The power of (BAD) Design

What do bananas, a boy band and a city's mayor have in common?

ANSWER: Nothing, except for Taiwan's Kaohsiung City's hideous tourism advertisement on the NYC Subway.

There are bananas in this poster as a means to incite people to travel there. Let's just get that out of the way.

In a press release by the Taiwan Kaohsiung City Government published here (click to read full release) it justifies the appearance of the extremely common fruit (to us in the US), and other "tasty exotic fruits" as part of the attractions to visit this far land.

I know that they say there is no such thing as bad publicity, however i think this is quite up there.

I was on my way to rehearsal riding the NYC subway, when this poster caught my eye, not because its a great poster, but because it was right in front of me and it looked like something a design student with very little talent might have done for a school project.

First I wondered, how did this make it all the way into the subway?  Then I thought, WHO approved this to go to print?? The lettering was small, the pictures oddly proportioned and featured the mayor of the town and a boy band more than the attractions of the city being advertised, and a tiny dragon (randomly dropped in the layout), spoke little to me about the culture of this place. You would think someone qualified would need to approve it before letting it go public and having to pay a good chunk of change to put it on the trains.

Under normal conditions, I would have just ignored the poster and turned away in search for something more visually appealing, however the train was crowded and I had to go all the way downtown forced to stare at this poor piece of design work, which brought me to carefully analyzing it.

While the poster has some seemingly right ingredients: some typical fruits, a few people who are ambassadors to the city, an important political figure, and a bit of their attractions, the mix just isn't right. It truly does not speak to a prospect tourist.

Perhaps this helps you see my point. If there were an Ad of the city of New York, done with the same concept, it would be something kind of like this:

Awful right?

Being aware that this most likely was a mistake, meaning that the city that they are promoting couldn't possibly be THAT bad, and it was more a poor decision on the selection of which ad to run, I decided to do some research on the town once i made it back home.

Turns out, Kaohsiung IS an awesome city, and from all that I found, totally worth visiting.
It is culturally rich, and full of history, and it is also the home to very avant garde architecture as well as random cool things like a GIANT rubber duck that sits on the river.

So with my new knowledge about the city, I decided to create a mock ad that might represent my feelings about this city a little better than what their poster did.

The poorly designed poster combining the pictures of a proud, friendly (looking) mayor, the most popular boyband in town, as well as their tasty 'exotic' fruits, makes the town seem like a boring small town with few things to offer for tourists, when in reality , Kaohsiung has lots more attractions full of historic, cultural and artistic value.

This is a mock advertising design created by me (DM) attempting to reflect a dynamic, more exciting city, using the same elements of design, minus the ones I considered to be unnecessary in the quest to grab a potential visitor's attention.

In conclusion, no, I don't have all the facts on hand but I'm pretty sure,  that showing bananas, a boy band that is allegedly as good as The Beatles (and state it on the poster), and the warm and cozy look of the towns mayor all combined, were definitely not the best choice to try and lure new visitors to spend their hard earned dollars on a vacation there!