The start of a new year brings the start of exciting personal projects. First on deck: The AK Experiment.
Nicholas Felton has been creating some unbelievably awesome annual reports based on his day-to-day activities. I’ve been toying with the idea of designing my own for awhile now, but I never found the right opportunity to sit down and properly plan out the project. So, I thought: What better time to begin my own than at the start of a new decade?
Since I’ve never designed an annual report before–and since I’ve never shown signs of OCD–the documentation, calculation, and design of this entire report will be a challenge. In the meantime, I’ve developed an inventory sheet to fill out on a daily basis. At the end of each month, I will design a new report based on my findings.
My project will be less detailed in the travel department (as I don’t have a pedometer, nor do I travel extensively) and more so in the realm of technology (texts, tweets, emails, etc). This will be an interesting way to learn more about myself and about the design of information graphics. Plus, it gives me a good excuse to work consistently on at least one of my own for-fun projects.
Look for the first AK report in 29 days. I may toss in an update or two on this project before then. Only time will tell…
Happy 2010, everybody. I hope you are as stoked about the fresh new year as I am!
Everyone and their mother has written about this: Design contests, spec work and crowdsourcing.
I could find you a thousand examples (or you could Google “crowdsourcing” and see for yourself). As for my opinion on the speculative work + crowdsourcing case, I am opposed.
There are websites created specifically for design contests (crowdspring, 99designs, among others). The first time I heard about this, I thought, “YES! When I have time, I’ll sign up and submit some work.” Then, I did some research.
I have begun to understand the fundamental problems with these contest websites.Not only does it undervalue designers’ work by asking us to slave away, then sit back and cross our fingers in hopes that we get paid, the client (and most of time time, unknowingly) receives an overwhelming pool of too many choices–a lot of them created haphazardly with no research on the client, the field, the competition, etc.
Perhaps this is not the case with every designer participating. I’m sure some are legitimate, professional, hard-working freelancers who take time and all the preliminary steps before beginning on a project. Then again, don’t those designers spend their time on professional projects that they know will end in some sort of payoff? Promotion, monetary compensation, a trade in services, and the like?
Let me be clear: I’m not saying it’s always wrong to do spec work. If the benefit outweighs the time/resources, it makes sense (ie: to build a freelance portfolio, pro-bono, for an internship, as a gift/favor, to gain experience, to learn a new skill).
The issue for me is the design contest, created by a client who didn’t want to find a firm or a freelancer him/herself. In my opinion, both clients and designers are to be held responsible for their respective successes.
The client has a responsibility to develop a plan for his/her company, product or service. He also needs to research his design options (nobody would choose a brain surgeon because he’s cheap and gets the job done faster than anyone else…why should design be any different?). Clients should become more aware of the design process and profession in general, allotting more than “whatever you think” for content and “yesterday” as a deadline.
The designer has a responsibility to help their clients achieve a positive end result, be it to increase traffic, to increase sales, to gain exposure, to increase awareness, and so forth. The designer has a responsibility to sit down with a client and discuss the process, the competition, the potential for marketing and growth, the strategy, and the concept. If a design looks pretty, that’s great. But a design is nothing without an idea behind it–An idea that should be clarified, reworked, and developed with the client first and foremost, and in some cases, tested before a launch.
The designer also has a responsibility to know what their work is worth, and stand behind it. If the client is taking his job seriously, he should respect the fact that you’re taking yours seriously, too. Contests do make a pool of eager freelancers easily accessible for clients (and eager clients accessible for freelancers), but there are risks involved for both participants.
While I am firm in my beliefs on this subject, I would love to hear your thoughts. Every designer sees things differently; I am sure there are more sides to this story.
If you want to see and hear more, here is an interesting panel discussion on crowdsourcing, featuring professionals on both sides of the fence:
AIGA’s Make/Think Conference was total pwnage. Since volunteering at Gain a year ago, I was pumped for this. Nothing is better than getting to schmooze with some of the legends, hang out backstage and help others, all while wearing a hydrant yellow vest.
