by Christine Marr | Apr 12, 2012 | Branding, Creative, Design
Our reaction to colour is subliminal. As consumers, we are generally unaware of the persuasive effects of colour. Psychological effect is instantaneous, stimulating the senses and power of suggestion. We see it in every level of communication: in corporate identification and logos, signage, advertising on tv, billboards, in print media and packaging, on the computer and in-store. As we zip down isles in our favourite stores, our eyes rest on a package for approximately .03 seconds. In that blinking-of-an-eyelash timing, the packaging/sign/logo must rivet the observers’ eyes, inform them of the product, and, more importantly, appeal to their psyches.
I doubt I am saying anything new here. However, last week, we went to visit a client at their office and what happened there, prompted me to take note about colour and how we identify with it. We hadn’t been to Dentsply Canada’s office in a little over six months. As we walked through the door, the receptionist glanced up and said “…from 3H?”. Wow, that completely floored me. We make a point of always wearing purple when we see clients, because purple is the dominent 3H brand colour. This was enough for the receptionist to remember our visit from 6 months ago. We, at 3H, are strong believers in Brand Recognition!
We practice what we preach. While we clearly know and acknowledge that it takes much more than colour to build a brand… what you do with a “brand” colour clearly enables and facilitates brand recognition. Colours are so intimately associated with a brand that just the suggestion of a colour is enough to bring a brand to mind. That’s isn’t simply amazing… it’s awesome in building equity.
Think about this…
When you think of Home Depot, what colour comes to mind?
Which bank is “blue”, which one is “orange”, and which one is ‘green”? Close your eyes and picture the Google logo. The McDonald’s logo? And for my Canadian readers… what is meant by the “Windsor” blue.
Our reaction to color is instantaneous and this lens is a quick look at general responses based on research, historical significance of color and word association studies. Let’s take this one step further… picture the Home Depot logo, but with different words in the same font in the orange box… would you still recognize it? Would you see the logo as a whole, as one image, and recognize it instantly, associating it with Home Depot.
So when developing a brand and beginning with the basics of creating a logo… choose a colour that would represent your brand identity effectively for now and the future…And repeat after me….
Repetition, repetition, repetition… consistency… everywhere… all the time. Exposure over time ensures success….. but that’s a different point of discussion! Colour makes a brand stand out and command attention and make sure that the Logo colour matches your brand mission and message to create the brand identity you want.
So what do colours mean anyway? Here’s a brief overview.
Green occupies more space in the spectrum visible to the human eye than most colours. Green is the pervasive color in the natural world, making it an ideal backdrop in interior design because we are so used to seeing it everywhere. Green is considered the colour of peace and ecology.
Purple embodies the balance of red’s stimulation and blue’s calm. This dichotomy can cause unrest or uneasiness unless the undertone is clearly defined, at which point the purple takes on the characteristics of its undertone.
Blue is seen as trustworthy, dependable, and committed. As the collective colour of the spirit, it invokes rest and is calming.
Yellow shines with optimism, enlightenment, and happiness. Shades of golden yellow carry the promise of a positive future. Yellow will advance from surrounding colors and instill optimism and energy, as well as spark creative thoughts.
Pinks are youthful, fun, and exciting, while vibrant pinks have the same high energy as red; they are sensual and passionate without being too aggressive. Pink is the color of happiness and is sometimes seen as lighthearted.
Orange sparks more controversy than any other hue. There is usually strong positive or negative association to orange and true orange generally elicits a stronger “love it” or “hate it” response than other colours. Fun and flamboyant orange radiates warmth and energy.
Understanding colour and what they represent is important in establishing a brand persona. In today’s world of fast communication and overload of visual stimuli, it is more than vital that brand expresses its identity at the blink of an eye.
If you had to define your personality as a brand colour, what would it be?
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Mar 27, 2012 | Branding, Business Success, Creative, Design
It’s been said that nothing is new, and everything old is new again. Never has that been more obvious than in today’s retro-infused consumer market. The trend towards aesthetics of the past are everywhere: fashion, art, music (the amount of remakes out there are enough to make your head spin), home decor, cars, architecture – you get the point.
So what is “retro” anyway?
According to Wikipedia, retro is “a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again.”
Basically, it’s a blast from the past. And we can’t seem to get enough of it. It’s part of human nature to gravitate towards the familiar. Psychologically, going retro gives the impression of standing the test of time. It has merit. Not to mention, it gives us that warm, fuzzy feeling that we so often crave.
