with a person’s methods of self-expression, but defends to the point of arrest their right to do it, as we see when she defends the borderline drifter girl she’s seeing, Toby. Toby, an incredible character in her own right, is an artist who finds artistic, aesthetic beauty in the shapes and colors of hardcore porn. Their scenes together are electric, their relationship intense, full of conflict and the tossing of social and sexual norms — but Devon’s possessive attitudes drive a wedge between them, in a scene that makes the jilted jock stereotype of someone so fervently attempting to reject such banality. There seems to be a link here between Devon’s sexual and gender fluidity and her journey to letting go of her own rigidity. By the end of the season, she’s leading the cowboy and trucker men of Marfa in a dance, allowing them to open themselves up to expression outside of their prescribed slot in the gender binary. Every breath of her screen time is resistance. Artistic expression. Entirely genuine, combatively unique. Even when I Love Dick suffers from its more abstract concepts, Devon takes no shit, stands tall, refuses to suffer for who she is. When her brief fling with Toby all but ends, she continues her work, tireless, seeking unity — if not of her hometown, then of herself.   SUMMER: KAT EDISON OF THE BOLD TYPE Kat Edison takes no prisoners. Her approach to a conversation is a strong fist against a table and an open hand already waving away your ill-formed argument. Armed with a mountain of professional know-how and instinct, her inexperience, it turns out, is more personal, an inability to slow down long enough to re-evaluate aspects of her life, and the people who are important to her. It’s when she’s met with someone so totally opposite, someone who puts the individual under the lens and captures it, that she begins to shift. Kat’s focus is on the social, the community — Adena’s is instead on the expression of the individual. Their initial interactions are rife with misunderstanding and discomfort, but it only pushes Kat further, to explore the draw between them, to a woman as outspoken and independent as herself. A crush becomes more. A friendship becomes a deeper form of sharing, of educating one another, of support. And even when it becomes physical, their relationship comes back to that point — even when separated, even when protesting from opposite corners of the world, there is a through line of supporting each other in their separate paths, returning to each other when they can, but never damning their respective causes. Put simply? Ultimate power couple.   AUTUMN: WENDY CARR OF MINDHUNTER I picked up Mindhunter on almost a whim. Fincher’s style didn’t disappoint, nor did the vast majority of the characters twined in the interrogation, interview, and in-depth analysis of the 1970’s most notorious serial killers. Anna Torv’s Wendy Carr is more than a pleasant surprise — she’s a vision of strength, a sturdy by-the-book intellectual standing tall in the face of a twenty-something sliding down a slippery slope to doucheville and the grouchy borderline Old West sheriff serving as his mentor. When she flies from Quantico to Boston halfway through the season, shoulders heavy with the choice between her old life and a new one, she goes home to consult with her partner. Her partner is an older woman, a fellow professor, a fellow intellectual. I’ve written about their one scene together before, but the long and short of it is this: Mindhunter recognizes Wendy as a character whose personal life does not dominate the process of hunting serial killers, and so her personal life does not dominate the structure of the show. There’s a few scant kisses, the stroke of knuckles, but for a pair of women well in their adult years, the focus isn’t on sex — it’s on stability. And their relationship, while stable, has a toxic edge, one that compels Wendy to leave it behind her and move on, to Quantico, to a new profession. Season Two of Mindhunter may not expand much further on Wendy’s lesbianism — in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if it remains a sidelined facet of an already busy show — but for now, her strength to pull away from the only family we’ve seen her have in an effort to protect herself from being steamrolled is a mark of her character, one that will apply to everything she does.   WINTER: ROSA DIAZ OF BROOKLYN NINE-NINE This is a month where censorship of both the internet and the CDC has been a hot topic. This is a month where we have been trying to wring the truth out of powerful people, to get clear concise language. This is a month where half the cast of Brooklyn 99 said various forms of the term “bisexual” multiple times. The con has been on for seasons to set up the arc of Rosa’s coming out — multiple episodes where Rosa’s disgust in sharing personal details about herself while dating Marcus, or Pimento, or about her family, even where she lives. Rosa is a private person. Rosa could have a stamp collection, and we’d never know. Why? Because it’s personal. And for Rosa, personal is private, until it isn’t. Usually, the revelation of details about her life is a total accident, and in this case, it’s no different. It’s bullpen quirkmeister and all-around lovable loudmouth Charles Boyle who’s the first one privy to the info, and his reaction? He understands that coming out is on Rosa’s terms, and does his absolute best to keep quiet (which, given what we’ve seen in past seasons, is incredible in itself). Rosa eventually announces it to the squad, even allowing stereotypical questions for a brief period before moving on to more important matters. The focus Brooklyn 99 puts on this plotline, for a comedy cop procedural, is stunning. The story spans two episodes, including one which serves as the fall finale of the show, a lingering final note for their audience to reflect on. The casting of Rosa’s parents, which could easily have been thrown away roles, go to Tony Award-nominated actress Olga Merediz and certified stone-cold badass Danny Trejo. The tension of “Game Night” builds through the mistaken assumption that Jake is Rosa’s boyfriend and comes to a head as Rosa, standing in front of a Pictionary-esque drawing board, has to explain to her parents that she’s bisexual, that it isn’t just a phase while she waits for a husband, that it’s something she’s known for a long time. Something true. It’s a heartbreaking moment when her father states, “There’s no such thing as being bisexual,” and Rosa responds clearly, in that matter-of-fact Rosa Diaz tone we know and love, “I know there is because that’s who I am.” The redemption moment comes a few short scenes later when Rosa’s father turns up at the precinct, promises her that he accepts her for who she is — but the scene turns bittersweet when he asks her to hold off on joining them for game night again. It’s clear that, while he’s willing to work to preserve their relationship, the family dynamic will never be the same — so the squad gets to work, and on Friday night turns up en masse to Rosa’s place for, as Jake puts it, “family game night”. Rosa’s character, ever the private, distant, steel-plated detective, has made leaps and bounds towards becoming more open. In season one, the squad didn’t even know where she lived, and now not only have her address, but are somewhat welcome there. Even then, they don’t push for information, taking what she offers them in stride and making sure she feels welcome. Captain Holt pulls her aside and gives her a heart to heart, thanking her for her bravery, for helping to make the world “a better and more interesting place.”   I hope 2017’s media helped you find your community, or inspire you to create worlds and characters of your own. And offline? A new year is an opportunity to celebrate differences in our community as much as we triumph over unity, to work harder to make the world a better, more interesting place. Here’s to 2018. Let’s use it wisely.   pic 1 arrow.wikia.com pic 2 I Love Dick FB pic 3 Bold Type FB pic 4 Netflix pic 5 Fox Youtube http://dlvr.it/Q6sTv8

