Design Success and Failure / Syntactical Guidelines

Success:

This piece of graphic design work succeeds in the fact it has been put to good use by all of the syntactical guidelines.  It is extremely balanced in color and space, with equal proportions of the text squares and hands presented.  It is leveled, with all of it's work in the center as the main focus.  The typography is easy and clear to read, and the white and black text is easy on the eyes against the colored background.  I like the use of color for the text boxes and the contrast with the color against the black hand images.  (http://www.manystuff.org/?p=3294)



Fail:

 This logo for Precision Well & Pump Systems definitely fails as a graphic design. The typography was a horrible choice for it makes everything difficult to read, and the drop shadow used for the raindrop makes it difficult to tell what the image originally was.  The 3D effect used on the text also makes it difficult to read and the letters tend to blend in together.  The blue color used is too dark and does not mesh well used in the gradient tool.  The design is ambiguous, with no real alignment used. (http://logodesignerblog.com/bad-ugly-worst-logo-designs/)