Jumping on the Radio Flyer
Nostalgia seems to be something of a “new” commodity these days. Many are jumping onto the retro bandwagon, and not in an entirely elegant way. A lot of it is far too deliberate. There is no subtle throwback to a bygone era; it’s become outright blatant, down to the letter (or typeface if you will). Some may say it’s actually “retro reinvented,” meaning that it’s taken on a modern spin. But when that modern spin is just a whisper against the overall retro message, it can hardly be considered modern.
Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I have a definite inclination towards thing of the past. But if Cyndi Lauper were to walk up to me today and ask me to design her new identity, it would not look like something from her earlier albums. Why? Because even she has moved forward. She’s not the same flamboyant performer of her past. She has evolved – not just reinvented, but changed.
Has retro design seen its day?
The primary goal of today’s retro revival seems simply to be to mimic a style instead of creating one. Actual art and design movements of the past were born in large part due to a cultural shift. And for the most part, they generally shifted forward. But there’s no shifting forward with retro design; it’s going back, because that’s what retro does.
Maybe we’ve run out of ideas, or we don’t know how to design for this nameless age. Or maybe we really do want to go back in time.
Graphic design will always have a strong link to its roots. That is, to those who came before and blazed a powerful trail to follow – great periods such as Art Nouveau, the Victorian era, the Industrial Revolution and, yes, even the latter half of the 20th century. But when we lean on the ideals of the past too much, we stop ourselves from moving forward.
Instead of going back, perhaps we should take a moment to think about where we’re going to be in the future. Maybe – just maybe – we’ll like it just as much. And if not, in 20 years it’ll become retro again anyway.
So, what do you think? What else have you’ve seen? Share your examples of the good, the bad and the downright embarrassing of retro graphic design…
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Mar 8, 2012 | Business Success, Creative, Design
Okay, so as designers, we all loved “You know you’re a graphic designer when…”. For those of you who weren’t around or don’t remember, this was a viral list of some of the many oddities and unique characteristics that describe graphic designers. It was a little tongue-in-cheek, and for the most part, it really rang true.
When it first hit the web a number of years ago, it was extremely well received. I remember being huddled around a single computer in the studio with the rest of the designers. We all shrieked in delight about how much we related to it and about how much we really had in common with each other. Many similar lists spawned from the same idea. You can Google pretty much anything on the end of “You know you’re a” and come up with a list.
But, why did we like it so much? Perhaps because we felt someone took the time to get to know us. Well, they may not have really known us, but they touched upon aspects of ourselves that we could relate to. Someone articulated things about who we were that we may not have even realized. And, they not only made sense, they made us laugh and think about ourselves in a different way. That connection is what we gravitated to and why we shared it with everyone.
It is that same connection we as creative professionals still strive to achieve with our design and communications. We want our audience to know that we took the time to get to know them. We want them to think about something differently. We want to appeal to who they are as individuals and provide them with a message they can relate to.
In a world that’s getting a lot smaller, where we’re constantly inundated with messages – a lot of which are just noise – we want to have a clear voice that can speak to our audience and achieve that desired connection. So, how do we do that? We ask questions, we listen, we share and we learn. We then take what we know and apply it to our work. Hopefully, at the end of the day, that attention to detail has made a difference – not only in what we say, but how we say it.
On that note, how about reviving the list for today’s designer, just for fun? And this time, let’s make it a quiz… are you a graphic designer?
- When selecting a greeting card, do you opt for the better design over the perfect sentiment?
- Do you ever wonder how it’s legal to have the names of street signs horizontally scaled to fit the allotted space?
- Have you ever tried to command/control ‘S’ while reading a web page that you weren’t finished with?
- Do you feel that if someone touches your monitor it’s an intrusion upon your personal space?
- When you discover the list of web safe fonts has been added to, do you feel the need to high-five someone?
So, how did you do? Or, better yet, what questions would you rather ask?
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Feb 21, 2012 | Business Success, Design, Interactive
As I was drinking my morning coffee on a lovely Sunday, I came across an article online that really got my attention. It’s called ‘Graphic designers are ruining the web’. So much for enjoying my coffee.
In the article written by John Naughton and published on theguardian.co.uk, the author expresses his distaste for graphic design on the Internet. Basically, his view is that graphic designers are taking away from the integrity of the information by using extraneous graphics to load down web pages – in doing so, crippling the user experience. Obviously, Mr. Naughton doesn’t truly understand what graphic designers do.
As most of us know, web and graphic design is not that simplistic and it certainly has no devious intentions. It’s not about pretty pictures or design for design’s sake. Graphic design is about visual communication, clarity of message and ultimately the audience, market or end user as the case may be – for the given media. It focuses on the flow of information and contributes to the ease of which it can be absorbed by the reader.