[heytheredevlopr-blog]

10+ Best Reasons to Get Excited for Samsung Galaxy Fold 2

Samsung's second galaxy fold is now literally on the horizon and is looking so good that it might just be a day one switch from me here at the top six reasons why still as 2 things that have ME pretty upset the initial.

Galaxy fold what I've been using for a month now is a book a fern that folds out horizontally to make one large tablet displays the fold too is looking like it's gonna be a clamshell a fern that starts smaller and falls out vertically to make a normal-sized phone and that's a really good thing it'll mean a device that's way less large however additional significantly one that solves the ratio drawback see with the book type issue if you've 2 halves that area unit quite tall folding them outwards is gonna result is basically a square and a square is just not good for 90% of content movies games and most phone apps are designed to work on rectangular displays with a clamshell tho' as we have seen with the new Motorola Razr you'll be able to have a tiny low square screen on the front and that is fine as a result of the main screen on the within are tall a touch taller than we're wont to however that is much better than being too wide robot Authority. Recently did a poll on individuals's favorite folding and therefore the Motorola RAZR got regarding doubly as several votes because the Galaxy fold people just like the clamshell style of the razor and even off that group of people who picked the Galaxy to fold some of them only did so just because it's a better SPECT phone if you think about it the Galaxy fold too should have the best of both worlds the clamshell design of the razor and quite possibly even better specs than the original fold also this is a refined purpose however i feel the clamshell are some things that encompasses a higher likelihood of initiating sales-wise as a result of individuals area unit or deeds subconsciously aware of the concept 15 years ago nobody would have even questioned what the purpose of a flip phone was it was accepted and so if Samsung can come in with the flip phone reinvented i feel it's a neater sell then welcome to the book for reading then we have got one UI to Samsung's really named however fantastically redesigned little bit of code which is gonna help all of their phones but in particular this foldable you've got standard all-round improvements like less intrusive notifications and even smarter dock mode that works across more applications and simply typically additional customization however a giant focus here has been reaching ability if we have a tendency to area unit about to see this super tall show on the within of the next fold this update could not have come back at a more robust time.

It'll all of these UI components your fingers really want to act with nearer to the lowest to cut back the quantity of reaching you wish to try to you would possibly already know this galaxy fold uses a plastic show in spite of everything once glass gets super skinny it loses a great deal of its structural strength and simply typically as a cloth glass is not very bent friendly but it looks like.