Aesthetic Apparatus prints on display
Bullet points of this week of greatness:
I didn’t like the conference branding at first. Then I saw the baller animated title slides. SO slick and Oscars-ish.
Command X, the reality show for graphic designers, was beyond great. Michael Bierut and Sean Adams are the ultimate game show hosts (and Chip Kidd is the ultimate judge).
Rain-free trips: Memphis Marriott had an indoor walkway to the convention center. I am officially spoiled for life.
Hearing the inside scoop on the design of Google, Coca-Cola, Stefan Bucher, R/GA and so much more.
Listening to Sagmeister sing karaoke-style over a Beethoven track.
Catered boxed lunches on the reg.
Purchasing a gorgeous 300+ page book of illustration hotness.
Watching Matt as Elvis’ bouncer on the main stage.
Harsh words from the judges corner during the Command X competition
Conferenceness aside, I also loved Beale Street, enjoyable Memphis barbecue, a live band played that played all my favorite jams, a tour of the Gibson factory, the best hot wings of my life and the smoothest tequila sour I’ve ever tasted. We also witnessed a horse-drawn carriage slamming into a parked car, which was pretty unreal.
Matt also made a point to get me sleep talking on multiple occasions, ftw (and not “for the win” in this case).
This trip was one that drained my batteries physically and recharged them creatively. I am going to make sure I put energy into my own outside ideas, as well as give myself regular breaks to focus on myself and reigniting my passion. To see how time off can actually improve your game, here’s a similar version of the Sagmeister lecture we saw. That man is truly inspiring.
To all those looking to be successful in owning, operating, inventing, designing, producing or selling anything, ever. These trends are unavoidable right now.
Trend #1: Two Sentences. Ultimate Tagline.
If your product/service/brand/business is not currently being represented by two generic sentences, perhaps your product/service/brand/business just sucks. All the other guys are doing it! Since I’ve been spending more and more time in front of the TV lately (thanks to the Food Network and So You Think You Can Dance), I’ve been noticing a ton of these: The two-sentence slogan. I know a tagline is meant to be short and to-the-point, but they’re starting to sound exactly the same. Let’s take a peek.
Target: “Expect More. Pay Less.” (Expect more what? Magic? Dog shit? I’m confused.)
Wal-Mart: “Save Money. Live Better.” (Better……kind of. But upon review, a LOT like the first one. Smooth.)
Nutrisystem: “Lose Weight. Live Better.” (lol. see above.)
Home Depot: “You Can Do It. We Can Help.”
Papa Johns: “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.”
The last two aren’t completely awful, but you get the idea. Wherever this two-sentence phenomenon came from, it’s like the plague. And speaking of the plague:
Trend #2: Bleeding “not your momma’s typeface” Cowboys.
If your product/service/brand/business cannot incorporate the glory of dafont.com’s Bleeding Cowboys, again…you’re going to fail (if you haven’t failed already). MTV’s doing it! So are music acts. In all seriousness, though, my belief is that this font is on the fast track to becoming the new Papyrus. I will shun it forever. It’s become far too overused, instantly recognizable, and regardless of its potential “kind of okay” uses (rodeo posters, your kid brother’s garage band promo stickers, printed on poop-scoop bags), I still think there is a multitude of alternatives that will do the job…and do the job more effectively. Despite my thoughts, it’s spread like wildfire. See the following.
Chris Daughtry’s new album cover. God. It’s just so rugged and irresistible!
The new MTV show, “Is She Really Going Out with Him?”
I think this usage could be warranted, due to the fact that this show is not to be taken seriously. It still gets me fired up at the fact that a popular network is spreading this sickness to the masses. However, this one really upsets me:
A design blog, guys? You couldn’t hand-generate something that effectively communicates your message? The message I hear is, “I don’t know what I’m doing…I just know that this will be a big hit with the kiddos. They dig that new ‘grunge’ thing, I hear.”
