Not a Fan of the Atheist Billboard Designs? Here’s Your Chance to Fix It

Having a contest in an attempt to get a better design isn’t a solution, it’s essentially spec work, which is very much not okay in the design industry. By having this type of contest instead of actually hiring a decent designer to create their billboards, they are asking a designer to work for free and cheapening the entire industry.

The problem isn’t the layout, it’s the unnecessarily inflammatory nature of the signs themselves.

   Unnecessarily inflammatory nature?   Really?  Go take a nap.  We have fire breathing to do.

It’s called crowd-sourcing and it’s all the rage in this web 2.0 world we’re living in. I like it and I admire that on both sides of the design equation each is willing to compromise. One to generate ideas from a diverse field of contributors and the other in competing with other designers in an open competition. Very cool. 

I dunno who’s complaining about the billboards, but I think they need to get their eyes checked. A billboard needs to be easily read from a distance, in a moving vehicle — the billboards as they are (and/or have been) fulfill that purpose quite nicely, and aren’t at all ugly.

What are you yapping about? STFU! Big time.

Lovely.

and you received some ‘likes’ for that comment.

*mind boggled*

Telling ‘it’ to STFU………..again, lovely.

Because he obviously is against the billboards existing at all — he called them “inflammatory”. Seriously, he had to have known that would get a reaction, and it’s still not out of line to tell him to STFU.

Or, you know, you could explain WHY it’s out of line, instead of making passive-aggressive remarks about it.

I don’t think the layout is so bad. It depends on where it is I guess. A bus stop or a bus bring the sign very close and make reading easy. If that’s going to be on the highway with 5 seconds of reading at a distance, it might not work so well.

Still, you could give it an award winning design and I’d still dislike the signs. I find the message irritating, unnecessarily aggressive, and basically guaranteed to result in time-wasting debates (what do you mean you know? How can you know? etc.). If they are already controversial in the hardcore activist base, I can’t imagine the reaction would be much better from the fence-sitting, timid and closeted population that this is supposed to attract.

I’ve been accused of being some sort of Christian apologist by people who were obviously new here. I don’t think it’s healthy to identify any dissent as trolling, honestly.

I wholeheartedly agree Claudia.

It’s not only rather puerile, imo, but it reeks of insecurity ~ if one disagrees with someone else’s position, counter it with something substantive.  

Telling other people to ‘STFU’ is something i’d expect to see in the comments section of a youtube video, not here.

As someone with a design background and a general “ooh, ahh, pretty things” appreciator, I thought the billboards were lacking…but so are billboards for hospitals, strip clubs, and the local Menards (so it’s not that they are worse, overall, it’s just that I want pretty billboards for My Favorite Cause, ya know?).

“Legible” should not be the one and only requirement – anyone with a computer could generate that. What takes actual talent is designing something that is legible AND has visual interest, which is where I think these billboards are lacking. Yeah, you can read them, but to me, they don’t really stand out in the competing billboard-forest.

And, FWIW, this DOES come across as a grab at some free art; established graphic designers aren’t typically the ones trolling the internet, looking for stuff like this to submit to. It can potentially take years to build a portfolio to highlight your talents, and this bypasses the entire process. At the end of the day, this is essentially asking lots and lots of people to do free mockups for them…which is ok, I guess, but bypasses lots of really quality designers.

I’d much rather see AA hire a graphic designer of their choice, based on their own research – then they can develop a “style” of sorts and turn out snazzier billboards.

I don’t think this is a HORRIBLE idea, to be clear – it’s just definitely a process that may get them younger, less experienced designers who don’t have established track records, but that pool tends to be a little less reliable in terms of quality, in general.

In this case it’s not somebody who actually could afford to hire a designer trying to avoid that cost with a contest predicated on the notion that winning would be good for the designer’s career, it’s really more of an in kind donation to a non profit group you believe in. I understand the problem with design contests in general, but does the design community make no exception for doing work for free as a donation because you believe in the cause? 

Personally I’ve never had a problem with the billboards. Actually come to think of it there is one issue; They’re not as inflammatory as the need to be.
The soft spoken polite atheist has been pushed over and walked on for years.
The only reason we have any progress today is thanks to the fruits of outspoken atheist labors.

We all rejoice when a religious school banner is taken down or secular holiday displays are erected but only a few of us actually deserve to take part in those triumphs.

The outspoken sometimes rude, controversial and offensive atheists are getting actual secular equality accomplished. They’re battling the military and other government institutes to for the betterment of us all while we’re too busy pussyfooting around scared of hurting peoples feelings.

To be clear, this is a nonprofit group, responding to people both outside and within their group criticizing the graphic quality of their billboards. The choice isn’t between paying someone to get good design and getting it for free, it’s between free competent design and free bad design. I’m totally fine with helping them out because it’s a cause I care about.

“And, FWIW, this DOES come across as a grab at some free art; established graphic designers aren’t typically the ones trolling the internet, looking for stuff like this to submit to.”

They’re not asking for established graphic designers, they’re just responding to criticism by saying “hey, if you want these to be better, lend us a hand.”

“I’d much rather see AA hire a graphic designer of their choice, based on their own research – then they can develop a “style” of sorts and turn out snazzier billboards.”

I totally agree, I’m sure they would too, but unlike, say, the Mormon church, the AA doesn’t have vast stores of money to draw from to hire people for this purpose.

I just now created it, so not yet. 🙂

No one’s saying most religious signs aren’t inflammatory, I think people are proposing that we raise ourselves above that. 

Why is it inflammatory to promote reason?

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I’m not against billboard campaigns. I’m against billboards that essentially tell people that they are stupid. I like the coalition of reasons billboards. They reach out to atheists and promote atheist visibility without being needlessly insulting. American atheists makes the rest of us look bad with this.

Right, because an “amateur” could never design as good a sign as a “professional.”
And you’d never get a bad design from a professional or established designer…
If the design industry “looks down on contests” I think it might be scared of some competition. 😉
Have you actually seen some of the signs and billboards designed by professional and established designers? Some of them are downright ugly (and some are good! I won’t deny that).

Er, yeah, because it’s so “inflammatory” and “insulting” to call a myth a myth.

Wow, thin-skinned, much?

We all rejoice when a religious school banner is taken down or secular
holiday displays are erected but only a few of us actually deserve to
take part in those triumphs. If this is inflammatory, why to promote this? I love this post.

His btw, if your curious. I’m a guy.

Pointing out mythology is not calling people stupid.

You accuse others of being inflammatory, of being assholes, of calling people stupid. The billboards just point out that religion is a myth. 

Are you claiming that there is only one right way to educate people?

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Great points…..you ‘troll’  *wink*  🙂

But not because she’s been ‘rude’…….merely because people disagree with the content of her message.

Therein lies the difference.

I agree the design are not good.For me having a relation for your product is a nice design for a good look of billboard.