Monday, September 21, 2015

Judging a Notebook by its Sticker

When walking around the digital media aisle at Walmart, or any aisle in Best Buy, often you'll come across a sticker that looks a lot like this:


And often, you might come across something quite different on the adjacent display:


Some I'm sure are aware of the differences and can tell me what each of these stickers entail, but this argument is not valid for all. 

For most folks browsing an electronics store, they are completely in the dark when it comes to making a purchase. They are unaware of processor speeds, RAM, motherboards, GPUs, etc. What they are aware of however, is the design of these tiny stickers. 

During my time working as a computer salesman at Best Buy, I would spend most of my time staring off into space, and the other portion of my time was spent staring at these stickers. When comparing these two brands' logos, it's important to take into consideration the color choices within each design.

                       

Intel, favoring the blue and white, with  AMD favoring the dark red and black. Now, with regards to these colors, it's obvious both manufacturers designed their logo with contrast in mind. Not only are the competitors' color schemes complimentary to one another, they each hold their own contrast with the calming blue and white, and  the powerful red and black. Considering context, within each design is the clever use of shape and line that hints at the image of a circuit board. Interestingly, the Intel "circuit board" does not contain any diagonal lines, whereas the AMD's "circuit board" contains plenty. 

Taking into account the different applications of gestalt theory, I've personally always preferred Intel's design choices of simplicity and subtle continuity in their logo. Before I understood any technological specifics behind either option, I laid my trust in Intel. The reason for this personally, is that the AMD logo to me is rather busy. It has too much going on in a very confined space, where Intel leaves room for their fonts and imagery to breathe. AMD defies the rules of simplicity and forces the eye directly to the complex "circuit board" design in the center of the logo. The lettering and seemingly unorganized layout of the model number next to the model name causes the design for AMD to pale in comparison to the simple design of it's competitor. 

Knowing this, it comes as less of a surprise to hear that Intel is a much more popular brand; regardless of the know-how of it's consumer base.   

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