Should You Break the Rules?

The excerpts from Golombisky's and Hagen's book White Space is Not Your Enemy provide an overwhelming amount of information about good print design practices. After completing the reading, my first thought was that it must be nearly impossible for a designer to follow are these rules. Thus, I set out to answer this question: Can an advertisement that breaks the rules of good design still be good?

My first example is a Fanta advertisement that was chosen as one of the best print ads of 2015 on several websites, including the two blogs JustCreative and A Nerd's World. Although it is regarded as one of the best in its class, it certainly does not follow all the principles of good design.

To begin, what makes this a good design? According to Jonny Rowntree from JustCreative, Fanta's ad is so "tastable" that it makes you want to "tear a piece of their advertisement and place it in your mouth." Or, as Golombisky and Hagen might put it: Fanta's brilliant use of color evokes a sense of freshness and delectability. The whole page seems to burst with fun and a summertime.

Nonetheless, this ad contains some major design flaws. First is what Golombisky and Hagen referred to as Sin No. 3: the use of too many fonts. Too many fonts break up the unity of the piece. Secondly, some of the fonts in the ad were a poor choice. As the excerpts mention, "stroking chokes letterform" and makes the text harder to read. Finally, I find that this ad contains too many words. Fanta could have just used a simple visual like an orange to convey their ideas. After all, less is more.

The second "good" ad that bends the rules comes from The Guardian. It was also listed as one of the best ads of 2015 by JustCreative.

At a first glance, there seems to be nothing wrong with this ad. It is simple and focuses on one crisp visual. The ad also delivers the message, "The whole picture," cleverly by leading viewers to regard the whole picture before finding the message.

There are several things I dislike about this ad. The first question I must ask is: Why a pie chart? Perhaps The Guardian wished to use the chart as symbolism for their commitment to supplementing news with data. However, the news company is not using it properly.

When we see charts, we expect them to convey actual information. But when I see this one, I am confused. How were the percentages of the pie chosen? Could it be based on word length, or is it random? In any case, there has to be a better way to visually represent something that is "the whole picture."

The Guardian's theme colors are white and blue,
which would have been a better color scheme
for the advertisement.

The color scheme also does not make sense. The colors are simple and contrast well. But instead of having a dark purple background, they should have used The Guardian's official color, which is blue. Overall, this ad just seems too generic.

So, to answer the question: Can an advertisement that breaks the rules still be a "good" one? According to some design bloggers, the answer is yes. But as we have seen, sometimes bending the rules of design leads to a weaker composition. In short, there is no definite answer. The rules laid out by Golombisky and Hagen are good guidelines to follow, but sometimes it pays to bend the rules of design.