25+ Baffling Design Choices Found in the Wild (August 20, 2026)

When a design goes wrong, who can we blame but ourselves?Design is everywhere, and it's easy for it to fade into the background. When things go right, we tend not to notice it. But when things go wrong, it's all we can look at. Think of how design is all around you, even where you sit right now. Someone had to draft the plans for that chair, execute it, and find a way to sell it to whoever put it there. That's so many decisions that had to go into one object, one that we likely take for granted. This isn't our fault; it's just good design. Good design seems inevitable, like it always existed, even though a human very much had to think it up. This list, though, is not a list of "good design." It's a list of designs that have gone very, horribly wrong. The choices made here did not equal something great. There were a lot of question marks involved. Things went to production without being properly checked. The designs, for lack of a better word, failed. I suggest, though, that instead of decrying these poor decisions, we should celebrate them. We should celebrate them through laughter. Which is exactly what we're here to do today.