Again with the crappy direct mailer.
05.24.07 / 08:06PM / Joe
This is like the millionth year in a row that the people running Origins (GAMA) have proven that they don't know the first thing about layout and/or design.
Let's start at the top. Again and again and again GAMA thinks it makes sense to vomit out a bunch of muddy, boring shots of people sitting at tables. There's always a kid, always a female, always somebody old, and, through no machinations of GAMA's own, always somebody fat. If you're lucky, you get somebody actually looking at the camera and smiling (usually a cosplayer), but most of the time - as it is here - you just get the Gamer's Stare.
If you're already sold into gaming conventions, you could care less. If you have never gone... what on earth about the endless parade of ogres-playing-Settlers would make you want to attend? In GAMA's defense, this particular card probably only makes it to known Origins attendees, but I can tell you that all of their print in the last five years looks like this. The registration book, the print ads inside gaming magazines, everything.
Then comes the ugly-ass font, telling you junk that you already know if you're an Origins veteran. And if you're not, it's confusing and redundant.
And that logo. Look guys, I know it's cool that you got a famous artist to paint up an Origins logo. And it does look nice when it's full-size. When it's full-size. At about 1.5" x .5", you can't read a goddamn bit of it. For chrissake, come up with a logo that you can use at all print sizes, flat and 3D, b&w or color, whether you need to make a 50 foot banner or a business card. You have that distinctive "O"... use it. Wizards certainly did in the last year that they ran the event.
The sponsors. Most of those are set at too small a size as well, but there's probably not much you can do about that unless you make the entire piece nothing but logos. At the least you could avoid having to sit most of them over a white box over the purple strip. That Pokemon one is the only one that looks nice. Paizo should have been switched to a white version instead of the black. Mayfair, Hyatt, Crystal Caste, and the rest should have been either better cropped or entirely alpha channelled to avoid the messy white blocks everywhere. This is either amateur work or somebody who was against a deadline and just didn't care.
Origins is a great, huge, fun event. It deserves better marketing than this garbage that wouldn't look out of place in a free community newsletter. It makes the event look cheap, dull and embarrassing. Origins attracts a lot of creative talent every year; I can't believe that GAMA has no access to any of them to get some decent print work done.
My god, I just went to their website and it's all white and orange text over purple. And no Origins logo to be seen! Unbelievable. If you look bush, you attract bush. These guys are going to anti-market the event right out of existence.
Another five years of that and I may offer them my design services for free.
We're most likely not going to Origins this year, but I can't blame the marketing because we're smart enough to know the event is better than that. We're about to move and we need to tighten up our vacation days. I can't wait to see next year's print pieces. | 
