27 Baffling Design Choices Found in the Wild (July 7, 2024)

JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor

Jul 7, 2024 9:00 AM EDT

Design is one of those things you only really notice when it has gone wrong. Good design tends to fade into the background. Think about the coffee mug. When it's perfectly right, molded to your fingers, lightweight enough to be unencumbered by hefty enough to matter, you're probably not thinking about it. But the second the handle is too small or the lip is too thick, it's all you can think about. This is why we need people who care about design-- so we can go around not thinking about it. So we can sip our coffee, type on our computers, and sit in chairs and not have to wonder how they got there.

But these designs didn't quite make it to that echelon. These are the designs that went wrong, and we noticed it. But thank goodness for that too, because they're pretty funny to look at. Scroll on for laughs.