: Is it appropriate to use lower quality design to make a product look cheap? In an article I was reading it has this picture: It claims and rightfully so that one looks cheaper than the

@Harper654

Yes, the needs of the client, as Paul said.

The client product's target audience should determine the appropriate design, along with the client's budget for that project.

Advertising and marketing are not the place for designers to impose their views of "good design". It should be all about the client's needs.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Becky351

I think that certain points have to be taken into consideration, here. What is 'good design'? I believe that it is a contextual issue. Good design is the ability of the designer to draw people in to look at their work. This is irrespective of the amount of money that the product costs. Your target, after all, is not to make the product look like something the gods had produced - it is to make the product sell, and that is the clincher. Good design, here, is retaining all your knowledge on the technicalities of production and aesthetic, and manoeuvring it to the needs of your client.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Kimberly620

Sometimes yes. It so happens that companies sometimes hedge their bets by selling products both in bulk to chains and as premium under their own brand. According to Tim Harford (The undercover economist page 51 second paragraph in particular) the reason for cheap look is to get most out of the customers money. By selling same product at a premium to not so price sensitive buyers. This is called price targeting.

So basically the only difference for example between certain breakfast cereal and store brand cereal is in the package. So it stands to reason that the cheaper product needs to differentiate somehow. Usually the mechanism is to use a package that looks less glamorous, so that more brand conscious buyer buys the more expensive product, with more profit, while at the same time also getting money for those that couldn't afford the premium. Conversely some people might assume a premium on a product that looks too well branded.

So for me at least this was a eye opener. Stores are full of such products if you care to read the labels. Sometimes cross pollinated across store chains. There are also other interesting psychological effects such as not being able to ascertain price efficiency of products that have no competition.

Edity: Now that I'm home I see that my memory fails me a bit the book was not Freakonomics but rather the undercover economist instead. Fixed my reference and added page number. I stand corrected.

Vote Up Vote Down