How a Design Bet Gave us a Splash Page

We were stuck. With the rise of Google Web Fonts and Typekit, we wanted to check out alternatives to the ever dependable Helvetica for our bartop.co splash page.

We came up with a few versions of our splash page, with different fonts and different tweaks. I had my opinion which one would win. Z had his. Two engineers/aspiring designers would never be able to settle this objectively.

So we made a bet.

Here’s how it went down:
1) We put the designs up on forrst.

2) The design that got the most votes in 24 hours wins.

3) The loser buys beer.

Design bet
Enlarge.

Within an hour, we had an overwhelming result. Z’s design won and I got schooled with some design tips. But that wasn’t it.

The responses kept coming in, including critiques and suggestions of both designs. Then it dawned upon us. We had a live design A/B test by an incredible community on our hands. It was just great. We received amazing feedback like

I think the headline font on the left fits better with the text under it, the typeface on the right has too much open space for me.

So I’m out a beer and I’m stuck blogging about this. But it was totally worth it.

Our lessons learnt:

1) Sometimes, what you think doesn’t hold in the face of others. So get input. Now.

2) Good design can be subjective, but there is a common denominator.

3) Communities that we are a part of - like forrst - are just awesome. Don’t overlook them.

4) Voting with “sponge” and “bob” worked way better than “left” and “right”.

5) Everyone loves a showdown. Especially when beer’s involved.

Designbet.com anyone?

 
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