The web is evolving much faster than any other form or media and with that comes a learning curve. Designers today are very much aware of this and are creating for the web in order to enhance successful user experience. Graphic Designers are using their skills to provide not only an aesthetic environment but also aid the streamlined flow of content.
When in their infancy, web design and development both had a lot to learn. There was a time when all we did as users was wait for pages to load – even when every pixel was used to it’s fullest efficiency.
The site referenced by Mr. Naughton, norvig.com is indeed quick to load. And visually, if compared to an Excel spreadsheet, it also makes perfect sense. However, there is no real indication of how to navigate the site – it’s just made up of links, and many don’t provide enough, if any, information as to the content they contain. I guess for the user who has all the time in the world, this doesn’t matter. Clarity of information was not something this site deemed important and shows a lack of understanding of the user.
Yes, there are still a great many sites that continue to ‘weigh us down’ so to speak. Although, how many of those are a result of the businesses themselves not improving their sites because they don’t understand how to or believe that it’s a priority? As a result, the majority of users know not to visit these sites. And no traffic, well we all know what that means.
The World Wide Web needs not only be efficient but well designed. It’s end user experience and quality therein will continue to grow as it has been and sites will continue to thrive as a result. And graphic design will continue to play a large part in that success. So what have I learned out of all this? We, as graphic designers, still have a way to go before the public truly understands the value of what we do. Oh, and I also learned to stop surfing the web while I’m drinking my Sunday morning coffee.
by Angelika Orgacki | Feb 15, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Creative, Design
Keep it Simple
Whether I’m watching television, driving on the highway or opening a magazine, I am exposed to advertisements. In a consumer world this constant exposure has now become the norm. However, with the immense bombardment of advertisements, it has become increasingly difficult to grab the public’s attention. Having ads that are overwhelmed with information doesn’t help either.
Companies always want to make their brand as attractive as possible, but sometimes the detailed information behind the product is not worth mentioning. Cramming too much information onto an advertisement usually produces more harm than good. When I look around and examine the ads that grasp my attention best, I begin to see a common trend; simplicity works. This is especially so for a company logo.
Graphic designer Lucien Bernhard pioneered the idea of simplicity in advertising when designing a poster for the Priester match company. His initial concept featured a setting made up of a checkered table cloth, an ash tray with a lit cigar emitting smoke in the shape a of woman, and finally the matches on the table. After analyzing his own design, Lucien began to reduce certain elements one-by-one from his ad as his scene contained too many distractions. All that was left in the ad were the matches with no other image supporting the product but the brand name and the connotations of the brand itself. Hence, the Priester match poster is a great example of how sometimes it’s best to just “keep it simple.”
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Feb 9, 2012 | Creative, Design
Paper and pencil, set square and drawing board: Can you believe once upon a time graphic designers actually used these tools to create? (Gasp) It’s true. There was no other way.
With the advent of the computer, graphic design as a profession changed – drastically. Not unlike many other professions. For graphic design, creating on a drawing board by hand, was then handed over to a machine that could do it for you. Sounds great right? Well, as we all know, it was not quite that simple.
What is a computer? By definition it is: one that computes; specifically: a programmable usually electronic device that can store, retrieve, and process data.† That’s it. That’s all it does. Just simple, logical organization of information. These electronic devices are programmed to do we want them to do. They are engineered to make life easier by their ability to carry out commands that we give them. The rest is up to us. Take this graphic design blog post as an example. I typed these words into a computer. It then processed the information with a few simple commands that I gave it. The computer can’t think for itself, it needs me to tell it what to do. It doesn’t know what I’m going to say, or how I’m going say it. It just stores the information.
Yes, we all love Apple. Something that once took days can now be accomplished in hours. Yes, we now have the ability to ‘undo’. Undo deserves a blog post of its own – that little command has saved us all on countless occasions. Yes, we can create multiple options. Designers can now more freely experiment with different styles, colours, layouts and work on approaching the design from different angles, resulting in varied solutions to the same problem. Yes, it has reduced costs in regards to production. The skill set of a graphic designer now often includes ‘production expertise’. This has evolved the role to integrate, typesetting, digitally imaging and software knowledge. The final product is neatly packaged on a digital desktop.
As I said, the computer has changed graphic design drastically. If it is understood and used properly, it can greatly enhance the outcome of our work. It has facilitated great leaps in the industry and added new dimensions to what is possible. Although, I find sometimes people lose sight of the fact that, the process of designing itself hasn’t changed at all. A computer can’t design it for you.
The computer can be compared to paper and pencil. A great line from my Creative Director goes a little like this: “Computers do nothing for someone who doesn’t know how to use them and everything for someone who does.” Agreed. It is simply a tool and a graphic designer it does not make.
What do you think? Let me know your thoughts…
†http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/computer