Samsung has found how a neighborhood glass provider referred to as dawn sees I feel has opposed idli developed thereforelution|an answer} that's ultra-slim sturdy and versatile so this might be BIC one of the primaries criticisms of the first fold is its display it scratches easily and it's got this massive crease going down the middle now I never personally thought it had been a deal-breaker I got accustomed the crease pretty quickly however whenever I share this phone to some other person

it's one among the primary things they suggests in order that reasonably speaks for itself anyway this glass answer may solve each scratching and creasing issues promptly a lot of those reports i have been reading square measure inform towards the show size on fault to being six-point seven inches that is nice in my expertise with current phone thickness and edge size this can be concerning as huge as you'll be able to go whereas still being usable however I may see why this can be not a profit to everybody you may argue that there's one thing special concerning having the ability to hold around a seven-plus in. show therein smaller kind issue it's going to in all probability even be a hole-punch screen, not a full uninterrupted panel and this can avoid wasting thickness versus having to use a motorized pop-up for the front camera however speaking of cameras the particular camera Hardware on these Samsung flagships it hasn't had a significant push since the galaxy s7 one thing has reasonably favored style enhancements over camera upgrades that is getting ready to amendment in 2020 consistent with code found within the Samsung camera app they are already performing on a firm which will shoot not simply 8k video the 108 megapixel photos and this might line up dead with past leaks but also the fact that Samsung has actually launched a 108 megapixel sensor it's already a very real thing assuming then that the next the fold will still be positioned as a high-end device as a decent likelihood it's about to take pleasure in this - conjointly if you simply count the number of cameras on the initial fold you get 6 for 6 cameras and at any one time you're only ever using a maximum of three you've got one selfie camera for when you're using the front screen - selfie cameras for once you are victimization the most screen and 3 cameras at the rear it's simply a small amount inefficient they've effectively engineered constant camera system twice just so you can take selfies in both folded and unfolded positions which increase cost and thickness if they can find a way on this new fold to have just one camera. The system that you can use to take selfies while the phone is folded and then rear photos well unfolded that would be game-changing it would mean they could pour their entire resource pool into only one set of cameras rather than scattering their resources over 3 sets which you'll be able to take not simply mind-blowing rear shots however also selfies with constant quality and speaking of quality.

I'm extremely attempting to up the sport on YouTube thus if you may subscribe that will be wonderful currently it's wanting just like the second Galaxy fold isn't reaching to be a traditional successor and in fact instead of going up in price something is supposedly coming down if I had to guess I'd say around $1500 compared to 2,000 for this one there have been a full range of reports concerning this recently however the one factor I did notice that backs it up is that the proven fact that the code name of the second fold was leaked as being SMF 700 which if true suggests it would fit below the existing SMF 900 fold because this is such a new category of devices Samsung may be still figuring out where the fold fits in its lineup I can say one thing for sure at $2,000 there is no way the original fold was shipping at high volume numbers and so considering the incredible amount of R&D that would have gone into making this thing there's a good chance at the company's current foldable ventures of running at a loss, of course, it alone takes one hit product to turn all that around and The Fault too could very well be the one and what makes me especially hopeful is that Samsung has been in this situation before their original Galaxy S was seen by many people is just a cheap iPhone different however the Galaxy s2 that came next cemented its place as a real rival Samsung's initial incurvate phone the Galaxy spherical was an entire flop however it sealed the means for his or her future incurvate endeavors that while not universally wanted are a giant hit the corporate has quite developed a name for bouncing back okay two things i'm disturbed concerning and i am not talking concerning things sort of a lack of a earpiece jack or lack of water the resistance i believe these things are pretty major first of all as I mentioned very likely Samsung will make the fall to a cheaper phone but it still needs to have the absolute best specifications it's got to have the most recent chipset it's got to possess lots of RAM we tend to already expect these items from traditional flagships so what i am expression that this versatile kind issue can't come at the cost of performance now the the reason I am particularly worried about this is because Motorola thinks that it can they've discharged a firm that appears heaps like what Samsung has planned however they've opted for a few underwhelming hardware it's flower 710 chip 128 gigabytes of non expandable storage any 5-megapixel selfie camera the second thing is battery there's going to be a massive the trade-off here because I have no doubt that if this thing does eventually come out the manner, one thing goes to promote it one amongst the most commerce points goes to be that you simply will fold it up and it will be pocket-sized and so supported this and also the proven fact that Samsung incorporates a little bit of a name for giving merely enough battery there is a probability they will do constant here and give it merely enough battery so at the purpose of shopping for it once it's latest it's going to last a full day then again six months of serious use down one line you'll probably be reaching for the charger at 6 p.m. whilst I welcome a cheaper phone I think the for two needs to be in everything phone with pro users in mind, not a sleek-looking mid-range phone with a cool foldable gimmick function over form to put another way I would also add to this as a third minor concern that there is a the rumor that Samsung's also gonna put an S Pen inside of this thing and I don't think this is a particularly smart move the way I look at it is this you could see some customers as a Venn the diagram you've got people who want an S Pen in one circle and people who want a foldable in another circle and already both of these circles are fairly small these are niche ones but if something makes one flexible phone and this also is an S Pen focus device then they're catering primarily for just this tiny the overlap here for everyone else you're just getting a smaller battery a little bit extra cost and yet another thing that's going to drain your battery so that's the next fold it'll probably be announced March to April next year but I'll have more info before then so if you could subscribe that would be amazing I hope to examine a firm that is a lot of refined quicker and a lot of sturdy thus perhaps this point we can't even would like an avid video simply to inform you the way to take care of it thanks for reading and I'll catch you in the next one!

