Slightly grubby, mostly inconsistent

It can't be just me can it? The Plain English Campaign is a worthy endeavour, championing a cause that should be of interest to all of us that work on "communication" material. So why are their marks so bloody aweful?

I'm not just having a go. It's just that everytime I see one of them, I'm amazed at how out of whack their designs are with the cause the organisation champion and wonder why someone hasn't done something about it. I've seen beautiful, considered, well written material blighted by that ugly little sketch.

I have no problem with the idea, "crystal clear" is spot on; it's just drawn so badly. Surely, if it was a better, more appropriate design, that reflected clarity and precision more effectively, it would only help further the cause.

Anyway, I'm going to write to them.

Comments

[The Worst of Perth]

Yeah that's bad. The halo version is an abortion. These campaigns never work anyway. All very worthy but complete waste of time. How's the reform spelling movement going these days?

The Worst of Perth
Art, Design, Architecture & Humanity

[Ben]

I agree.

[Zach]

I'm curious: what do you say when you write someone to say that their graphic design is underwheming? Are you offering to do it over?

[jcooper]

I think it looks like those woeful "Bling Diamonds" that adorn those dime a dozen all over print hoodies the young people wear these days.

[Richard]

Zach, to be honest I don't know exactly right now and re-reading my post I might sound a little pompous (I actually sound like my Dad, who in similar circumstances can sound pompous). But this is something that's been bugging me for years now and I'm going to at least try and put forward a case for redesigning it.

I'm not looking for the job, I'm not best placed for that; they'd probably be better off talking to someone face-to-face. It bugs me so much because I'm right behind their cause. I think they do, in theory anyway, a good job; their cause deserves a better symbol. And, "doing something is better than doing nothing."

[Jeremy]

Didn't it just recently get "redesigned" to give it a more modern feel? Pompous or not, I agree with you, the crystal mark misses the mark.

[Andrew]

I was in the bank on wednesday, and thought exactly the same thing. How about opening it up, getting some examples and showing how much better it could be?

[James Mackay]

Yes, the Crystal fails badly. Why? Isn't it just that the Plain English Campaign person is a Words person, who thinks, communicates by words, spoken or written or read; but others, perhaps your readers, are Visual people, who think graphically, in colour and diagrams, shapes; and neither will ever fully appreciate the other.

[David Airey]

I remember my first print-related job, thinking this campaign a joke because of the marks.

[Kurt Trew]

I reckon you should approach them with the winning ideas from a Flickr contest that you could set-up - in a similar idea to Veerle's 'What is Graphic Design?' competition.

[Richard]

Jeremy, I'm not aware of a redesign. The marks I've uses have come straight off their website.

James, you're probably right.

I guess the thing that surprises me most about this whole thing is that since it started, in 1979, there hasn't been a significant graphic designer suitably interested in helping them out with this. Perhaps there has been and it hasn't worked out for some reason.

[John]

You don't know what your taking on here. I've worked with PEC before and there is a formidable force behind this organisation. Good luck!

[Richard]

For some reason that doesn't surprise me John but thanks for the word of caution. I hope I'm not being misunderstood here; I'm on their side, I just think they're missing a trick. And I've looked at that sparkly gem so many times, I'm compelled to do something but be philosophical about the outcome.

[Daniel]

They all look very "Yellow Pages", don't they? And what's with all the zeros in the first one? Are they planning on replacing plain English with binary?

[minxlj]

I agree, it could - and should - be a much more consistent, clean icon. The 3rd one with that godawful 'halo' is just rubbish.

It's too close in style to the marks used by jewellers in any case, it needs to be obvious that this refers to the written word and not diamonds - if someone couldn't read the text for whatever reason, they'd never guess it had anything to do with English!

[minxlj]

Ooh, maybe you could include something from here: http://www.design-police.org/

[johno]

Those marks are an abomination. Goodness! I have to take 3 Aspirin every time I see them. Looks as though someone, on there way out of the office, asked the tea lady to knock something up in MS Word. Some will say who cares>; however, poor design damages credibility. It really would not take much to tidy these things up.

[Jeremy]

It looks like they did recently do a redesign:

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/crystalmark.htm

And to James' point, maybe that is the problem... They got Walt Whitman to do a MC Escher

[Trench]

The typographical composition is horrid.

Considering this is about "crystal clear communication", the font-usage should be the first horror to be addressed.

It's not too horrible in the first image, yet not very pleasant either. The other two are rather atrocious though. "Abortion" was spot-on. from one of the earlier comments.

Second, the "logo" - it's disgusting.

Ask Google Images what a "crystal" is and you'll primarily see quartz and crystal-made figurines.

Ask a "commoner" (wow, can't believe I just referred to everyday people as commoners, /me lashes self) what a crystal looks like and they will typically say quartz.

Ask an elitist diamond-hoarder/collector if her (or his) diamonds are simply "crystals" and security will promptly be asked to escort you elsewhere. (You heathen.)

And the halo - wow, that's the holy icing on the Jesus diamond-cake.

A proper logo, I believe, would be a crystallized, universally recognized icon which represents dialog (i.e., words used). A stylized mouth, perhaps... a speech balloon... an ink pen... these are the first that come to mind, though I'm sure there are many more. (Although I rather like the crystallized ink-pen idea.)

I just reformatted and have yet to install photoshop else I would have completed a rough of what *I* would do with this.

With that said, I also need to add that I'm not so sure I fully agree with the ideologies the campaign is built on.

To keep it short, and to veer myself away from preaching, I personally believe that language-used (English, Korean, Klingon, LOL33T, etc...) is not the problem in society today - rather, it's our interpretation of what's being said that needs improvement. Everyone can speak the same language, adhere to the same rules of said language, and it won't mean anything if we are still consistently misinterpreting one another.

Which is the core of nearly every problem today.

A prime example being that body language, and actions-taken, are still the root language we all speak. You can see it in international relations today - we use troop movements, bomber fly-overs, naval transgressions, and missile launch-tests (Russia, U.S., U.K., Iran, North Korea, etc...) to communicate with one another more than we do round-table discussions.

And, closer to home, we hear slammed doors and muted words, we see crossed arms and antidepressants... we see divorce, road rage, and cubicles.

Context and interpretation are either going to make us or break us as a species.

Regional dialect is borderline irrelevant.