Awful logos: SkyMall SpermShoe

Now you can move at the speed of sperm!

What a tragedy. Who hired that designer?


Man I saw these and thought they were some type of shoe that would help with impotency. Kind of like the bike saddle that has the hole cut in it to help zee junk not get injured. Poor company. Who saw that and did not immediately think of little swimmers?

The first time I saw that ad I couldn’t stop laughing. I just thought to myself WTF!? I then proceeded to look them up online… so maybe the ad did it’s job.

This is funny! :laughing: :laughing: … We know engineers into Industrial design but this is the case of a Doctor into Industrial design. :open_mouth:

Then again, we’re talking about it…maybe not so bad?

I would just love to hear an explanation of their logo. there is no way that its similarities to sperm did not come up during the design process, which makes me believe that it is somewhat intentional.

I saw this on a plane maybe a year ago and just about died laughing. If it never did come up in design meetings that it looked like sperm or a tadpole. Then what did they think the logo looked like? A little sperm for the side of your shoe.

usually you will see a logo and you know its one thing but it kind of looks like something else. with this logo I have no idea what it could possibly be if not sperm

Those Skymall catalogs are so full of crap. I haven’t seen one in a while (I don’t travel the US carriers that have them too often - they all tend to suck). Last time I was browsing one, it made me so angry at all the crap products and marketing I had to put it down. I was getting so agitated.

Would be great IMHO if some designer-Ninja made it a personal stake to assassinate every individual responsible for all those products one by one, vigilante style :slight_smile:

R

You know what would be a pretty cool portfolio, to take every product in a “Sky Mall” catalog and totally redesign it until it was something with purpose , value and integrity, then reprint the entire catalog and throw both down in an interview…that would be memorable!

Great minds think alike I see. I used to bring them into classes for the students to use when they couldn’t come up with their own products to do for a project. We’d always get a laugh but I had to explain to them, this is what we do. This stuff is crap, the client just fired their old designer and hired you to redesign it and make it not crap, get to it.

Jeez, that’s kind of harsh. So every product in SkyMall is automatically crap and every designer involved should be killed? I know that’s hyperbole on your part but it sounds a bit condescending. Sky Mall wouldn’t be a multi million dollar company with exposure most companies dream of if all their products sucked so bad that nobody every bought anything ever. They would be out of business right? Sure they have a lot of crazy stuff, but every once in a while I spot something clever. I’m not ready to insult every company they work with and pretend that everything I have ever designed is perfect and meaningfull and deserves shelf space in the MoMA.

Besides I rather like this chair that converts to a step ladder in one motion:

Having briefly worked for a company in Hong Kong that had/has products in SkyMall, I know that a lot of the stuff, especially the consumer electronics, are bought from Hong Kong suppliers with internal design staff. Typically it works like this:

  1. The owner of the company comes back from an international trip with the next big idea. Usually this is a comment made by someone they saw at a trade show.

  2. The designers dutifully design the product. The engineers dutifully engineer it. Both, under their breath, think it is the worst idea ever. But this is a hierarchical society so do what you are told.

  3. Buyers from US distribution companies flood into Hong Kong looking for the next big thing. They purchase the rights to distribute a ton of ideas hoping one will succeed. Typical shot gun approach.

  4. The products end up in SkyMall, on infomercials, and worst case in drug stores.

  5. Next year the same thing happens. Their is not a lot of risk, except to the environment, and our professional reputation.

So in this case the designers have to take the old “It rubs the lotion on it’s skin or it gets the hose” method. Sad. And horribly disgusting to see it laid out like that.

Yeah, it looks like a sperm, but you are all missing the point! It has springs in the sole! SPRINGS!

I think I might steal the font used for “gravity defyer,” change it to “goodbye dreams” and slap it on a new pregnancy test :laughing:

Priceless!