Wow, that Direct Mail piece is ugly.

It lacks style, has simplistic design, is visually boring, and yet…

…it’s a winner.

This is often hard to reconcile but completely true: ugly works.

This can be frustrating, especially to the junior artist trying to make a name for himself, but the simple fact is ugly DM works.

And believe me, over the years providing copy and design services for clients in a variety of sectors, we have tested this time and time again. And quite often, ugly wins.

Here are a couple theories:

  1. Bad design can be forgiven. Bad copy can’t. Design should complement the sales efforts, but CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be the focus. Often designers are proud of the work they do, and should be, but spend far too much time working the art and not enough mastering the copy. The focus has to always be on the copy. Bad design can be forgiven, bad copy can’t.
  2. Ugly can create interest. If you challenge the reader’s expectations and design a piece with some incongruence to the design, you can give the reader reason to pause, to scratch their head, then to go back to the words and figure it out. More time spent reading is more likely to lead to action.
  3. Ugly creates focus. If you have piece with very little design, you give more weight to the words. The reader isn’t distracted or lost in the design.
  4. Ugly can create legitimacy. Let’s face it, bank notices, credit card notices, and tax notices are inherently ugly. Arguably, we’ve been conditioned to associate ugly with official. So why not increase your legitimacy and ‘stop trying too hard’ with your design. Keep it simple, factual, effective.

So where is a designer to go from here? Should every piece be boring, ugly, simple? Probably, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test against different designs.

There is a great line in an article written by Ted Grigg (conveniently titled Why Ugly Beats Beautiful in Direct Mail) that should be printed on the back of every DM writer and designers hand: Good design leverages the copy to sell.

It’s as simple as that. It is the copy’s job to sell, the design should simply enhance it. This is good to keep in mind when sitting down to write a new package. Most of the time should be spent getting the copy just right. The art needs to be a secondary focus.

Too late you say? If you have spent time developing a great looking piece with strong copy and design, my advice is to create an ugly version. Strip out the colours, the images, the design. Get to the bare bones copy, then add ugly art. Some boxes, maybe a distressed stamp, even a part of the copy that looks slightly misprinted or offset. Test them. See which pulls better. You may be surprised at the result.