designing to reconcile conflicts
Now I'm not actually talking about solving the Israel-Palestine question or some grand political dilemma like that. Consider this crate of Gatorades in a supermarket store (left) that is marked "Do not stack more than two pallets high". Consider also that this instruction is violated well beyond the limits prescribed (right)
Who is in the right in situations like this? Perhaps the store employee never saw this warning, or did not pay attention to it, in which case better graphic design might have helped there. Perhaps the store employee comprehended the instruction, but chose to ignore it. Perhaps it is store policy (whether formal or informal) that allows this behaviour.
Clearly, this is a conflict of interest - the manufacturer does not want the retailer to store the pallets for safety or damage prevention reasons, and perhaps they are justified. On the other hand, the supermarket would clearly waste precious retail space by storing in that manner. If you're a designer, whose side do you take? Is what the supermarket has done "right" or "wrong"?
RSS
i'd go with store policy - nobody at hte level of stock boy has the power to make a decision about that. they just do what they're told.
and...
is it perhaps that the manufacturer does not want the retailer to store them that way because it's simply... ugly? and they want their product to look nice on the shelves?
or maybe its to prevent a lawsuit - we know you're going to stack these but if you do we want to cover our asses so we don't get sued when some idiot pulls one out from the bottom and then cries that it all fell on him???
:)
i hadn't thought of the presentation aspect of this. well then, gatorade can still do something about how good the boxes look, knowing that that's how they will be displayed. but then again, we're talking about gatorade, not exactly a product known for its visual appeal...