Bad Design Showcase

UMO 7th Boycott Bad Designs Contest’11

Announcing the UMO 7^th Bad Design Contest'11, here is a summary:

Open to everybody from any country
No Limit on number of entries
No entry fee
Six winners get Rs.5000/- each
Awards worth Rs 30,000/-
Deadline: September 11^th, 2011

Theme for the Competition

Design Education for a Social Change

Education plays a vital role in the development of an active citizenry of a nation. A well educated population is able to take charge of the many issues facing society, including social problems and political decisions, rather than sitting by the sidelines and allowing someone else to do deciding for them.

Social change can be both positive or negative. History is filled with many revolutionary examples that has given us the world we live in today. Even today our educated societies are waging battles all over the world, be it in India against corruption or in the Middle East against governance or else where for a positive change.

The goal of education should simply be to provide opportunity for a student to look at the world through eyes and mind that do not merely accept status quo, but rather see the world as a place that can be changed by its citizens.

UMO's only agenda ever since its formation has been 'Good Design for Better Living'. But more importantly the route we have taken to accomplish this is by educating every one concerned about design through various initiatives. We always believed that spreading awareness is the best form of education. Programs like 'Boycott Bad Designs' has been the most participated and appreciated initiatives of UMO.

What makes it even more special is that 2011's World Usability Day theme is 'Design Education for a Social Change'.

Design in essence is a message, it is a medium through which designers and businesses communicate how a new product and service will make our lives both easier and exciting. We the design community should take the ownership of educating the users and consumers of products and services through better design. So much so that peripherals like communication design and information design around these products and services gets quite crucial in informing and educating users about them.

We welcome all enthusiasts of UMO to participate in our 7th year celebrations by spreading the spirit of good design even more strongly.

UMO encourages all enthusiasts to highlight adverse effects of bad information design every where around us. Please bring in real life issues ranging from a piece of ticket (any ticket), forms/e-forms to labels & product packaging, medicine packaging/ labels, product manuals, movie posters, government notices, news papers, magazines, information systems, maps, signage, webpages and many others that we encounter in our day to day use.

This competition calls on participants to identify bad designs, services and experiences from our everyday life. For inspirations and ideas, you can refer to Boycott Bad Designs , this was a program organized by UMO to identify and raise awareness about the badly designed products.

More details on UMO 7th Boycott Bad Designs Contest’11