Category Archives: Design

What Would the Holidays Be Without Advertising?

Posted on January 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

Nary a day goes by when we don’t see an ad reminding us of an up-and-coming holiday. With Christmas just barely in our rearview mirror, our drugstore shopping lanes are already filled with Valentine delights. And it seems like only yesterday we were clearing off our pumpkin-littered mantles to make room for menorahs and SpongeBob nativity scenes.

Stepping outside, we see department store after department store brimming with ads promoting whatever Hallmark holiday is in season. I can’t even imagine what Macy’s must spend on its Christmas decor, the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the 4th of July fireworks, and other holiday festivities.

On TV, our commercials play familiar jingles often remade to sync with the product—sort of like this:

The 4th of July reminds us that we should celebrate not only our freedom from British tyranny, but also the fact that our forefathers knew how to party:

In other ads, Santa argues with Best Buy employees, converses with M&M’s, and even dresses in disguise as a car salesman.

We’ve grown so accustomed to these ads that we almost feel as though “Black Friday” and the “Summer Back-to-School Sale” are legitimate calendar holidays.

The word saturation comes to mind.

But what would we do without these ads? What would life really be like if corporations didn’t tie in their products and services with the holidays? How would we prepare? How would we know they were coming? Would the big holidays become more like Arbor Day? Would they be blips on the calendar, forgotten until the week before?

Just think of all the hype that’d be missed! If anticipation is the spice of life, holidays might just be stale bread. Croutons. That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying that if our complaints and frustrations with the seemingly endless supply of capitalistic holiday ads—indeed a complaint box of size—resulted in their absence, our holidays would be croutons.

All right, so maybe I’m not defending the vomit-inducing spots like the T-Mobile commercial above. I’d rather shoot myself in the face than hear that spot again. But it’s just so engrained in us—it’s become the “holiday spirit” we rely on every year. To imagine a life without TJ Maxx dancers, pitter-pattering through our malls and our hearts, is no life at all.

I consider myself incredibly out of touch with new products, widgets, and services. I’m as anti-consumerist/anti-commercialism-y as they come. And yet, I don’t know a world without holidays expressed in this particularly American manner. And quite frankly, I don’t want to.

One hundred days until Arbor Day. Let the countdown begin.

Author: Eric Swenson

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Adforum’s Top 5 Commercials for This Week

Posted on January 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

Check out Adforum’s top five commercials for this week. While many of them have been played to death, we still enjoy seeing some of those foreign ads, which are often filled with uncomfortable surprises. At the end of the day, we at Utterly Orange have chosen Unicef’s “Santa” ad for its ability to strike that “serious” chord and remain entertaining. While many ads during the season provide cynical and humorous outside perspectives on our holiday habits, it’s nice to see a commercial that’s genuine. Take a look and cast your vote!

 

1. Jack Daniel’s – “Holiday Barrel Tree” – Arnold Worldwide

 

 

2. Best Buy – “When Mom Orders Online” – Crispin Porter + Bogusky

 

 

3. Unicef – “Santa” – Forsman & Bodenfors

 

 

4. Staples – “Holiday Rehearsal” – MacLaren McCann

 

 

5. Koko Productions – “Artisan” – DDB Canada (View with caution. Not the classiest thing out there right now.)

 

 

Author: Eric Swenson

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Why Typography Matters

Posted on December 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s everywhere: on buses, in subways, stores, apartments, and––more often than not––stalls at your local pub. If you’re as paranoid as I am, you’re probably thinking I’m referring to a new flu virus or an easily catchable disease. I’m happy to say, I’m speaking about typography.

Typography, in one sense or another, has existed since the dawn of writing. Even the Flintstones have their own font. But why does typography matter? Yeah, it’s everywhere. We take it for granted and hardly think of the consequences. I mean, can someone really tell the difference between Arial and Gill Sans?

In typographer Thomas Phinney’s article “How to Explain Why Typography Matters,” he describes typography’s many uses, forms, and effects—both subtle and obvious—to justify its importance.

