The ‘Wow’ Effect is under renovation please bare with me
November 9, 2023
August 12, 2023
[NEW SERIES] Idiots of design Episode 1 supermarket madness
Welcome to The ”Wow” Effect’s sub series of posts called. Idiots of design where we look at the absolute garbage designs
From bad rebrands to failed new designs this series covers it all
To kick off this series we are looking at 3 supermarket design fails Starting off with…
#3 SunRype juice new look 2023
to start things off this fail is pretty recently and it affects me directly because I buy their apple juice daily
SunRype or under the company name Sun-Rype Products Ltd. was founded in 1946 in Kelowna British Columbia Canada!
their logo used to look like this
pretty good but if you want to go way back their logo was this!
kinda looks like the old Days inn Logo
but anyway their Juice box design was this
this takes me back 🙂
well in 2023 they got a new look and this was the result
Before.
After.
Not much change to the SunRype logo so they get a gold star by me!
BUT the juice box redesign is what really got a design fail
it went from this.
To this.
this is bad but not ugly as the later fails on this list. So I will give it a 3 out of 10 fail rating
I’m really going to miss the old look :'(
#2 the new Pringles chips logo 2021
Pringles chips was invented in 1968 originally by The Procter & Gamble Company before they sold the Pringles brand to Kellogg’s
its mascot is called Mr.P and here’s the logo from 2009
and here’s the the chip can design
some of the designs are pretty cool
now in 2021 Pringles announced they are going to change the logo and this was the result…
Before.
After.
So needless to say half the Internet didn’t like it so much so that one Reddit user in r/mildlyinfuriating said
"The new Pringles logo next to the old one. It looks so plain." from reddit user [BonBonus]
he even posted this image
Because of how bad half the internet thought of this excuse of a new logo. I’m giving it a 7 out of 10 fail rating
#1 Safeway foods renovation 2023
Founded in 1915 Safeway is a supermarket chain with over 904 locations (as of this post)
The store design in 2014 looked like this
as you can see the design is pure art
now fast forward to 2023 and Safeway is doing some renovations to some stores. Take the Safeway location in Cochrane Alberta Canada
The outside used to look like this
Now look what it looks like today
Oh god this is terrible it’s giving me flashbacks of Windows 10’s ugly UI (episode coming soon)
and the inside is bad as well
the Design team must be on drugs when they came up with this redesign
overall I give this a 10 out of 10 fail rating
Well that’s a rap for the first episode of Idiots in design. What was your favorite fail? make sure to comment down below!
See you next time!
June 29, 2023
June 23, 2023
Taking a look at Alienblue Reddit client for IOS 5 before Reddit does a WAR CRIME by killing 3rd party apps [Update status july 1st 2023]
Well today’s post is about a legacy IOS5 Reddit client called Alienblue. Before Reddit does an ABSOLUTE WAR CRIME by killing 3rd party apps join me as we look at the skeuomorphic beauty of this app before it gets assassinated by reddit
but a little side mention to i.reddit.com web client
which was shutdown a few months before the 3rd party apps drama
now with that out of the way we can now explore the Alienblue client taken from an iPad gen1!
Heres the main screen when you boot up alienblue
one cool feature is that Alien blue has a landscape mode (and to this day the official reddit app forces portrait orientation) and it has some themes such as…
Classic blue which is what the image above is.
Lion – Wood
Lion – Linen
Blossom
and Fire
even to this day the official Reddit app doesn’t have themes
Here’s the inbox tile
and here’s were you look at your profile stats
This is the text only post pane. Used for posts that contain text and no photos
heres what it looks like when you upvote or downvote a post
to remove a pane you have to pinch it closed but when it can’t be closed this will happen
this is where you create a post (i haven’t tried it)
here’s the settings tile
and finally to round out this tour this is the biggest feature Alienblue has what made it popular in the first place it has DARK MODE!
to put this in perspective this version of alienblue v2.2.0 was released on September 18th 2013 and the official Reddit app didn’t even get a dark mode until MAY 28 2021!!!!! it took 8 entire years until it got an dark mode talk about lazy dev’s on reddit!
