Well done to Scottish Widows and Dods for coming up with what is possibly the most ridiculously patronising design for a website aimed at women in public life I’ve ever come across (and as one of the organisers of the Campaign for Gender Balance Awards last year I speak from experience). It isn’t just the sheer pinkness of it all, it’s the flower design and the sheer flowiness of it all. As one of my colleagues suggested, it looks like a tampon advert or possibly some kind of pregnancy test.
Do designers really have to use such cliche when designing websites aimed at women? Personally speaking, if I do anything political aimed (directly or indirectly) at women, I eschew pink for purple and green as it has rather more resonance, but I accept that even that is cliched. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a website aimed at women by women that looks like this. Even Politics And The City, at the rather extreme end of the spectrum, goes for “fabulousness” rather than “Timotei.”
Fundamentally, doesn’t it all come across as rather weak? Is that the message they want to convey about women in public life? Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t call it Women In Management and Public Life (WIMPL) and be done with it.
Dear James!
Actually I am the designer of this event and website, and I’ve been ask to use this color.
As soon as you can show me a nicer political award website aimed to women, I’ll send you a bottle of wine….
I was there at the award ceremony and I was proud of my work, as every women was delighted of the design of the event, and they proudly made pictures about them self from of the banners:
http://www.pollyannapickering.co.uk/plifeawards.htm
And with a “design” like this blog has, I won’t even start write an article about design…
King regards,
Tamás Fodor, designer from DODS Parliamentary.