As representatives from a creative agency, we’re often asked to justify our reasons for the use of a particular shape, color, or font. More often than not, the most compelling reason for using a particular font is the client’s brand. Numerous Utterly Orange posts have discussed the importance of branding, but it might be worth reiterating the value a font has for a brand.

If you get a chance, check out the movie Helvetica. This documentary walks you through not only the history of this seemingly universal font, but its impact on modern-day brands. Love it or hate it, Helvetica took us from the hodgepodge mash-up of fonts of the ’40s and ’50s and gave us a style that’s both legible (pragmatic) and malleable (artistic).

Fonts define a brand, and brands define a font. Typography and a brand become one and the same when we incorporate them effectively. Typography is so ingrained in us that we’d have no trouble identifying a well-known Fortune 500 company simply based on the typeface used.

With so many fonts available, it seems practically trivial to continue to develop new fonts. And yet, a sliver of an industry exists where people are coming up with better and new ways to write the words we read. Phinney’s article justifies this the same way fashion designers or furniture makers justify their work. With no shortage of clothes or furniture styles, we continue to create new fashions and new furniture. Why? Simply put, because of trends. The only consistent thing is change. Fonts evolve just as trends do.

After clients are convinced that fonts matter, they often want to take these newfound tools and exploit them. Caps, bold, and “fun” styles like Comic Sans become their paint brushes, screwdrivers, and hammers. Unfortunately, painting a picture red, using a screw that doesn’t fit, and hitting customers over the head isn’t always the best way to produce the right message.

Today, experimental studies are being done by psychologists and typographers on the effects of good typography. These studies help determine what constitutes good typography and typeface design as it relates to legibility. Some research involves hooking sensors to the orbicularis oculi (the muscle around the eye) and measuring things like squinting and frequency of blinking. These sorts of tests help us determine how effective a font may be, whether we see it or not. Forgive the pun.

Author: Eric Swenson

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Benetton’s Ad Campaign Leaves Some Furious and Me Laughing

Posted on November 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

There’s nothing I more enjoy seeing than people pushing the envelope and making a fuss over things controversial to some and trivial to others.

An advertising campaign showing political and religious leaders kissing on the mouth has recently gotten the attention of many important groups. From the White House to the Vatican, many are outraged at photos of these leaders being used as advertising creative.

Benetton, an Italian clothing company, said on its website that the campaign is meant to support the Unhate Foundation, which opposes hate and is “aimed at exorcising the ‘fear of the other.’”

The ‘Unhate’ campaign strikes a chord with the public on many levels. In this way, I deem this campaign incredibly successful already (even bad press is good press, right?). A successful company decides to support an organization whose corporate objectives are to eliminate an abuse that’s incredibly popular in mainstream media today. You can’t turn on a news station or talk show without hearing about bullying.

To oppose the campaign puts you almost in a camp of hate support. To even the most liberal opposer, it suggests that, while you may be against evil in the world, the fact that you’re against a controversial ad talking about it makes your stance moot.

We have satirical political cartoons that go much further than this campaign. Moreover, some of these cartoons challenge authority, condemn inappropriate behavior, even suggest, dare I say it, hate. And yet, we Westerners get by every day without the threat of attack. We get by knowing that these pieces are meant to simply challenge us intellectually. To make us think about some—sometimes—very important issues.

There are real problems in this world. Was showing our President kissing Chinese President Hu Jintao a tasteful way of bringing them to our attention? Right now, I can’t think of a better way.

Author: Eric Swenson

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Adobe Photoshop Trick of the Day: Adjusting Color Using a Mask

Posted on November 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

For most designers out there, you probably know the site Lynda.com. Well, I came across a neat little section called “Deke’s Techniques.” I haven’t gone through all of them, but I believe most are tutorials from Deke McClelland, a guy who surely knows his design tricks.

This week he discusses a stronger way to use Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation command in conjunction with a mask. Here’s an excerpt from Lynda.com:

Whether you’re aiming for realism or an exaggerated effect that grabs attention, it’s often handy to be able to change the color of one object in a photo without affecting the rest of the image. Most people will tell you to use Adobe Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation command to do this, but if the object you’re changing has hue variations—not just one flat shade of red, for example—this relative adjustment won’t work.

