optimist prime

we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars

Archive for design

D&AD Student competition and awards identity

I HEART D&AD, and I love the Student Awards, so I am always excited by what they’re up to. Launched this week by Pentagram, the new look for the D&AD Student Awards is an interesting blend of brave colours, a real attempt at referencing the digital nature of the scheme and some seriously interesting thinking.

As the Creative Review blog states: “The new work pixellates the familiar yellow pencil and uses elements of this effect across a new website and array of printed materials – including posters and briefing postcards – reflecting the organisation’s decision to take the contents of the Annual online…”

The introduction of colours other than the usual yellow is REALLY lovely – the postcards and the letterheads are sweet as. The only thing that disturbs me slightly by it all (and I say this with the greatest hesitation, and with much love – its nothing I haven’t said to the D&AD peeps already) is that the real close-ups look a bit, well, a bit like goatse. Pixellation not only references ‘digital’, but also something NSFW, and goatse is such an internet ‘classic’ its hard to miss. Well, call me dirty, but it was hard for me to miss anyway. But maybe I just belong in the gutter.

Seriously though, I just can’t get it out of my head. And I couldn’t be wanting to try harder or be more sorry about it.

picture-7

Museum of hidden web goodness

There’s a real groundswell of love for loaders at the moment – what with the Creative Circle Honours 2009 having a special one-year-only award category, and a build-up of online chatter about this more and more rarely seen craft. Now Big Spaceship have taken us into the next dimension with their brilliant loader museum – Prettyloaded. At the moment it seems to be just hosting their extensive agency collection, but looks like plans are to expand. If you have a great loader, email the curators here.

loader

Glug! London launches its Xmas exhibition with a bang!

The Glug! London event last night was brilliant.

Even better, Paul Rayment (wonderful glue illustrator) won with his neon video:

more about “All I Want For Christmas Is … on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

And old Lateral mate of mine Siaron Hughes came second with her gorgeous little book, where she interviewed her neighbours on what they wanted for Christmas. She’s currently working on a book about the dodgy chicken shops of London – watch this space!

Here are some pics of the event:

All I want for Xmas, Glug! London style

“More Notworking than Networking”, Glug! is a brilliant organisation set up by old glue compatriot Nick Clemant (he of the inexhaustable font collection).

I helped judge the inaugral Xmas competition, and never have I felt so dwarfed by the judging talent – Vaughan Oliver is just my absolute hero for his great work for The Pixies! So much more daunting than jusst having agency bods on the panel!

After finishing the judging only yesterday (over 150 entries!) I’m heading to the event tonight, where I’ll finally get to see the winners!

glug_december_2

My D&AD talk went online today

more about “D&AD“, posted with vodpod

Peter Saville at Creative Social

Yep, saw the Black Prince talk tonight (haha).
He was well entertaining. And wasn’t half the ego I expected.

The most interesting point he made was about working with the dynamics of a band, and how there’s ALWAYS one person in control, who is effectively your client. One strong personality in the group. Except for New Order once Ian Curtis and Joy Devision had departed. It was very much a band not wanting to take on that role in case they were struck down by lightning… And they all started to disagree with each other just out of principle. Must have made for interesting times…

Incredible skeletal windows at Harvey Nicks

Heading off to work from a talk at the IPA this morning, and wandered past these immaculately constructed coathanger carcassses running through the front windows of Harvey Nichols.

My photos aren’t great, but the giant skeletal remains of strange fish and beasts stretched through the length of the glass display space along Knightsbridge… Wow…

Five Principles to Design By – by Joshua Porter

Just finished a workshop yesterday by this guy and was really inspired – he gave us a great deal of really useful skills See his whole, great blog, and this article in situ, here.

Technology Serves Humans.
Too often people blame themselves for the shortcomings of technology. When their computer crashes, they say “I must have done something dumb”. If a web site is poorly designed, they say “I must be stupid. I can’t find it”. They might even turn to a book for Dummies to get it right.

This is horrible! People should never feel like a failure when using technology. Like the customer, the user is always right. If software crashes, it is the software designer’s fault. If someone can’t find something on a web site, it is the web designer’s fault. This doesn’t mean that the designer has to hang their head in shame…they should see this as a learning opportunity! The big difference between good and bad designers is how they handle people struggling with their design.

Technology serves humans. Humans do not serve technology.

Design is not Art.
Art is about personal expression. It is about the life, the emotions, the thoughts and ideas of the artist. It matters very little what observers do, their activity is not required, only their appreciation. The practice of Art doesn’t require them. It is a necessary activity for the artist, and the artist alone.

Design, on the other hand, is about use. The designer needs someone to use (not only appreciate) what they create. Design doesn’t serve its purpose without people to use it. Design helps solve human problems. The highest accolade we can bestow on a design is not that it is beautiful, as we do in Art, but that it is well-used.

Unlike Art, Design is always contextual. It matters when a design was created because of the context of its use: what problem is it supposed to solve? And for whom? At what point in time? This is why design is so related to technology, because technology changes so quickly, so must our designs. A design that worked ten years ago might not even be worth considering today. History is littered with wonderful designs that are no longer necessary.

Great Art, on the other hand, is always in style. We appreciate Michelangelo’s David even though we could recreate a million of them because it was the toil and expression of a single man. That will never fade. Great Design is dependent upon the age in which it is made and the problem which it is meant to solve. But not Art. Art is timeless.

The litmus test. When people enjoy Art, they say “I like that”. When people enjoy Design, they say “That works well”. This is not by accident. Good Design is something that works well.

The Experience Belongs to the User.
Designers do not create experiences, they create artifacts to experience. This subtle distinction makes all the difference, as it places the designer at the service of the user, and not the other way around. This doesn’t rule out innovation, it doesn’t prevent a designer to leap beyond what is accepted as state-of-the-art. It just means that the experience of a design doesn’t happen simply because the designer says it does, it happens when a user actually reports it.

The ultimate experience is something that happens in the user, and it is theirs. They own it.

Great Design is Invisible.

An interesting property of great design is that it is taken for granted. It works so well that we forget that creative effort was involved to bring it about. Sometimes, like with the lowly spoon, the object is so simplistic that it seems obvious, and we disregard that at one point in history it wasn’t. Other times, like with the automobile, the object is so sophisticated yet easy-to-use that we’re blinded to the fact that millions and millions of human-hours went into getting it to this point. That’s a shame…every great design has a rich history. And every design has behind it a designer or designers who tried to make the world a better place by solving some problem or another.

Bad design is obvious because it hurts to use. It is awkward, difficult, and complex. In a great irony of the world, bad design is much easier to see than good design. It raps us on the head like a bully. Because of its success, great design is often invisible.

Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication.
As Saint Exupery said, “In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when
there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” Simplicity is treading a line: knowing what to keep and what to throw away…it comes across as magic when it works, because none of the complexity is transferred to users…only simplicity. That is the highest achievement for a designer.

Notes from Designing for Social Media: Part 1

This guy took the workshop I did today. These are Josh Porter’s (bokardo) favorite presentations on slideshare – great reference material for anyone wanting to make something useful (delightful + usable) and social online…

Football 24-7 goes live for NGM

Just finished this site for NGM – turning a complicated offering (and old site) into something hopefully much more sticky!

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