Via - https://www.maunohanan.co.in

Heytheredevlopr

[jcmorrigan]

What made you feel in love with giovanni potage?

I think the better question is what didn’t

If you were to make a Venn diagram of my favorite character types, that would be too complex for me to actually attempt here, but Giovanni would be in an overlap area of SEVERAL circles. Goofy comic relief characters, teammates who bolster their friends with aggressive positivity, criminals who just like to cause chaos...hardly ever do you see all THREE of these wrapped up in one, but boy howdy, was Giovanni ever.

I also love characters who are just exuberant and confident, on the sliding scale from smug to silly. Giovanni is an attempt at Smug but actually more toward Silly and I love it.

I kind of have this joke that Giovanni is a “hell mashup of every character I’ve ever liked.” Aggressive positivity like Papyrus and Kaito Momota! Theatrical during heists like Roman Torchwick! Outgoing like Sora! Built from a place of humor similar to Yzma! Ends up being a morally gray goofy villain like Globby! Even some weird little things, like how I hear Danny Cooksey was originally considered to be his voice - I’m glad we got Igneczi instead because Cooksey would’ve just done Jack Spicer 2.0, but the fact that he almost was actually Jack Spicer 2.0 - well, given the character types I’ve just described, I don’t think I have to tell you I adore Jack. The voice Igneczi gives him combined with the all-yellow Blaster uniform gives me serious Megavolt vibes, and Megavolt was one of my first kinnies (I am not shitting you). And though I mentioned Kaito first, my ultimate favorite DanganRonpa character ever of all time is Kazuichi Soda, and ANYONE AND EVERYONE in both the DR and EE fandoms noticed RIGHT AWAY how these fellas both have that bubblegum-pink hair with shark teeth.

All this is background for when I tell you that when I was first watching EE ep. 1 out of curiosity - I had it rec’d from a friend, and was just dipping in a toe to see if I’d like it - the MINUTE he blew through the wall and announced he was robbing the place, MY “JCMORRIGAN FAVORITE” SENSORS STARTED BEEPING. Like, I could tell RIGHT AWAY he was my type.

Selfshipping is a relatively new venture for me. I’d had some crushes in the past, and some f/o’s I didn’t realize were f/o’s but weren’t a good fit for me, but the modern era of JCMorrigan selfshipping didn’t begin until 2019, when I reblogged a “ship me with a fictional character” post for LOLs, a certain best buddy of mine who KNOWS WHO HE IS sent me XR from BLoSC, and all of a sudden I start writing an AU in my head around what would happen if I were XR’s love interest and suddenly ohhhh noooooo I’m my favorite ship for him, which NEVER happens. So I start looking more into selfshipping, and after establishing that yes, XR was my f/o, I realized that with my villain problem (i.e. what I call my obsession with villains, which is not actually a problem), I needed to find an f/o who was more morally dark. So, for the Evil JCMorrigan Universe, I rounded up Tony Dracon from Gargoyles, who is an old nostalgically important character to me. And, since I had one good and one evil and I generally prefer to ship weird crossovers (therefore wanting characters to be free for me to do that instead of all locked into my harem), I swore I was going to stop there.

Until FUCKING Giovanni.

Thing is, I’d known XR and Tony for a while and it still took a domino-chain of factors for me to decide they were my f/o’s. The FUCKING MINUTE Giovanni crashed through the wall, I was just like WHOA MY GOD. HE...IS WONDERFUL. HE IS ATTRACTIVE AND CUTE AND REALLY FUN AND I WANT TO BE HIS PARTNER IN CRIME.

And I tried to tell myself no! I already had two f/o’s! Buuuuut...then came the ep where he listened to Molly talk about her broken home, and - look - I have a regular lasagna of layered mental issues, and all of a sudden I have the textual evidence that Giovanni is ready for that, that he’s gonna catch me if I fall, and he would be my beacon of hope. (And is, in a way. I have a particular document on my hard drive I call my “Giovanni Journal” where I write to myself as him in a bold pink font and this helps me work through things.)

Eventually, I had to give in. The magnetism was too strong. And the best part is that he rides a line where he can be good OR evil but not too much of either, and that’s a nice midpoint! I can be the hero or the villain with him.

XR and Tony are still around, don’t get me wrong, but Giovanni is...everything I wanted, basically. My RL men standards are now that much higher and I pity the guys who realize they have to live up to the Giovanni Potage bar

(Also, I legitimately just love soup.)

[pamelahetrick]

Epic design fails: laughing and learning from the best worst graphic designs

Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. And design is full of tiny pitfalls that are easy to miss. Thankfully, designers usually learn from their early failures and ultimately become better for it. In that sense, design fails aren’t all that bad—for the most part.

