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> Neither of the designs are good-looking (but that may be the point).

I do hope that was by choice, because, if so, this illustrates beautifully how "attractive design" and "good design" are not the same thing (bonus points to be had if the author had managed to make the left poster prettier than the right one).

> I agree with another comment on this thread though about the clip-art; it muddled the point the article was trying to make. They should have worked the same clip art into the "before" picture if they wanted to do that.

To me,the clip art said one thing, loud and clear: "After redoing the design, I'm left with a truckload of empty space". Considering how crowded the design on the left looks like, it's easy to think that you need _more_ room to fit everything in nicely, rather than less.

Everything you listed are good points using theoretical, book knowledge, but isn't the only "objective" way to evaluate the two posters to put them in front of a sample of the target audience and measure their reaction? What you're doing is applying general guidelines as if you can determine the overall quality of a design by running the design through a checklist.

For example, you dock the left for having indistinct headers with inadequate contrast. But that's actually a good thing, since the headers are useless in both posters! But only in the right example are they distracting because they followed the "good design checklist".

The headers in the "after" picture aren't useless. They communicate:

* Aikido

* Beginner

* Regular schedule

* Come visit

That seems like a very sane set of goals for a poster about an aikido class.

In the "before" version, the copy about the "mind, body, spirit" connection of Aikido is set in a larger font than the text saying people should come visit!

Who, what, where, & when are mandatory items on a checklist for this type of communication. But if the way you point to them draws attention to your finger and away from the vital information itself, you've failed. That's why the headings are useless. You allude to this yourself in your final sentence.

> It's artificially bad: someone took a reasonable design and a list of everything you can do wrong in a page design and built a demo.

Don't underestimate users. Give them the opportunity to use blue comic sans and some of them will use it :-)

The spacing on the right is so much worse than everything else combined. The text is much too close to the borders, the heading are much too close to the text, the weight balance is all off, it's completely all over the place.

The text in the right hand picture is almost but not quite on a baseline grid. It's not perfect, but it's consistent. The text is consistently further from the page margins than in the "before" version. All the text on the right hand column lines up on a single line.

I don't know what "weight balance" means in this case, but there are more type styles in the "before" than the "after".

I agree, but you've missed the most important point (IMHO).

The "adult class" stuff should go in the "beginner class" box, no? Assuming they're the same class (I honestly don't know).

// I guess you could also take the "beginner class" headline out of the box and only highlight the important data. (Then it would read "AIKIDO Beginner Class" at the top, which may or may not be useful. And the black box and the picture would be aligned.)

// Also if you switch the clip art and the address block you could fold the thing in the middle. (Basics on the front, details on the back, or something.)

"The left design though is objectively inferior"

In my programmer mind both sides of this argument are nothing more than 'I prefer this one' and 'I prefer that one'.

Is it possible to back up any design arguments empirically? Why do I never see anybody do it?

It's easy to see how the "after" is better if you assume the goals of the poster are to communicate:

1. Aikido

2. Beginners

3. Regular schedule

4. Call to action: come visit

The obvious response is to suggest those might not be the best goals for the poster. That's fine, but when you look at the "before" poster again, you see that it can't really have any real goals, because it has (by design, on purpose) no hierarchy whatsoever.