I am constantly amused, occasionally frustrated, and even sometimes impressed by the audacity of graphic designers. Spend a few minutes flipping through a major design criticism magazine (or the archives of well-trafficked design blogs) and you might find that graphic designers seem to think themselves possessed of great powers of understanding, unseen by any who would not call him or herself “a visual person.” The most amusing and consistent manifestation of this audacity is the ruthless critiquing of other people’s design work as being somehow inferior, generally for nit-picky reasons that are about as observable as midichlorians.

All of that said, I have a certain respect for those who go all-out and just call themselves design police. Encouraging others to “bring bad design to justice,” the site offers a number of templates for stickers and labels that one could affix to bad design: “kern this,” “do not use faux bold,” “Microsoft Word™ is not a design tool,” and “consult a graphic designer,” among others. Actually, while some of these seem kind of vague and less than constructive (“this has no personality,” “severe lack of creativity”), I must admit that others reflect stuff I’ve complained/blogged about myself (“Awful library stock photo,” “Comic Sans is illegal“).

All of that said … Design Police, I’m going to have to stick one of your own tags on you: “Idea stolen from: The Graffiti Report Card.”