But every now and then, you get something like this poor racoon stranded at sea …

…or this…

…or this…

… or even this.

Below, we look at eight laughable design fails and the valuable lessons those designers could have learned to keep their jobs.

1. Location, location, location —

Via Where Magazine.

Via Where Magazine.

This copy of Where magazine—that’s “Where” with two Es—shows us just how important layout and composition are in graphic design. The photographer did his or her job, but what about the cover designer? That poor woman looks so happy after a fruitful shopping trip, it’s a shame she has to be slandered by a design fail.

For starters, this problem could have been avoided by positioning the photo lower so that the E doesn’t look like an O. That seems like an easy cropping choice to make and it’s not like the reader would miss seeing the bottom of the third box. On top of that, the title could be superimposed over the model’s head, as long as it didn’t cover too much of her face.

As if this weren’t bad enough, the magazine made the same exact mistake a few months later! Perhaps they should consider a name change.

2. The importance of kerning —

Do you know what “kerning” is? Neither did the package designers behind this box of holiday lights.

Kerning is the design term for using the spacing between letters to make text more readable. The application of kerning can get pretty technical, with precise measurements, variations for different letters and sometimes even exact pixel guidelines. That’s why it’s a field that designers need to understand to avoid these kinds of mistakes.

Via The Wig and Pen Truro.

However, most non-designers don’t even know such a field exists. And that’s why they run into problems like those faced by England’s famed Wig & Pen.

3. Brea king words —

Via H&H Reeds Printers.

App rentals? Ice ships? Rent ice?

Breaking up words that shouldn’t be broken up is a classic design fail, but breaking up one big word four times into pieces that are incidentally their own words, that’s epic. What makes this ad even worse (and kind of sad) is not only that they’re trying to entice people to work with them, but they’re also a company that specializes in graphic design.

Yet we don’t want to dissuade designers against the technique entirely—when done well, it’s actually quite effective:

How to do it right. Logo design by Milos Zdrale.

How to do it right. Logo design by Bella” for Safari Partners.

But when using it, exercise caution. Whenever possible avoid creating real words with kerning and keep your message simple. The shorter the sentiment, the easier it will be for the viewer to piece it together—literally.

4. The “art” of communication —

A large part of graphic design is about communicating visually: it’s the designer’s job to make a message easy to understand. But that goes both ways and poor design choices can complicate an otherwise straightforward message.

You buy 3 and get 2 free or you buy 2 and get 1 free. It shouldn’t take the reader five or six read throughs to arrive at this conclusion. But the poor layout of the message—not to mention the confusing asterisks—makes this ad repel customers rather than draw them into the store.

For one thing, the setup looks like an equation, and no one wants to do math when they don’t have to. But shrinking down the second part makes it seem like it’s a clarification of the first message, not a separate sales concept. While this is an honest mistake, these little nuances are something experienced designers instinctively know to sidestep.

5. Say what you mean —

Via Zebra Publishing.

I mean, this may not be her best work, but wishing death upon her is a bit much.

Via Zebra Publishing.

Designers aren’t only in charge of how things look, they also need to watch out for contextual mistakes. When it comes to book cover design, that means combining the title and author name in a way that doesn’t have an unintended meaning. The way this book cover is set up, with the title and author name in the same color and font—and the name above the title—was an easily avoidable mistake.

In this case, the publishers eventually caught on and fixed the design fail in the subsequent editions using different colors and typefaces.

6. Cursive: the designer’s natural predator —

Via Belle Chic.

The ambiguity behind cursive writing has long been the nemesis of well-meaning designers, but few have suffered from its evil snares quite like designer Belle Chic, whose girly-cute handbag accidentally transformed into a piece of neo-nazi propaganda.

Given that (1.) the cursive G is a bit too high, plus (2.) a bit too close to the L, and that (3.) the cross of the second T is overshadowed by the bold white letters above, “glitter” is not the obvious interpretation of this sparkling lettering. It’s surprising that no one noticed this mistake until after its release; any one of those typographical errors would have signaled red flags to a seasoned designer.

Luckily, Belle Chic apologized profusely for their design fail and corrected all three typography errors without throwing out the design.

Via Belle Chic.

7. Catch secondary meanings —

Via Thomson Reuters.

Graphic designers need to be part proofreader. They have to double-check to ensure their designs don’t have any problematic secondary meanings.

That was the case with mass media conglomerate Thomson Reuters. Inadvertently, their design looks like a Venn diagram showing just how little they value trust, partnership, innovation and performance.

In all likelihood, the design was never meant to look like a Venn diagram—rather, just a playful graphic using shapes and colors. However, one tiny move and now a huge, expensive advertising campaign leaves them with egg on their face. Better to go with a designer that can catch these mistakes in the early design stages.