Well that concludes the tour of Alienblue for IOS5
i will make an update on this post after july 1st after the API changes if it survived or not
until then you can join the rebels fighting against reddit’s war crimes at r/save3rdpartyapps
that said farewell Alienblue. Thanks for the memory’s!
UPDATE [July 1st 2023]
so all the 3rd party clients has been terminated but somehow Alienblue survived. Partly because Reddit them self’s acquired Alienblue in 2014 and continued developing it until 2016
Tested Alienblue on my iPad 1st gen at 5pm mountain time
April 29, 2023
Some skeuomorphic websites that are still around today!
Here’s some hand picked websites that feature skeuomorphic designs that you can visit today! (please note that some of these sites require a modern browser)
#1 /r/Skeuomorphism/
this subreddit features a community dedicated to skeuomorphic designs the layout is even skeuomorphic!
Link (requires Modern Browser)
#2 https://www.syndromatic.co.uk/
This Website is inspired by IOS designs by Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall. It was made by a man named Kavish Krishnakumar in the UK
Link (uses WIX)
#3 https://www.torrentdownloads.pro/
Look even know i don’t recommend piracy. this torrent site has a skeuomorphic design so it counts
Overall boring flat design might have taken over the web but there are still some skeuomorphic websites still up today!
April 12, 2023
Welcome Visitors of http://dvd3000.ca/ to the ”Wow” Effect!
Welcome to The ”Wow” Effect an blog showcasing the skeuomorphic designs of the early to late 2010s. Even know the last post was awhile ago. Now that i have an audience. More posts will be coming very soon but for now here’s an image of the Microsoft website from 2007
Special thanks to dvd3000.ca for linking this blog. together we can crush social media like twitter!
September 19, 2022
The forgotten designs of Windows Sideshow
Flickr Tags: windows-sideshow
during the development of Windows Longhorn (Soon to become Windows Vista) in 2003 Microsoft introduced Windows Sideshow. one of the most unique features Windows Vista had
Windows Sideshow displays information such as RSS feeds e-mail and other things on a separate display
The product seemed cool Microsoft was even planing a hole ecosystem for it. There was even a windows media center remote with sideshow
There are different types of sideshow displays ranging from single line lcd’s to a full color lcd
There were a handful of sideshow compatible devices released. Like the ASUS ScreenDUO
The ASUS W5Fe (AKA the most popular sideshow device)
And the Dell XPS 420
Sadly for windows sideshow it wasn’t popular and support was removed in Windows 8.1. But you can still try Windows Sideshow out
I have archived some sideshow gadgets which you can find here via Retro Network’s FTP directory and if you can’t find a real windows sideshow device you can always download MS-Sideshow Device for android via Google play
September 2, 2022
The Various Windows Vista Design’s
The Year was 2007 Microsoft Was about to release a total overhaul of the Windows Brand. Its called Windows Vista. And even know it was a failure for Microsoft. It did some things right
For instance it introduced a absolutely Beautiful interface called
Windows Aero
Sure most PC’s from that time can’t run Windows Aero very well. for those that can run it. It looks like a piece of art
There’s also the pretty cool gimmick called
Flip 3D
It comes with Windows Aero and won’t work on the Aero basic theme. It is pretty useful if you want to see what window you want to switch to.
Packaged with Vista are some cool wallpapers
And if you are one of those guys that forked out $400 for Vista Ultimate. You get 2 exclusive wallpapers
Also new to Vista is animated wallpapers called.
Dreamscenes
Windows Dreamscene was only available via Windows Ultimate Extras (defunct as of 2008) And it provided users to have a Animated wallpaper on there desktop using a .wmv or .gif
Even know i can’t show any Dreamscenes on this post i uploaded all the Dreamscene wallpapers to my FTP directory click here to check them out
In Short Windows Vista paved the way for its successor Windows 7 which ironed out all the problems Vista had
September 1, 2022
Welcome To the "Wow" Effect
Flickr Tags: iOS 5,skeuomorphism
Hello and welcome to my sub Blog The "Wow" Effect
This blog is about the old times. When boring Oversimplified Logos and designs didn’t exist. and skeuomorphism was the king of design
I hope you enjoy this nostalgic trip back to the early 2010s with.
The "Wow" Effect
The "Wow" Start Now!
