[toss1]

Yup. The "Why?" question gets lost among the impulse to be 'clean and modern'.

>>Tropicana’s original packaging had rich colours and a strong visual hierarchy. On the other hand, the new packaging failed to impress the consumers, with clean lines, a lack of visuals, transforming the once indistinguishable orange juice into a “generic store brand” product.

This same thing happens in everything else too, such as automotive controls and web design.

The damn "designers" are so infatuated with their "principles" of design and aesthetics that they completely ignore the fact that DESIGN IS SECONDARY TO FUNCTION — if you make it stop working, your design sucks, no matter how good you think it looks.

Whether you make it harder to notice the brand that I've always associated with good fruit juice, harder to find the controls to my automobile by touch while the windshield is fogging with blinding glare of oncoming cars, or just harder to find a common function on your web page/app, IDGAF how aesthetically pleasing, clean, or hip your "design is" — you had one job and you FAILED.

How designers and their teachers and managers can so consistently and massively fail to understand that fundamental concept is just baffling.

[creakingstairs]

> The damn "designers" are so infatuated with their "principles" of design and aesthetics

I agree with your main point, but I have a small objection to this phrase. I don't think principles of design tells you to not care about usability/function. In fact, a good design is aesthetics AND function, as argued in "The Design of Everyday Things"[1].

So in this case, the designers are simply not doing their job. They've been infatuated with their principles of aesthetics, that they didn't follow the actual principles of design. Which happens when designers blindly copy the latest trend.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that one might interpret the phrase to mean that design is not about function, which isn't fair to many great designers out there.

[1]: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Don-Norman/dp/0465050654

[toss1]

Agree, I should have specified "aesthetic principles" (vs "'principles' of design and aesthetics").

Yes, the actual great designers put function first, then solve the now-harder problem of simplifying the aesthetics without sacrificing the function.

Had an architect (trained, licensed, etc.) propose a redesigned front porch and put a support post right square in front of an existing bay window. Sure, from the front elevation view, it looked great, but squarely blocked the view from inside. Also proposed just building the wrap=around part without moving a natgas meter, just left it obstructing part of the side entry. What a waste of time and money - she just solved the problems she wanted to solve (e.g., make it look good in her drawing) and ignored all the other problems - and was proud of that.

This is the problem - real design is hard because it includes ALL the problems and the constraints they create. Too many (I'd say most, in my experience), just focus on the problems they want to solve, ignore the rest, and think they've done a good job, when in fact they completely failed. And the real problem is management that accepts that crap as completed work and pushes it out on the customers.

[karaterobot]

> The damn "designers" are so infatuated with their "principles" of design and aesthetics that they completely ignore the fact that DESIGN IS SECONDARY TO FUNCTION — if you make it stop working, your design sucks, no matter how good you think it looks.

The original package was created by designers too. It worked, and then, many years later, a second group of designers responded to a new set of requirements with another design, which did not. This is how it goes. Failure is a possibility when you try something new. It's not like there's a foolproof system that works every time, and if you experience a setback it's because you forgot to apply the foolproof system.

On the engineering side, applications and services break all the time. I don't generally a consider it a failure of engineering as a discipline when that happens. Failures can even be caused by mistakes, but that doesn't mean the people involved are stupid or lazy or careless. It's the risk of moving quickly in a complicated world with many overlapping systems. Design and marketing are not spared from this unfortunate truth.

[jan_Inkepa]

I wonder if some of the "why" isn't the general turn against straws in the current zeitgeist.

[codys]

The article indicates the re-design in question was "launched" in January 2008. This is the date where planning the redesign began.

Another article [1] indicates that the new design was deployed on January 8th, 2009, and Tropicana announced a return to the old design on February 23rd, 2009.

A quick search shows an article [2] indicating around 2018 was when the panic around plastic straws began (with, for example, Seattle banning plastic straws starting in July 2018).

So in this case, the plastic straw issue does necessarily appear to be related to the redesign.

1: https://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2015/05/what-to-learn-fro...

2: https://www.eater.com/2018/7/12/17555880/plastic-straws-envi...

[codys]

Whoops: I missed a "not" in the last sentence. Should be:

> So in this case, the plastic straw issue does _not_ necessarily appear to be related to the redesign.

[jan_Inkepa]

Well that shows how well I read the original article. Thanks for the correction.