Okay, so the two-sentence taglines I can kind of wrap my head around. But do some damn research, man. Target and Wal-Mart are similar, yes, but their pitches shouldn’t sound the same. As for shitty fonts like the B.C., whatever happened to making your own designs instead of downloading them?
Creativity shouldn’t be dead, people. And if you’ve got a powerhouse name behind you (like, oh, I don’t know, a RECORD LABEL), why not step outside the box a little, for all our sakes. We designers want to think there’s still some innovation left in the world, and we don’t like being left with the sour “I’ve seen that before/could have done it better/wish I got paid what he did/have no faith in humanity” taste in our mouths.
My print project at work today was dynamite. Check it. (the pics might be a bit fugly, thanks to the incapable PC I’m working on)
It was somewhat of an experiment, because there isn’t much overprinting done with soft tint inks (the gold and blue you see here). I was encouraged to push this one to the limit, so there’s a metallic silver for the first layer, and the colored inks were printed on top of it. It turned out surprisingly well. There’s a really slick green color when the gold/blue mixed, and I ended up with a six-color piece from three inks. Pretty badass.
My regret is that I only printed on one dark garment; it’s amazing how different the results were. Everywhere the color overlaps the metallic? Hotness.
So, yeah! Overall success. If you want a women’s tee (size small or medium), I have a few extras to get off my hands. Or perhaps I’ll just keep them all…
Either there’s something in the water, aliens who like to feast on tasty little designer brains, or millions and millions of dollars being thrown at the ultimate April Fool’s prank.
Rebranding is happening everywhere it seems, but most of it is taking a thousand paces backward for both design and the clients involved. Tropicana dropped a huge bomb when they swapped out their classic straw-in-the-orange for a big glass of OJ: sales dropped because their faithful customers couldn’t find the Tropicana. All they saw was a shelf full of generic store brand juice. Both designers and non-designers complained, and I can’t blame them, either.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any company that’s made a powerful leap forward with rebranding recently. Coca-Cola’s simplification was a pretty good one, but that’s about all I got. Anybody who has an example of an “ah-ha” rebrand should let me know, because I’m beginning to lose faith over here.
8 Rules of the Rebrand:
1. Friendly company name + Generic sans serif = Irony Blimpie’s old logo wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, I will say that. But the name is Blimpie, for God’s sake. It’s going to sound fun no matter what you do to it, so you might as well embrace that fact. Instead, the sans-serif trend was put into motion and killed the whole vibe. Do not want.
2. A pointless swoosh does not make a (good) difference. Nothing is different from the old logo, with the exception of the color and a boomerang (?). The swoosh serves no purpose, aesthetically or conceptually. Unless you’re Nike or have a damn good reason to swooshify something, don’t.
3. Live trace is never the answer. The most confusing thing about this rebrand is the fact that it went in the opposite direction of the trend. “Simplify, simplify, simplify? No. We gave our in-house designer the week off and gave Jimmy access to the live-trace button. And now we have a new logo!” Sick. And won’t this be more difficult to implement on signage? (Thanks to Stephen for bringing this one to my attention)
4. Communicate the message of your company. Neither animal, nor planet. I have tried to see an abstracted bird’s beak in the side-ways “M,” but if that was an intentional move, it wasn’t made obvious enough. Trendy (kind of?) but could have made use of a dynamic icon rather than this weird arrangement of type.
5. Don’t make it look like Hell. Literally. A swirling, spiraling pit to Hell.
6. There’s nothing wrong with a classic. When this one was posted on Brand New’s website, one of the commenters posed a brilliant question: “Why does the smile have a herpes sore?”
If you want to make it more friendly, Kraft, round the edges some more. Bingo. This went from recognizable corporate brand to an awkward smirk. With herpes, I guess.
7. Never let your friend’s cousin’s high-school-freshman daughter design your logo. I’m still trying to understand this. Just…follow the damn rule. My eyes hurt.