8. Even when you’re right, you’re wrong —

This one’s pretty tricky. When the Ready Player One poster first came out, it was criticized for the character’s freakishly long leg. And rightfully so—just look at it.

At first people thought the image was doctored, but it turns out that it’s actually accurate! Twitter fan Captain Disillusion dissected the image and proved that the leg is completely proportional to the rest of his body; it just looks long because of the awkward angle and the pose. The image is perfectly normal—it’s the human eye that’s weird.

Via Captain Disillusion.

Which brings up a good point about graphic design: a designer’s job is to make sure everything looks fine more than actually being fine. In a field based on perception, how people perceive the work is more important than factual accuracy, which comes into conflict more than you’d think with the visual arts.

The difference between applause and faux pas —

Not to use scare tactics, but one silly design fail could ruin your entire brand reputation. And we’d wager all of the design mistakes above were made by folks who overestimated their design skills. That’s why these things are best left to the professionals.

True design talent lies in understanding the risks well enough to tiptoe around them. The skillset of a good designer includes all the basics like kerning, color theory, typography dos and don’ts, an encyclopedic knowledge of fonts and an eye for avoiding common pitfalls. Now that you’ve seen some epic design fails, you’ll know what to look out for—and hiring a great designer is your ticket to ensuring everyone talks about your next campaign for the right reasons.

There's a surefire way to never be mentioned in a list of design fails...

Find yourself a great designer!

They're right here

The post Epic design fails: laughing and learning from the best worst graphic designs appeared first on 99designs.

via 99designs https://99designs.co.uk/blog/tips-en-gb/graphic-design-fails/

[myongfisher]

Epic design fails: laughing and learning from the best worst graphic designs

Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. And design is full of tiny pitfalls that are easy to miss. Thankfully, designers usually learn from their early failures and ultimately become better for it. In that sense, design fails aren’t all that bad—for the most part.

But every now and then, you get something like this poor racoon stranded at sea …

…or this…

…or this…

… or even this.

Below, we look at eight laughable design fails and the valuable lessons those designers could have learned to keep their jobs.

1. Location, location, location —

Via Where Magazine.

Via Where Magazine.

This copy of Where magazine—that’s “Where” with two Es—shows us just how important layout and composition are in graphic design. The photographer did his or her job, but what about the cover designer? That poor woman looks so happy after a fruitful shopping trip, it’s a shame she has to be slandered by a design fail.

For starters, this problem could have been avoided by positioning the photo lower so that the E doesn’t look like an O. That seems like an easy cropping choice to make and it’s not like the reader would miss seeing the bottom of the third box. On top of that, the title could be superimposed over the model’s head, as long as it didn’t cover too much of her face.

As if this weren’t bad enough, the magazine made the same exact mistake a few months later! Perhaps they should consider a name change.

2. The importance of kerning —

Do you know what “kerning” is? Neither did the package designers behind this box of holiday lights.

Kerning is the design term for using the spacing between letters to make text more readable. The application of kerning can get pretty technical, with precise measurements, variations for different letters and sometimes even exact pixel guidelines. That’s why it’s a field that designers need to understand to avoid these kinds of mistakes.

Via The Wig and Pen Truro.

However, most non-designers don’t even know such a field exists. And that’s why they run into problems like those faced by England’s famed Wig & Pen.

3. Brea king words —

Via H&H Reeds Printers.

App rentals? Ice ships? Rent ice?

Breaking up words that shouldn’t be broken up is a classic design fail, but breaking up one big word four times into pieces that are incidentally their own words, that’s epic. What makes this ad even worse (and kind of sad) is not only that they’re trying to entice people to work with them, but they’re also a company that specializes in graphic design.

Yet we don’t want to dissuade designers against the technique entirely—when done well, it’s actually quite effective:

How to do it right. Logo design by Milos Zdrale.

How to do it right. Logo design by Bella” for Safari Partners.

But when using it, exercise caution. Whenever possible avoid creating real words with kerning and keep your message simple. The shorter the sentiment, the easier it will be for the viewer to piece it together—literally.

4. The “art” of communication —

A large part of graphic design is about communicating visually: it’s the designer’s job to make a message easy to understand. But that goes both ways and poor design choices can complicate an otherwise straightforward message.

You buy 3 and get 2 free or you buy 2 and get 1 free. It shouldn’t take the reader five or six read throughs to arrive at this conclusion. But the poor layout of the message—not to mention the confusing asterisks—makes this ad repel customers rather than draw them into the store.

For one thing, the setup looks like an equation, and no one wants to do math when they don’t have to. But shrinking down the second part makes it seem like it’s a clarification of the first message, not a separate sales concept. While this is an honest mistake, these little nuances are something experienced designers instinctively know to sidestep.

5. Say what you mean —

Via Zebra Publishing.

I mean, this may not be her best work, but wishing death upon her is a bit much.

