The worst logo in the world

Some design clients like to make changes. The work could be flawless, but they won’t feel comfortable with it unless they’ve requested at least one twiddle or tweak.

A common (though little-talked-about) technique for dealing with this is to include an obvious mistake in the design, or to offer an obviously inferior option in a range of choices — that way the client can feel good about making the correction, and the designer can feel good about safely steering them away from meddling with the real design. Everybody’s happy.

The flaw with this technique is that sometimes the client will fall in love with the red herring — and when that happens, there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it; you certainly can’t admit that you stuck that in there to keep them from meddling. I would bet almost anything that that’s what happened here.

Look at it. It’s glorious. “Special surgery,” indeed, the way they’ve amputated all the limbs and put them on the same side of the body. Not too practical or attractive, but very special. I can just hear the designer giggling to himself as he threw this one together as a gag during a coffee break, can see him trying to keep from spitting out that coffee when he hears the committee actually decided to use it. If he lives in New York, I bet all his friends wonder why he goes miles out of his way to avoid FDR Drive.