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USPS Redesign

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Re: USPS Redesign

#41

Post by Throwaway823 »

imajes wrote: post #23
tonywebster wrote: post #10

The two main typefaces are Knockout and Gotham, both being fonts from Hoefler & Co. — formerly Hoefler & Frere-Jones (H&FJ), until Jonathan Hoefler allegedly never gave Tobias Frere-Jones the equity stake he promised, eventually calling him just an employee[1]. Not only do I think is Hoefler & Co. a terrible company under Hoefler's leadership for that unethical move, the company has refused for the longest time to su…

ideologically, i agree, except that HFJ/H&C produce some amazing timeless typefaces and it's really hard to ignore that.

Agreed, they own some of the most well known typefaces in the world. Sadly, their pricing is absurd.

For example, I run a forum with a million daily page views. If I wanted to use Gotham, I need to pay $150 for the font, and then subscribe to their cloud service and pay $450 per month for that amount of page views.

I might be willing to pay a one-time $100 fee to use one of their fonts, or a $100 per year subscription to use any of their fonts. However, $5,500 a year for my site? That's almost as much as my servers. It's a laugh, I'll stick with the well respected free web fonts.

Re: USPS Redesign

#42

Post by jedmeyers »

kaivi wrote: post #38

A fine example of design for the sake of design. Is that an amateur proposal, or was this accepted by USPS, polished further and paid for? Based on the amount of text fillings, looks like the latter is true. In any way, what I see is highly impractical, and the brand book is far from complete. Here are some things I dislike about it: -All caps. This is wrong, and it should be fairly obvious even to a child, when poin…

http://xkcd.com/1273/

Re: USPS Redesign

#43

Post by blakeeb »

kaivi wrote: post #38

A fine example of design for the sake of design. Is that an amateur proposal, or was this accepted by USPS, polished further and paid for? Based on the amount of text fillings, looks like the latter is true. In any way, what I see is highly impractical, and the brand book is far from complete. Here are some things I dislike about it: -All caps. This is wrong, and it should be fairly obvious even to a child, when poin…

Ad hominem only detracts from your otherwise valid observations. Be careful with how you phrase your opinions. "obvious even to a child"

Re: USPS Redesign

#44

Post by kaivi »

duney wrote: post #40
kaivi wrote: post #38

A fine example of design for the sake of design. Is that an amateur proposal, or was this accepted by USPS, polished further and paid for? Based on the amount of text fillings, looks like the latter is true. In any way, what I see is highly impractical, and the brand book is far from complete. Here are some things I dislike about it: -All caps. This is wrong, and it should be fairly obvious even to a child, when poin…

Can you point to some recommended reading for someone looking to learn about these design principles?

Sure! I am probably biased, but I have been following Artemy and his studio from the early 2000s. He publishes semi-random notes on design, some of them influenced by realities of a post-Soviet state. Here is a link to the book: http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/

Re: USPS Redesign

#45

Post by bmelton »

blakeeb wrote: post #43
kaivi wrote: post #38

A fine example of design for the sake of design. Is that an amateur proposal, or was this accepted by USPS, polished further and paid for? Based on the amount of text fillings, looks like the latter is true. In any way, what I see is highly impractical, and the brand book is far from complete. Here are some things I dislike about it: -All caps. This is wrong, and it should be fairly obvious even to a child, when poin…

Ad hominem only detracts from your otherwise valid observations. Be careful with how you phrase your opinions. "obvious even to a child"

That's not an ad hominem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Re: USPS Redesign

#46

Post by danielnaab »

sp332 wrote: post #36
danielnaab wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an artificial debt... their pension plan is way oversized. Congress has put them in the ridiculous position of literally pre-paying pension obligations of employees who haven't been born yet.

They haven't been putting money into that since 2011. And their own page shows they would have been at -$3B in 2010 even without the pre-funding mandate. https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/...

USPS has authority to run its own deficits quarter to quarter or year to year, and they have significantly improved their financial situation since the financial collapse and large drop in first class mail usage. Last year they would have run a surplus if it were not for the pre-funding liabilities: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/us/postal-service-trims-it... Congress needs to get out of the way and let the USPS succeed, but I fear the privatization interests are just setting them up for massive failure.

Re: USPS Redesign

#47

Post by VLM »

alarius wrote: post #37
VLM wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most polite way to put it is people who willfully refuse to learn any market, are only given the alternatives of being frustrated or ripped off, often without understanding which is about to happen to them. So in this individual concrete example, basically you're saying that for a willfully uninformed customer, the USPS has made a policy decision at a high level to frustrate you instead of ripping you off, and yo…

There shouldn't need to be any learning of markets or navigating of postal office policies. This is a business like any other meant to serve their customers. Shipping a package should and needs to be as easy as checking out at Wal-Mart.

"Shipping a package should and needs to be as easy as checking out at Wal-Mart."

.gov politicians disagree emphatically. Those regulations weren't made for fun. They may result in a dysfunctional system. Monopolies do not serve their customers other than incidentally.

Re: USPS Redesign

#48

Post by atamosk »

kaivi wrote: post #38

A fine example of design for the sake of design. Is that an amateur proposal, or was this accepted by USPS, polished further and paid for? Based on the amount of text fillings, looks like the latter is true. In any way, what I see is highly impractical, and the brand book is far from complete. Here are some things I dislike about it: -All caps. This is wrong, and it should be fairly obvious even to a child, when poin…

Not to toot these kids horns and all but they have worked for draft and Weiden + kennedy. I think your pure design analysis of this has missed the mark as in their approach has a much more story driven purpose, creating a look and feel. To leave this out of your analysis or crit, is as though you are only judging half the equation. Purpose and design go hand in hand, And while I agree with the type comment I think that the work itself can illicit an emotional response of pride and accomplishment that the post office can champion. I mean they seem to be using patriotism and while that can be bad in some cases for the post office, which is a government body this would be a perfect place to use it.

*edit for spelling

Re: USPS Redesign

#49

Post by toxican »

VLM wrote: post #21
toxican wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#2 is the #1 reason why I don't like dealing with the USPS for packages. It's easier for me to run to the post office and have them walk me through the process of the more complicated shipping (non-domestic primarily), but the people there are ass holes. Between the post office where I live and the office where I work (in two different states), I've never had a good experience. There's always some pissed off, rude mi…

The most polite way to put it is people who willfully refuse to learn any market, are only given the alternatives of being frustrated or ripped off, often without understanding which is about to happen to them. So in this individual concrete example, basically you're saying that for a willfully uninformed customer, the USPS has made a policy decision at a high level to frustrate you instead of ripping you off, and yo…

I wasn't really complaining that it's too difficult to ship stuff so much as I was that the employees I've interacted with have all been dicks. I guess not setting aside a weekend to memorize the poorly-designed info database on the USPS site is technically willful ignorance. But then again so is not taking a weekend to learn all of the inner workings of my car, or how plumbing works, or how to build a house, etc. and choosing to have a professional take care of it.

And I really don't think the only two options the USPS has are "be a dick" or "go figure it out yourself, you lazy shit"

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