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
by Miriam Hara | Jul 27, 2011 | Business Success, Design
Good designers are adaptable. They can adapt to their audience with their knowledge of edgy, corporate, fun, serious, funky design. Variety and choice is key when you are pitching to your clients. If they don’t have choice, they won’t feel in control of their creative vision.
Providing the client choice is a great way for them to really identify with one path, and not just accept or reject one.
Listen to your clients as well – you are the marketing expert, but they are often a good way of gauging the tone that your creative will evoke may differ from the brain waves flowing within your agency.
Colour doesn’t make it another creative concept.
It’s obvious that you need a well-rounded staff, able to adapt to whatever needs your clients may have, but designers need to have an arsenal of style. They need to be the edge of the leading edge, because the visual is the thing that either creates the trend or dies before it. Copy, although intonation has changed a little, has a very small spectrum of ultimate change in mood and verbiage, but visuals are constantly in flux. Get a team of designers that are not only visionary, but on top of the game – or visionary because they create the game – is the best investment your company will make in its brain trust. Your designers need to think conceptually, be adaptable, and they need to be perfectionists. Tall order? Yes. But when the right designer comes along, design magic happens.