Instead, you need to make an absolute adjustment. And to limit the change to a single object, you also need a mask. “A mask”? you gripe. “They take forever!”

Au contraire. You simply create a new Adjustment layer, select a color range inside the image with a click and a drag, and Photoshop will auto-generate your mask. Then you choose the Hue/Saturation command and make your color adjustments.

Watch the entire video here:

Author: Eric Swenson

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Welcome to My Death Space: A Site for the Non-Living

Posted on November 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s the time of year when life as we know it begins to change. Our long, warm, sunny days become short, cold, and gray. Life all around us begins to shrivel up and die. I’m referring, of course, to our never-late-to-the-party season: autumn—elder brother to Father Christmas and Mother Nature’s pimp.

Fall is our reminder that the best part of the year is now over. So suck it up. Life is about to get a lot more difficult. If I were a drug user, I’d have to imagine fall to be the drug user’s final hit before rehab. Enjoy it while it lasts; you’re about to get locked up for six months with nothing but chamomile and reruns of Hawaii Five-O.

This is the time of year when many people in our society celebrate the changing of the seasons. I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. People find fall beautiful and often comment on the changing color of leaves. “Look at the beautiful leaves––they’re changing colors,” one might say. “Isn’t fall beautiful, what, with the color changing on leaves and all?” another might say.

“The leaves are dying!” I might say. When you see a majestic bird recently struck by an 18-wheeler, you don’t comment on its beauty, do you? Would you say “Look at that doe-eyed, little deer lying peacefully on the side of the road. I think it’s taking its last breaths. What a wonderful sight!”?

Sound depressing? It shouldn’t be. At this time of year I’m reminded of an Associated Press article I read that has that Halloween sort of vibe. The article encouraged those with an affinity for the morbid to check out a website called MyDeathSpace.com. At first, I was confused about what MyDeathSpace.com was. My first thought was probably similar to yours: “Here is a website for people who are frustrated with their current social environments and want an online vehicle to acknowledge their discomfort.” I mean, think about it. How many “death spaces” do we all have?

Death Space #1 – You’re waiting in line at Target as the 95-year-old woman uses a debit card for the first time in her existence. You can literally count the minutes until the cashier will inevitably take the card away from the old hag and do it herself. Yet you sit there, impatiently, waiting for the show to unfold.

Death Space #2 – I think we’ve all been here before.

 

(For more relatable situations like this, check out: www.pleaseshutup.com)

Death Space #3 – You’re waiting in line to pick up a new license. It’s not that it expired, it’s that you lost it. Well, you didn’t really lose it. You put it on the table that night when you had your friends over and everyone did that thing where you show each other what’s in your wallets. But then you get drunk and don’t want to drive, and Liz is being her typical self—crazy—and you just want to get her out of there. So you offer to drive, but then Jim—also crazy—is trying to be the responsible one but always ends up getting way too drunk to make any sense. So you just kind of look at him, as he leans, and try to remember why you’re friends. You decide to put both Jim and Liz in a taxi. The next day you find out that Jim accidentally grabbed your ID instead of his, but it doesn’t matter because he left it in the cab.

Maybe I’m alone here. And maybe I spend too much time in lines. The point is I assumed that the site discussed our personal death spaces as a way to create a sense of camaraderie. A way to say, “Hey man, I’ve been there. I think about putting my boss in a Porta-Potty and tipping it over too.” Well, I was wrong. MyDeathSpace is actually a social networking website for the recently deceased members of myspace.com. If someone dies, you submit his or her death and people can chat about the––sometimes grotesque––details. Oh, and there’s a forum section where you can complain about things like the new features of Facebook that really T you off.

What!? Are people really into this? Are we really so voyeuristic? Burning ants with a magnifying glass: okay. Discussing profiles of dead friends: not so okay! Maybe I just have no clue of what it’s like to be this creepy. I think the darkest thing I’ve ever done was get up in the middle of the night and pee without turning on the light.

I suppose we’re all entitled to our own niche likes and dislikes. You’re able to like the changing of leaf colors for example. And I’m entitled to loathe you.

