mindgraffiti

Please excuse the poor headline. It’s rough, just like the “designs” found in our e-lists.

When it comes to design, it doesn’t exist in the e-lists. Our customers dictate what they want and ignore any suggestions made on our part. Go ahead- glance through a few. I hated working on e-lists. It was detestable work, being forced to puke all over a page. I am not an artist in any sense of the term, but I have a rudimentary grasp of the basics: color theory, white space, font choices, dominance of elements on the page, etc. It’s easy to identify good design but difficult to create.

Despite explaining that a well executed design equals effective advertising, few of them understand what that means, so white space is eliminated and as many fonts, colors, and pictures as possible are crammed onto a single page. [Random samples of typical e-list ads].

I don’t buy and sell cattle, but I have to subscribe to the e-lists because it is classified under the realm of ‘web stuff’ handled by our department. Yet, even as an uninterested bystander, I can feel the impact of an effective message an an ineffective one. Here are a few stellar e-list designs that stand out:

MJB Ranch

Trans Ova Genetics

Biozyme Inc.

Surely, others feel it too. I know people talk about these ads. So why is it so hard to convince customers that good design sells?