Beyond Typography

Jane’s Brand-timeline Portrait

I found this (I know it's from May, but I was really busy!). I'll do mine on Friday.

Hello again

I'm back! Sorry for the lack of thrilling installments over the past month. Things have been rather hectic.

I've been working on rebranding the editorial products of a company that we recently acquired to bring it into line with the rest of the portfolio. Had a meeting with the relevant people and got on with it. Started off ok, followed the brief. To be honest, what they already for each report had was ok in isolation but as a suite of products needed some consistency, eg, standard colour palette, font usage, headers and footers, etc. Oh, and restyling the mastheads to incorporate the new logo. 

Got to the proofing stage and one person didn't like anything. The other people liked it. To be fair, he wasn't involved in the original briefing. When I sent him a copy of the brief he change his mind, because he realised I had answered the brief.

I have also been working on the redesign of some of our other monthly reports. Again, a detailed brief was all-important as a similar thing happened as above. I won't bore you with the details, but after some customer research, one of the person's objections (the body text was too small) was echoed by some of the customers. This has now been rectified.

A project that has been rumbling along for ages is now nearing completion: the redesign of the ICIS.com home page. This has been a long and arduous road. The brief was again all important, not least because it wasn't nailed until half-way through!

The point is, it really pays off if time is spent up front getting the brief sorted. I am really wary of people who say "I'll leave it to you". They generally end up saying "that's not what I was looking for".

Friday

Two fonts – Garamond and Ariel – walk into a pub. The landlord sees them and orders "Get out!"

The fonts look bemused and ask why.

He says "we don't want you types around here!"

Have a good weekend.

Good design is good business

I'm just over halfway through Debbie Millman's book "How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer" which is a series of interviews with reknowned designers. It's more of a "how they think" than "how you should think". I think it's really interesting how some of these people think and operate, especially when one person says something completely opposite to the previous person.

There seems to be two schools of thought: one is that graphic design is a way of expressing yourself and that as a designer you are always right. The other is that a graphic designer is the translator from A to B, where A is the person or company that wants to communicate to B, where B is the target audience.

I think the latter is nearer the mark. However, I do think that designers should be able to stick up for themselves if they think in their experience that something won't work. It's no good just saying "that's all you're getting". I'm guessing it's easier in a studio environment where you can bounce ideas around and get a second opinion from a designer. Working in a B2B magazine environment it's not so easy when you are the sole designer on the floor. The "journalists" are always right. Or so they think!

Better online design
The trend at the moment is for a greater online presence. This is being driven by a desire to create online communities that can then be "monetized". The magazine content is going "web first" which means that the copy is uploaded to the web and released before it has been laid out for the magazine. Other initiatives are in place such as video, podcasting, blogs etc.

Unfortunately, this means some of the old values of making the articles attractive to invite the reader in have been discarded or forgotten. This is for a variety of reasons. Some of which are: the web technology is being driven by IT bods who have about as much design awareness as a dead badger; the technology didn't allow for creative input; or designers themselves who are saying "I'm not interested in the web, I prefer print". Having said that, some designers who are interested and DO want to learn are not being given the opportunity. Well, take responsibility for your future – just get involved anyway. Give feedback. Make a nuisance of yourself until somebody listens. DO SOMETHING! Don't sit there and moan.

Gone are the days of having to learn html and coding. The design tools are now available to be able to do decent design online. There is even a free web-based version of Photoshop available!

Still life in B2B magazines
It is interesting to note that as many B2B publishers are exiting the magazine world, IPC seem to have woken up to the fact that there's money in B2B publishing. They have few B2B titles already, mainly in the yachting and boatbuilding sector. They have a different take on the magazine world. They invest heavily in magazine research, they ask their customers want they want, how they want it and act on it.

Back to earth

Well, back at my desk now and it seems like ages ago I was in the company of some great designers.

It is great attending a conference and getting inspired to do great things. However, sitting at your desk reading emails from (non-design) people on how something should be designed brings you down to earth with a jolt. It also reinforces some of the underlying themes from last week's event.

Are the comments subjective? If so, disregard them if you have answered the criteria set in the brief.

Maintain your standards even if people around you want you to lower them.

Designers are not stupid, they probably know more about the market than marketing people.

Research isn't all it's cracked up to be

It will probably be another few years before I get the opportunity to attend a conference such as this. I would recommend any designer who has been working for a few years to try and get to a design conference that is relevant to their field. It really does fire you up. And, unless you work for a large agency, designers generally work in isolation (we do in publishing) so it is good to mix with other designers.

The stars of New York

I've been in the office for the past couple of days. Back down to earth.

I went to see the live recording of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night with a colleague from work. He had managed to procure a couple of VIP passes for the show. We managed to get to the studio in time only to wait for about 50 minutes in the anteroom of the tv studio. Once in, we were entertained by a comedian named Q. Very funny. Typically, when he asked if there were any international visitors in the studio, half a dozen people put their hands up. He picked on one. He was from Buffalo. Then another, she was from Pennsylvania. Don't they know about the rest of the world?

Then they told us who the guest on the show was that evening. Uma Thurman!

