Good/Bad Design Presentation

The design element that I chose was a local one some might be familiar with.  It's the sign for the local restaurant in Hurricane, Utah located right on State Street called Barista's.  I'm not sure whether to define this particular sign as good or bad, for it has had many affects.  The sign alone has created lots of controversy within the little town, as well as brought tons of attention to the small business in route to Zions. 

We can see that this particular sign is rather busy.  It contains some proximity with the shapes sort of clustered together forming a collage-like sign. The is also a slight repetitiveness with the use of circles within the design.  It has a bit of an oldies diner feel to it for me, with the lady depicted on the right circular piece of the sign.  It's also assumable that the restaurant contains some form of steak with multiple pictures on it both directly under the name of the establishment, as well as on the bottom rectangle. The sign has a lot of noise to me, with the various colors, lack of pattern, and use of multiple fonts. The sign however makes the eye draw mostly to the copper bull on the top.  The bull is the highlight of the design, probably how the owner wanted it to be.  The Specturm contains headlines like, "People are having a cow over this bull".  This is where I have a hard time deciding whether it's a good or bad design.  While this is somewhat visually chaotic,  it serves a purpose for the owner.  All the hub-bub over the bull is centered around the fact that he has testicles, rocky mountain oysters, or in the vernacular of today's youth, BALLS! This has done nothing but rile up the community of Hurricane, while spreading the word of this little restaurant.  Some say it's unnecessary to have this bull on the sign, but I say it's a rather genius marketing and advertising campaign. 

As we can see this copper bull is "anatomically correct" as some would like to say.  This design though random, is a very bold move for the small conservative town of Hurricane.  It serves the sole purpose of getting people in the door, and it's worked.  People go to check it out because of the controversy and bold statement.  The bull itself is a sculpture, a metallic patchwork forming a bull.  I would even dare say that if the testicles were removed, the law of closure would play into the design because people will add what's missing in their minds. The bull serves as an advertisement, though some would argue as bad, I would say is genius.  Any form of advertisement good or bad, is still advertisement.  The design element works for the small business owner.  Who knew metaphorically having 'the balls' to display these bull balls would be considered design tactic?