Via Zebra Publishing.

Designers aren’t only in charge of how things look, they also need to watch out for contextual mistakes. When it comes to book cover design, that means combining the title and author name in a way that doesn’t have an unintended meaning. The way this book cover is set up, with the title and author name in the same color and font—and the name above the title—was an easily avoidable mistake.

In this case, the publishers eventually caught on and fixed the design fail in the subsequent editions using different colors and typefaces.

6. Cursive: the designer’s natural predator —

Via Belle Chic.

The ambiguity behind cursive writing has long been the nemesis of well-meaning designers, but few have suffered from its evil snares quite like designer Belle Chic, whose girly-cute handbag accidentally transformed into a piece of neo-nazi propaganda.

Given that (1.) the cursive G is a bit too high, plus (2.) a bit too close to the L, and that (3.) the cross of the second T is overshadowed by the bold white letters above, “glitter” is not the obvious interpretation of this sparkling lettering. It’s surprising that no one noticed this mistake until after its release; any one of those typographical errors would have signaled red flags to a seasoned designer.

Luckily, Belle Chic apologized profusely for their design fail and corrected all three typography errors without throwing out the design.

Via Belle Chic.

7. Catch secondary meanings —

Via Thomson Reuters.

Graphic designers need to be part proofreader. They have to double-check to ensure their designs don’t have any problematic secondary meanings.

That was the case with mass media conglomerate Thomson Reuters. Inadvertently, their design looks like a Venn diagram showing just how little they value trust, partnership, innovation and performance.

In all likelihood, the design was never meant to look like a Venn diagram—rather, just a playful graphic using shapes and colors. However, one tiny move and now a huge, expensive advertising campaign leaves them with egg on their face. Better to go with a designer that can catch these mistakes in the early design stages.

8. Even when you’re right, you’re wrong —

This one’s pretty tricky. When the Ready Player One poster first came out, it was criticized for the character’s freakishly long leg. And rightfully so—just look at it.

At first people thought the image was doctored, but it turns out that it’s actually accurate! Twitter fan Captain Disillusion dissected the image and proved that the leg is completely proportional to the rest of his body; it just looks long because of the awkward angle and the pose. The image is perfectly normal—it’s the human eye that’s weird.

Via Captain Disillusion.

Which brings up a good point about graphic design: a designer’s job is to make sure everything looks fine more than actually being fine. In a field based on perception, how people perceive the work is more important than factual accuracy, which comes into conflict more than you’d think with the visual arts.

The difference between applause and faux pas —

Not to use scare tactics, but one silly design fail could ruin your entire brand reputation. And we’d wager all of the design mistakes above were made by folks who overestimated their design skills. That’s why these things are best left to the professionals.

True design talent lies in understanding the risks well enough to tiptoe around them. The skillset of a good designer includes all the basics like kerning, color theory, typography dos and don’ts, an encyclopedic knowledge of fonts and an eye for avoiding common pitfalls. Now that you’ve seen some epic design fails, you’ll know what to look out for—and hiring a great designer is your ticket to ensuring everyone talks about your next campaign for the right reasons.

There’s a surefire way to never be mentioned in a list of design fails…

Find yourself a great designer!

They’re right here

The post Epic design fails: laughing and learning from the best worst graphic designs appeared first on 99designs.

Epic design fails: laughing and learning from the best worst graphic designs published first on https://www.lilpackaging.com/

[susaanrogers]

Epic design fails: laughing and learning from the best worst graphic designs

Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. And design is full of tiny pitfalls that are easy to miss. Thankfully, designers usually learn from their early failures and ultimately become better for it. In that sense, design fails aren’t all that bad—for the most part.

But every now and then, you get something like this poor racoon stranded at sea …

…or this…

…or this…

… or even this.

Below, we look at eight laughable design fails and the valuable lessons those designers could have learned to keep their jobs.

1. Location, location, location —

Via Where Magazine.

Via Where Magazine.

This copy of Where magazine—that’s “Where” with two Es—shows us just how important layout and composition are in graphic design. The photographer did his or her job, but what about the cover designer? That poor woman looks so happy after a fruitful shopping trip, it’s a shame she has to be slandered by a design fail.

For starters, this problem could have been avoided by positioning the photo lower so that the E doesn’t look like an O. That seems like an easy cropping choice to make and it’s not like the reader would miss seeing the bottom of the third box. On top of that, the title could be superimposed over the model’s head, as long as it didn’t cover too much of her face.

As if this weren’t bad enough, the magazine made the same exact mistake a few months later! Perhaps they should consider a name change.

2. The importance of kerning —

Do you know what “kerning” is? Neither did the package designers behind this box of holiday lights.

Kerning is the design term for using the spacing between letters to make text more readable. The application of kerning can get pretty technical, with precise measurements, variations for different letters and sometimes even exact pixel guidelines. That’s why it’s a field that designers need to understand to avoid these kinds of mistakes.