She was there to promote her new film The Life Before Her Eye, but ended up talking about soft hands and cooking. She was taller than I expected and very down to earth. No pretensions, no airs and graces. Just a normal person who happens to be a major film star!

I forgot to mention, the previous evening I had seen Orlando Bloom filming in a pub I used to frequent on Bleecker Street. Two film stars in two days. Not bad.

After, we managed to sample some of the delights of an ale house down in Soho.

This morning I went to buy a copy of New York Magazine. The vendor put it in a bag for me. On the bag was the I love New York logo. I wonder if New Yorkers realise that these two iconic New York items are connected. The magazine masthead and the heart logo were designed by Milton Glaser.

I'm off to the airport soon to fly home.

Balls, magazines and power

Well, the last day.

Having snatched a few hours sleep, I waited for the shuttle bus to take me to the conference. It didn't show so I shared a cab with a designer from Kimberley Clark.

The first session started a couple of minutes before I got there. Jim Dator is a Professor of Future Studies. What a session this was! He talked about how society will break down and the Dream Society – Korea being the nearest to that society at the moment! In a nutshell, he explained that designers will grow more and more important in society. Our views will be much sought after. The power!

Afterwards Terry Schwartz, senior director of brand design at ConAgra foods spoke. He knocked the spots off his competition yesterday. He was a designer who could talk the talk, not like that woman who was full of puff. He added a view things to the whole research topic which has been a subtext for the week. Qualitative research should never be used to make decisions, and defining consumer insights is NOT about demographics, but about psychology.

In his company they have wargaming exercises where they try to destroy their brand. Through this exercise, they can identify the weaknesses.

A speaker I was looking forward to hear speak turned out to be a diappointment. Kate Betts, editor of TIME Style & Design, spoke about fashion trends. Although interesting, not exactly what I was expecting.

After lunch was Chris Dixon, the design director at iconic New York Magazine. This was fantastic, and sort of what I was expectig from Kate. Lots of visuals, the design ethos, how it works with the web, etc. Obviously I had to speak to him after, and he gave me a copy of his presentation. There were some superb covers from 1968. It happens that Milton Glaser designed the original magazine and logo.

Julie Robertson, National Cause Director at the American Heart Association, spoke about building passion brands. This was really interesting. It was about how you build partnerships with people and companies who wouldn't ordinarily be associated with you. Did you know that it costs 5-7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one?

Tap into your entire brand community – employees, partners and customers.

Then came the fun! Todd Wise, senior vice president of toy design & development at Hasbro, came on. In the first minute he had us throwing Nerf balls around. A Nerf ball is made from a foam material and doesn't hurt when it hits you! He then spoke about the different markets and some of their key products.

"It's so cool to have kids fight over your toys"

Yup, he said that! Then he pulled out a gun and shot us – with a Nerf gun. It was a shotgun that fired little Nerf balls, then he showed us the pistol version. Then the big reveal, not seen in public before. All the blokes in the room went "Whoah!" It was a big machine gun (like Rambo had in First Blood) with a strap. It was belt-fed with a belt of 25 and could be in single shot, semi-automatic or full automatic. He then sprayed the audience!

He then talked about some of the things that influences them and how it appears in the products. This was a really cool presentation.

The concluding keynote speech was by another heavyweight. Ken Carbone. Another inspirational talk about what inspires him.

And then it was over. Time for some sleep and reflection.

We have to own design

Didn't get time to file yesterday.

What a day Tuesday was!

It started with Debbie Millman, president, design of Sterling Brands. She has such a great way of talking.

"We must never be afraid to go too far, because success just lies just beyond" – Marcel Proust

Debbie spoke about the word "brand". It appears for the first time in 1010AD in the epic poem Beowulf. The literal translation is "destruction by fire". Seems appropriate when you think about cattle brands.

Malcolm Gladwell proved that a lot of research is a waste of time. Basically don't strive for the ultimate product, strive for the ultimate prducts. And, go on gut instinct. His talk was about the quest by Howard Moscowitz for the ultimate spaghetti sauce, but what came out was the ultimate spaghetti sauces.

People don't know what they want!

If you ask someone what they want, you'll hear what they think you want to hear, not what they actually think. The act of asking distorts the way people respond. It leads to the bland and mediocre. Observing is far better than asking. For example, he cited an experiment where a group of people were asked in and told to select a poster and take it home. Another group where then asked in and make a selection from exactly the same set of posters, but were told that before leaving they must tell the researcher why they chose that poster. A month later all the people were telephoned and asked did they still like their posters. Without fail, the first group all said the loved it – framed, on the wall, etc. The other group who had to explain why they chose it all hated the posters the selected – some were in storage or thrown out. By the way, the poster choices were between fine art prints and a cutesy kitten thing.

"If you want to make people happy, don't ask them first!"

During this was probably the worst presentation of the event. Some over-made up woman who naively went on about how great her organic brand was and how healthy and good for you it was. No doubt. But there was no evidence that any design consideration had been applied to the packaging. So much so, that when she showed some before and after shots of some baby food jars the "before" jars loked much better! A joke. I was speaking to some packaging designers and they couldn't believe their eyes. From a European perspective, these types of packaging just wouldn't work.

