Urban Outfitters, ya typography dun goofed again

— by Michael Rose in Notes

Glad to see improvements in the May 2011 Urban Outfitters catalog. Especially since I took a few issues with the typography and other design choices last month.

A step in the right direction

I was shocked to see product copy that was almost legible and set in a serif typeface instead of a sans (P22 Underground). Plus they even made a half effort to number blocks of text with corresponding photographs on the page (see below for example). Although it would have been nice if they actually captioned the photographs so I don’t have to think as much.

Urban Outfitters May 2011 serifs and italics

The serif typeface used here is quite beautiful — especially the ampersand glyph and italic set.

How to ruin good photography with bad typography

Sullied by page spreads that are obviously more interested in making beautiful pictures than helping customers make informed buying decisions.

Urban Outfitters May 2011 excellent photography.

It’s really hard to tell what this catalog is trying to sell, beautiful photographs or clothing and accessories?

I’ve tired trying to discover any sort of detail on the clothing and product sold in this catalog. I mean how could I? You basically need a magnifying glass and more patience I’m willing to waste trying to sort out what price and item number goes with each photograph.

Hard to read text in Urban Outfitters May 2021 catalog.

Looks like someone’s RETURN key is busted. Unless it was intentionally set to generate headaches…

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Just another tattooed, bearded, vinyl-collecting designer, front-end developer, and illustrator calling Buffalo, New York, home.