Tag Archives: design

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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How Well Do You Give/Cope With Design Criticism?

Posted on October 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

Critical dialogue when creating a design project is as important as the design process itself. Good design criticism concentrates on goals and outcomes. Constructive comments are meant to make the design better. Basically, when well executed, criticism could be described as an art form––one of the most beneficial elements of the process when a graphic designer is doing something creative. Criticism and critiques can easily be used in the wrong way, however, which can lead to disaster.

Some of us are shy, while others are blunt and outspoken. Criticism is often as difficult to give as it is to receive (we use the verb “criticize” mainly in a negative sense). Since criticism is unavoidable and most likely a key to client happiness, it’s best to be constructive in your criticism.

When criticizing, make sure to include a thorough evaluation and judgment. It’s not about whether you like or don’t like something. Instead, try the following:

  • Before you speak, know your objective.
  • Separate personal preferences from abstract analysis.
  • Involve thinking through solutions.
  • Try giving positive-negative-positive feedback.
  • Make it a team effort.
  • Always end your conversations with a positive note.

What if you find yourself on the opposite end; what’s the best way to receive criticism?

Kareen Liez on Naldzgraphics.net offers the following tips:

  1. Have self-confidence.
  2. Be a good listener.
  3. Distinguish the type of criticism.
  4. Control your anger.
  5. Be humble.
  6. Use your intellect.
  7. Do not panic.
  8. Do not take it personally.
  9. Clarify the intention.
  10. Remember that you still have your freedom.

To read more on how to best receive criticism, just click HERE.

How well do you give/cope with design criticism?

Author: Marina Kaljaj

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Are You Creatively Prejudiced? Why We Want Creativity But Often Reject It

Posted on September 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

Would you recognize a creative idea if you saw it? How would you know it’s creative? Is it a feeling? Is it a clever idea that made you go “hmm”? Is it the recognition of something deep in your subconscious that for whatever reason strikes a chord with you now? Or are you such an expert that, based on your years of reviewing creative, you now have the ability to spot a good idea from a mile away and opine justifiably?

If you’re reading this blog, you almost certainly have some desire to understand creativity. And while many of us in the creative field would like to claim expert status, the truth is in the numbers.

People come with certain biases. Passions. Backgrounds. Likes and dislikes. And more often than not, we come with inherent tendencies that are out of our control. It’s the recognition of that, I think, that will set us free—but I’ll get to that later.

I once read an article about our inherent desire to be “a little bit racist” (Avenue Q reference––check it out). The study involved two groups of very young kids—somewhere between the ages of three and five (well before they could understand the depths of racial conflict).

The study had half the children wear red shirts and the other half in blue. The children interacted with each other seemingly without a care in the world. It was clear that reds didn’t hang with only reds and blues didn’t hang with just blues. At the end of the study, however, the children were asked a series of questions. When questions came up like, “Do you think red shirts, your team, are better than blue shirts?” kids often responded in favor of their own team.

My point is this: Things that are different are unsettling at best and flat-out terrifying at worst. We seem to crave creativity more than anything else, but creative ideas are often not accepted. Do we have the ability to appreciate a real creative idea? I’d argue not. And as I said, the proof is in the numbers. An article will be released soon in the journal Psychological Science detailing two studies that came to the following titillating conclusions:

  • Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.
  • People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical––tried and true.
  • Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.
  • Anti-creativity bias is so subtle that people are unaware of it, which can interfere with their ability to recognize a creative idea.

The next time a colleague, friend, or business professional approaches you with an idea he or she finds creative, before you reject it, take a second and think about if you’re rejecting it because it’s crazy or because it’s just crazy enough to be original.

Author: Eric Swenson

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Best Practices in Design – Creating PDFs

Posted on September 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past 10 years or so, you’ve probably read, produced, or come into contact with a PDF. The PDF, or Portable Document Format, is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 and is used for outputting documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout document, including the text, fonts, graphics, and other information needed to display it.

The PDF was originally used to send clients view-only layouts that they could review and approve before the final files were sent out to be printed. With the improvements made to the PDF format over the years, Adobe made it possible to create high-resolution, print-ready files, thus eliminating the need to package print-ready files via their native applications. Today, designers and production artists are expected to have a thorough knowledge of PDF creation.

When making a PDF, it is important to know its end use. That will determine the kind of PDF you need to produce. For example, if you were showing the client some changes made to a layout, you would send a “view-only” PDF. The view-only PDF would be low in resolution but easy to send in an email because of its small file size. Crop marks would not be necessary. If you were creating a print-ready PDF, however, you would need to ensure the PDF contained crops, bleed, and full-resolution images—in most cases, such PDFs might be too large to send over email.

For Print-Ready PDFs made from InDesign:
First, go to File > Export (Command-E). Select Adobe PDF as the format and choose the destination for the PDF and hit Save. A new dialog box will open. You can select a preset like High Quality Print (for print) or Smallest File Size (for web) as a starting point and modify the settings further if you wish. Pay special attention to the sections in the left-hand window of the options box: General, Compression, Marks and Bleed, and Output.

General – If the job is going to print in spreads, make sure this box is checked under Pages.

Compression – For high-quality color and grayscale images, Bicubic Downsampling should be set to 300dpi for images over that size and the Image Quality set to maximum. You can lower the dpi if the PDF is view-only to be sent via email.

Marks and Bleeds – If you are including crop marks, make sure the box is checked and add the bleed amount underneath.

Output – Make sure Color Conversion is set to No Color Conversion.

One trick that can be useful is to create your own custom settings. Once you have adjusted all the settings in the Export Adobe PDF dialog box, you can click Save Preset in the bottom left corner. You will give the preset a name, and once you hit OK, it will be included as an option under Adobe PDF Preset.

For Print-Ready PDFs made from Quark Xpress:
Go to File > Export > Layout as PDF (Command-Option-P). When the dialog box opens, click the Options button (or you can select a preset like Press – High Quality or Screen – Low Quality as a starting point and modify the settings further if you wish). The PDF Export Options dialog box will open with all the settings. Pay special attention to the sections in the left-hand window of the options box: Pages, Compression, Color, Marks and Bleed.

Pages – If the job is going to print in spreads, make sure this box is checked.

Compression – For color and grayscale images, Compression should be set to None and Resolution set to Keep Resolution (assuming your images are already 300dpi).

Color – If it is a four-color job, the Setup should be set to Composite CMYK. If a Pantone color is included, the Setup should be set to Composite CMYK and Spot.

Marks – If you are including crop marks, have the mode set to Centered (otherwise it can be set to Off).

Bleed – If there is bleed, have the Bleed Type set to Symmetric with the Amount as you wish.

Once again, you can create your own custom settings. Once you have adjusted all the settings in the PDF Export Options dialog box, you can go to PDF Style at the top and scroll down to New PDF Output Style. You will give the output style a name, and once you hit OK, it will included as an option under PDF Style.

Authors: Will Lovell, with assistance by Eric Swenson

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Oh, Color, How I Love Hue – Color Trends and Info

Posted on August 31, 2011 | Leave a comment

In my search to find meaning in color, and more importantly, the rationale for colors presented in designs, I came across a great site that has become an invaluable resource.

Check out www.sensationalcolor.com to get an insider’s look at current trends in color and some important rationales for correct color choice. Whether it’s color for fashion, your home, or communications pieces, this site probably touches on it.

There’s discussion on theory and color in business as well. The blog portion is infrequently updated but useful when the site’s “color expert,” Kate Smith, decides to post.

If you want to know what the color orange really means or why the Blue Man Group uses blue, then this site is meant for hue!

 

Author: Eric Swenson

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