During all of this I was sitting at the same table as Milton Glaser. Normally I am not in awe of people, no matter who or what they are. But, I was in the presence of someone who I had studied while at college and whose work I had admired for a long time. Could I think of anything to say other than introduce myself? No. DOH!!

He was speaking next and had the audience in the palm of his hand for the next 45 minutes. He even showed us his new book – working title Drawing is Thinking – in pdf form on screen. WOW!

The interesting point he made is that tools affect the way you think. The human mind needs a fuzzy period before it comes to a conclusion. The computer cannot make you think better.

"Present a point of view, not iterations"

A couple of fairly ordinary sessions were followed by the highlight of the afternoon: Nasahn Sheppard and Tim Wallack from Smart Design. They spoke about a subject close to my heart. That is, at which point do you get the designer involved? Although other speakers suggested the answer, these guys were the only ones to say get the designer involved from the very beginning. Strategists and marketing people don't have the same way of looking at projects. Also, and this came up again and again, a job should be judged on is it meeting the brief and NOT "I don't like the colour/capital letters/font". Subjectivity should not come into the equation. Their presentation was excellent.

These subjects came up again at the end panel discussion by the Bad Girls of Brand Design hosted by Debbie Millman. The panel was: Carol-Jacqueline Nardi, Strategy Director, Design and Innovation, Kraft Foods; Darralyn Rieth, Director, Global Design, Campbell Soup Company; Lisa Rousseau, Group Manager, Packaging, Pepperidge Farm; Sharon Reiter Lindberg, Senior Design Manager, Unilever and Pamela DeCesare, Founder, Brand Muse. It was refreshing to hear that these people, even with their status, are experiencing exactly the same problems that the rest of us face. Mainly, rubbish design briefs and daft marketers.

The day didn't end there! A cocktail party was held at the cool Smart Design offices located on the 18th floor of the Starrett Lehigh building.

Really cool offices, but far too many PCs for my liking!

I had to leave early as I had a dinner invitation at Centovini in Houston Street. This was so cool as I had an apartment about two blocks away on Bleecker back in 2001. Fantastic food, lots of wine and good company made the evening fly by. Afterwards Mike, an ink rep from Sun Chemical, and I went to one of my favourite bars in New York, TerraBlues. We heard some fabulous music. Walking down the street we saw a film being shot. I wonder what that'll be.

Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it

The title sums up the FUSE conference so far. And I couldn't agree more! That statement, and the other statement from Joshua Davis:

"It's hard to see your environment when you're in your environment. Look for the visible invisible."

This kinda summed up Tobias' tour on Sunday as well. This theme was recurring through the more design-led sessions.

The branding sessions were excellent. It was nice to see some marketing people who understood about design and listened to the designers. Also, it was interesting to see designers playing the pivotal role in brand management and design. I was talking to a design strategist last night on the way to the Fuerzabruta show. Like me, he thought the wrong people were attending – we already have got the message, it's some of the people we work with who need to understand.

The highlights of the day were Chip Kidd, Christian Landry, John Miziolek, Stefan Sagmeister and, to top them all, Joshua Davis. He had some incredible work, including a 170,000 layer Adobe Illustrator file that kept crashing the printer's system!

Chip Kidd is a book designer and author. He had a wicked sense of humour. He showed us some of his work and talked through the process: what gave him inspiration, the client, etc. He also showed us some of the work that didn't make it.

Christian Landry revolutionised the branding and design at Cisco and Linksys. I could write all day about what this guy did and how it is relevant to the work I do.

John Miziolek was great. This was about how to manage a global branding strategy.

Stefan Sagmeister talked us through the 20 things he's learnt in life so far. Some struck a chord with me:

"Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now."

"Assuming is stifling"

"Worrying solves nothing"

"Complaining is silly. Always act or forget."

"Everybody who is honest is interesting"

"Everybody thinks they are right"

"Keeping a diary supports personal development"

Then it ended with Joshua Davis. Genius. Nuff said.

Anyway, it's getting busy here and people are now eating breakfast around me.

One last thing. I got completely soaked to the skin at the Fuerzabruta show last night when I got pulled up to dance!

A walking tour with Tobias Frere-Jones

What a great way to spend time on a Sunday, even with the threat of rain. A group of about 10 led by type-designer Tobias Frere-Jones of some of the typographic wonders in lower Manhatten. An interesting mix of people, from packaging designers through to a marketing director.

It started outside City Hall where Tobias gave us a brief history of the Roman type used on a lot of the public buildings. In particular, the fact that W, Y and K did not exist in Roman times and the stonemasons had to have an educated guess as to how they should be.

The tour took us through Chinatown and little Italy and ended in the east Village. Along the way were examples of the evolution in signage in Manhatten, from the stone carved edificies on public buildings to handpainted signs on a hosiery shop, and gold-leaf lettering to plastic signs via neon tubes.  Tobias said he could have led the tour all day showing us examples. I, for one, would have been happy with that.

When I get to a quicker network I'll upload some pics and vid.

Tomorrow the conference starts properly at 7.30!.