In the meantime, this begs the question: Can a forum like this really be considered a social medium? Hell, these people are dead.

Happy Halloween!

Author: Eric Swenson

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Communication Arts Releases Winners of Its 2011 Design Annual

Posted on October 26, 2011 | 1 Comment

Communication Arts just released the winners of its 2011 Design Annual. Over 4,000 pieces were submitted, and only 174 winners were selected. A team of five judges had the seemingly impossible task of narrowing down the finalists.

Project categories like trademarks, letterheads, posters, packaging, and annual reports were included in the competition.

With today’s economic woes, it’s becoming harder and harder for design firms to keep up with the Joneses technology-wise. It was clear that this year’s designers were able to bring back old-school techniques and produce quality work.

Take a look at the gallery to get a glimpse of some of the winners. If you want to see all the concepts, though, you’re going to have to sign up for Communication Arts’ subscription plan (lame!).

Author: Eric Swenson

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Vanguard Direct’s Creative Team Weighs in on What Steve Jobs Meant to Them

Posted on October 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Gia:
Steve Jobs understood the value and beauty of simplicity. From the way Apple products look and feel to their super-friendly usability, simplicity was the key ingredient that made Apple a success. More importantly for designers, Steve also changed the image of the computer user from a geeky to a cool dude, saving us from a lot of cruel jokes. (My only gripe is that the once-affordable Mac product is now at an outrageously unaffordable price point, pricing out working-class people like me.)

Louise:
Let’s just say the Macintosh computer changed my career, practically overnight. Suddenly, all the tasks I did manually at a drafting table were done at a desk with this odd little machine. My first Mac was a lowly Mac LC, which looked like a pizza box with a monitor on top of it. It was the first computer I ever touched, and to this day, Macintosh computers are the only computers I’ve ever used. I wouldn’t ever consider buying anything else.

Kara:
Steve Jobs had a major influence on my career. My first job was pasteup and mechanicals for a printer––hand-drawn rules, Rubylith silhouettes, typeset galleys … all that has changed due to the genius of the Apple computer. Everything I do these days is wrapped up in my iMac, iPad, and iPhone. Would love to see what he would have created, given another 20 years.

Kevin:
A visionary trendsetter who has been responsible for changing my life several times. Through his inventions, he has helped make the world a better place for all of us.

Antonio:
I have been an Apple fanboy since I was 16 years old. I have bought and used almost every product since that time. Jobs’s ideas and ability to simplify life will be greatly missed, and I hope that his legacy lives on through his company. His personality has shown through his products and has made many people feel close to him to the point that I will miss him as if we were close friends. R.I.P., Steve.

John:
From the earliest days, Apple cultivated a relationship with schools and educators. Coming from a family of teachers, I inevitably encountered Apple computers at holidays and other family get-togethers. Christmas of 1993 was the year my sister and her husband had just bought––at an excellent discount––the smokin’ hot new Macintosh Color Classic. My tiny nieces found their uncle’s computing ineptness hilarious, but I spent every available moment that Christmas playing Sierra’s King’s Quest game on big 5-inch floppies, and was hooked for life.

As a non-teacher, I couldn’t afford a Mac, so I got as close as I could with a Packard Bell 486 machine, running DOS, along with a (sort of) color monitor. Snorts of derision aside, it played games, ran a crude version of WordPerfect, and eventually I even souped it up with a $400, 20MB hard drive! That led to building/upgrading my own computers––which I do to this day––but the guiding hand of Steve Jobs was right there from the start.

Susan:
It was 1982 and our school was getting new computers––half the class was getting PCs, and the other half was getting Apple IIs. While the other side struggled to put their computers together, assembling the Apple II was as simple as taking items out of the box and plugging them together (computer, keyboard, and mouse) and just as easy to use. I was smitten with Apple.

Over the years, Apple has been my computer of choice, and with each new version, I have been amazed with the vision Steve had and have fallen in love with his design sense. With each project he worked on, his genius came out more and more––from Pixar to his latest item, the iPad, his sense of style comes across. The iPhone is my right hand: my connection to the world, my news source, and my entertainment. I hope that his vision will continue for a long time to come.

