Actually, horrible is pretty much the default.

Designers in the house! I literally could not absorb the content of the 'letter' because the design hurt my eyes so.

All the cool kids are talking about skeuomorphic design lately.

It's a technical-sounding word that makes the speaker look smart when they are complaining about design.

Couple of years back, it was all about "modernism".

Modern ain't what it used to be.

how's that skeumorphic?

It's made to look like a physical letter.

Except nobody writes in grey ink on low-grade grey paper.

You forgot about dot-matrix printers in "draft" mode.

... on 75% post-consumer recycled paper.

I was thinking about the old continuous tractor-feed paper, some kinds are really thin, almost slightly translucent, for that extra subtle low-contrast retro design! ;-)