Via The Wig and Pen Truro.

However, most non-designers don’t even know such a field exists. And that’s why they run into problems like those faced by England’s famed Wig & Pen.

3. Brea king words —

Via H&H Reeds Printers.

App rentals? Ice ships? Rent ice?

Breaking up words that shouldn’t be broken up is a classic design fail, but breaking up one big word four times into pieces that are incidentally their own words, that’s epic. What makes this ad even worse (and kind of sad) is not only that they’re trying to entice people to work with them, but they’re also a company that specializes in graphic design.

Yet we don’t want to dissuade designers against the technique entirely—when done well, it’s actually quite effective:

How to do it right. Logo design by Milos Zdrale.

How to do it right. Logo design by Bella” for Safari Partners.

But when using it, exercise caution. Whenever possible avoid creating real words with kerning and keep your message simple. The shorter the sentiment, the easier it will be for the viewer to piece it together—literally.

4. The “art” of communication —

A large part of graphic design is about communicating visually: it’s the designer’s job to make a message easy to understand. But that goes both ways and poor design choices can complicate an otherwise straightforward message.

You buy 3 and get 2 free or you buy 2 and get 1 free. It shouldn’t take the reader five or six read throughs to arrive at this conclusion. But the poor layout of the message—not to mention the confusing asterisks—makes this ad repel customers rather than draw them into the store.

For one thing, the setup looks like an equation, and no one wants to do math when they don’t have to. But shrinking down the second part makes it seem like it’s a clarification of the first message, not a separate sales concept. While this is an honest mistake, these little nuances are something experienced designers instinctively know to sidestep.

5. Say what you mean —

Via Zebra Publishing.

I mean, this may not be her best work, but wishing death upon her is a bit much.

Via Zebra Publishing.

Designers aren’t only in charge of how things look, they also need to watch out for contextual mistakes. When it comes to book cover design, that means combining the title and author name in a way that doesn’t have an unintended meaning. The way this book cover is set up, with the title and author name in the same color and font—and the name above the title—was an easily avoidable mistake.

In this case, the publishers eventually caught on and fixed the design fail in the subsequent editions using different colors and typefaces.

6. Cursive: the designer’s natural predator —

Via Belle Chic.

The ambiguity behind cursive writing has long been the nemesis of well-meaning designers, but few have suffered from its evil snares quite like designer Belle Chic, whose girly-cute handbag accidentally transformed into a piece of neo-nazi propaganda.

Given that (1.) the cursive G is a bit too high, plus (2.) a bit too close to the L, and that (3.) the cross of the second T is overshadowed by the bold white letters above, “glitter” is not the obvious interpretation of this sparkling lettering. It’s surprising that no one noticed this mistake until after its release; any one of those typographical errors would have signaled red flags to a seasoned designer.

Luckily, Belle Chic apologized profusely for their design fail and corrected all three typography errors without throwing out the design.

Via Belle Chic.

7. Catch secondary meanings —

Via Thomson Reuters.

Graphic designers need to be part proofreader. They have to double-check to ensure their designs don’t have any problematic secondary meanings.

That was the case with mass media conglomerate Thomson Reuters. Inadvertently, their design looks like a Venn diagram showing just how little they value trust, partnership, innovation and performance.

In all likelihood, the design was never meant to look like a Venn diagram—rather, just a playful graphic using shapes and colors. However, one tiny move and now a huge, expensive advertising campaign leaves them with egg on their face. Better to go with a designer that can catch these mistakes in the early design stages.

8. Even when you’re right, you’re wrong —

This one’s pretty tricky. When the Ready Player One poster first came out, it was criticized for the character’s freakishly long leg. And rightfully so—just look at it.

At first people thought the image was doctored, but it turns out that it’s actually accurate! Twitter fan Captain Disillusion dissected the image and proved that the leg is completely proportional to the rest of his body; it just looks long because of the awkward angle and the pose. The image is perfectly normal—it’s the human eye that’s weird.

Via Captain Disillusion.

Which brings up a good point about graphic design: a designer’s job is to make sure everything looks fine more than actually being fine. In a field based on perception, how people perceive the work is more important than factual accuracy, which comes into conflict more than you’d think with the visual arts.

The difference between applause and faux pas —

Not to use scare tactics, but one silly design fail could ruin your entire brand reputation. And we’d wager all of the design mistakes above were made by folks who overestimated their design skills. That’s why these things are best left to the professionals.

True design talent lies in understanding the risks well enough to tiptoe around them. The skillset of a good designer includes all the basics like kerning, color theory, typography dos and don’ts, an encyclopedic knowledge of fonts and an eye for avoiding common pitfalls. Now that you’ve seen some epic design fails, you’ll know what to look out for—and hiring a great designer is your ticket to ensuring everyone talks about your next campaign for the right reasons.

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