Marina:
Steve Jobs gave us products we didn’t know we wanted and made those products parts of our lives. Steve, the American hero. R.I.P.

Will (“SUPERHERO”):
What’s to say? A large part of my career has been based on this guy’s products.

Renee:
Steve Jobs changed my two-hour commute each way—from stressful to peaceful—by inventing the iPod shuffle.

Mark:
My second life as a graphic designer started the day Apple’s co-founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, created the Apple I in Steve Jobs’s parents’ garage in 1976.

My first life consisted of rubber cement fumes, X-ACTO blades, and a T-square for mathematically copy fitting galleys upon galleys of type to be generated by outside typography companies.

Thank you, Steve, for my second life!

Author: Eric Swenson

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New Toyota Yaris Ads Bring Me Back to a Time When No Features were Implied

Posted on October 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Toyota, with the assistance of comedian Michael Showalter, released a new campaign recently detailing the simple and affordable Yaris car. The straightforward, yet hilarious ads are meant to show with utter obviousness: this car comes with no special features. It makes me think of my first car and how its lack of features is what made it special, too.

I had an ’86 Buick Century. It was urine yellow and had twelve inches of brownish-orange trim along the bottom. The trim, albeit beautiful, was, in fact, rust and every time I’d close a door or hit a bump, pieces of car would fall to the ground. This actually came in handy. Before GPS navigation, I could simply follow the metal crumbs all the way home.

The roof lining on the car was sensitive to humidity. It served as an excellent barometer. The higher the dew point, the more it would sag down. In most cases the ceiling would not only block me from seeing out the rear view mirror, but would massage my head. I left my car with pieces of ceiling upholstery in my hair frequently.

All of the typical things you’d expect from a junk car, this car had. Heat and A/C didn’t work—which is just perfect for Wisconsin winters. I would go outside 45 minutes before I’d have to leave and turn on the car. I’d bank on the engine heating up enough to defrost the lower one-inch of my window. Then, like an old lady in Florida, I’d peek my eyes through the steering wheel and drive. If that didn’t work, I’d roll down my window (if it wasn’t frozen shut) and stick my head out the side…all the way to school.

The radio would reprogram itself every time I turned the ignition on or hit a small to medium-sized pothole. Quite frankly, I was just glad it worked at all. The car would frequently stall out at the most inconvenient times—typically after I applied the gas. The most common occurrence was after a red light had turned green. The people behind me were always very supportive.

I named her Ol’ Faithful because, despite her outward appearance, she DID start up every winter. I had a lot of memories in that car (many of which I won’t mention here) and over the years we only grew closer. By the time she ran out of gas, I had such an emotional attachment to her that I felt like I was losing a part of me. Not only had she taken me from point A to point B, but she also helped shape who I was as a person.

I traded the car in for fifty bucks and bought a Geo Prizm that had a pink stripe going down the side. I later named it Barbie. I left the dealership feeling depressed and ashamed. As I drove home, I was reminded of Ol’ Faithful everywhere. Pieces of the door and bumper littered the streets all the way back. To this day, rusty soda cans and hubcaps bring tears to my eyes. I even have the old license plate and keep it in a place I know she’d appreciate. Next to the toilet.

With such a tangent, lest I not forget to show a sample of this campaign, which, honestly, could have done wonders to help the sales of my car back when it was released in 1986.

View the entire campaign here.

Author: Eric Swenson

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Adforum’s Top 5 Commercials for This Week

Posted on September 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

Check out Adforum’s top five commercials for this week. We had a hard time choosing this week’s fave. At the end of the day, we went with Toyota’s “People Person.” The art direction is absolutely phenomenal––brilliantly creative. Cast your vote and post!

 

1. Big Wednesday – “Wednesday/Thursday” – DDB New Zealand

 

 

2. DnB NOR – “Finally Married” – Try Reklamebryrå

 

 

3. Toyota – “People Person” – Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles

 

 

4. Weetabix – “Dancer” – Bartle Bogle Hegarty

 

 

5. Poland Spring Sparkling – “The Raid” – McCann Erickson New York

 

 

Author: Eric Swenson

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