Posts
Goodbye Logic+Emotion, Hello Armano Design Group
5 years ago
Showing posts with label Graphic Design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graphic Design. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Be More
Hucklebuck will even send you badges if you ask nicely.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Serious Play
Paula Scher's talk at TED sets the groundwork for developing innovative design solutions through serious play (and being completely unqualified).
Friday, May 8, 2009
Put Yourself Into The Work
was a major influence on me in college.
Here's his talk at TED '03.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sol Sender
An interview with Sol Sender. Much more insight to the work and the phenomenon than the New Yorker post from the other week.
PART 1:
PART 2:
The List
Other bloggers seem to have lists all about them. As I was thinking about it, I realized, if I were to put a list together, some of my closest friends paid pals might learn something new. Let alone all my millions my three other blog reading friends. Since I'm 35 years old, this is my list of 35 things about me that you may or may not know (or want to know).
1. I was born on the south side of Chicago. As a kid, I lived in Orland Park. The White Sox are the baseball team I cheer for.
2. I have a very typical nuclear family: 2 parents, 1 younger brother. Growing up, we didn't have a dog, but we did have a white shit brown picket fence. My parents have been married for 40 years.
3. I lived for 3 1/2 years in Columbus, Ohio. I learned a lot there. Maybe too much.
4. I bought a guitar when I was 14 against my parents orders. I wanted to play like Eddie Van Halen. I met Eddie once. I still can't play like Eddie.
5. The first time I got drunk... never mind.
6. I still am in contact with several childhood friends.
7. I had two reoccurring anxiety driven dreams as a child. The first was being abducted by the Incredible Hulk. The second was riding my big wheel off a cliff.
8. My father was an engineer and my mother a counselor. I'm an art director + designer in the branding industry. Go figure.
9. My grandmother is 86 and has smoked for 70+ years. I don't smoke but I'm considering starting.
10. After high school I had no direction in my life whatsoever so I went to Illinois State University because some of my friends were going there. Luckily I fell in love with Graphic Design and it all worked out.
11. An ex-girlfriend once told me that I'll bend over backwards for a perfect stranger but I abandon the people I'm closest too. I hated to admit it, but at the time she was right. I try to bend over backwards for everyone now.
12. One of my favorites movie lines is from Caddy Shack: Thank you very little.
13. I'm addicted to tomatoes and tomato based products.
14. When I saw E.T. for the first time I cried at the end.
15. I know one person from China. I met him in Ohio. He's probably the most incredibly gifted artist I'll ever know. I've had the privilege of regularly drinking beer with another successful artist in Ohio who I secretly idolize. I know another artist from Ohio who still owes me money. I met a lot of very talented artists in Ohio.
16. I'm 5'11.
17. I don't have any stupid human tricks that would get me on Letterman. However, I once was able to change a tire in under 30 seconds when I was a tire tech.
18. I've lived without a TV for the last 5 years.
19. I went to Rome by myself after college to see the art that I learned about first hand. Some people think it's weird that I went there by myself. I think it's weird that people don't do the things they want to do.
20. I've dated a wide variety of women in my life but women with cats are deal breakers. Even smart, rich, beautiful women with cats. I tried.
21. I started taking violin lessons when I was 7. I stuck with it through 11 and I quit because I was the last boy left in Orchestra. One day, when I have more time, I'd like play it again. While I'm at it I'd like to learn the piano too.
22. I've never been to New York to see The Apple drop at midnight. I have been to Clinton, Ohio on New Year's Eve to see the Muskie drop at midnight.
23. At 12 years old I realized that my childhood was officially over after entering Disney Land with my parents. Even though I was far from home I didn't want anyone to see me with them.
24. I'm lefty. I once was told that there's something attractive about the way I protectively cradle a pen in my hand. I've also been told there's something wrong with me because I'm lefty.
25. I have never completed a triathlon or marathon. I did run the quarter mile consistently in high school in under 60 seconds and a mile in college consistently under 5 minutes. I will do a marathon at some point in my life.
26. I hate being in a car.
27. During my high school years, I remember having a tortureous jalapeno pepper eating contest with some friends. It was one of the most amazing events I've ever witnessed.
28. I'm have no formal training in architecture and urban planning but I'm fascinated with both subjects.
29. I don't wear glasses.
30. I once lived in a house for 2 years without a kitchen. I was too busy with my career to care.
31. I'm not sure what role religion plays in my life. I'm discovering that it probably should play a role.
32. At 35 I'm finally realizing that I'm not in my 20's anymore.
33. It makes me crazy when people confuse activity for progress.
34. One of my favorite memories in life so far has been driving down PCH 1.
35. I hope I can write a list that goes to 100 someday.
Friday, December 19, 2008
SlideShare
SlideShare is a networking service that allows users to share presentations across the web. Below is a sample presentation that I created as a test to layer into other web applications.
Killer Copy
I've always enjoyed reading through branding agencies materials to see how they sell themselves. It also gives you a view into their belief system. This copy sample from Sandstrom is one of the better examples I've seen of describing what they do and how they do it:
"Sometimes a client will come to us with an extremely well-established identity in need of reevaluation and/or refreshing. Sometimes they'll come to us with an idea for a new brand–like, say, flushable diapers. In either case, we approach a brand's corporate identity from a holistic, systematic and idea-centric perspective. Everything emanates from the one overarching idea that drives the brand–the reason for its existence in the first place. We generally try to get agreement on that before we explore specific marks or typography or color. Everything should exist for a reason, not just because the CFO's wife likes teal. Don't get us wrong, we love a good teal now and then and we're sure Muffy has exquisite taste. But if logic and aesthetics got into a fight, we think logic would kick aesthetic's aesthetic."
Copy like this makes me want to go out and kick some serious aesthetics.
See more at: www.sandstromdesign.com
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Beyond The Bumper Sticker
Politics aside, Barack Obama's presidential campaign was one of the finest integrated marketing efforts I've ever seen. Of course the message and the man are core factors to the campaigns success. But the brand discipline has created a powerful framework for how people connected with the message and the man. Ultimately this branded connection is greater than the sum of its (branding) parts and inspired change.Here are some of the basic elements of the framework that helped develop a simple and compelling story about Obama.
The Message: Obama's clear and compelling statements outlined what he stands for and how he would deliver it. "Change we can believe in" became the brand promise and allowed the audience to connect to his vision of who we could become. In short the brand essence: transformational.
The Brand Personality: Obama's message of change harmonized across both the intellectual and emotional sides of the brand. The intellectual side appeared authentic, thoughtful and progressive. Emotionally he connected with an approachable, open-mindedand and an empowering tone.
The Brand Design: From the consistent use of the American inspired Gotham typography to the gracefulness of the "O" logo, each of these elements helped shape reinforced his message with a consistent visual voice. The design did more than just look nice in a news clip, it demonstrated a level of control that you don't often find in even high-end consumer brands.
The Brand Connection: The campaign website it truly the experience engine of the campaign. From a design perspective it presents the candidate and the messaging in a clean, smooth and elegant fashion. Of course the content is relevant and dynamic, and because it was updated daily (and sometimes hourly) it opened the door for a "real time conversation" of sorts between the candidate and the audience. Not only was this a chance for the campaign to make meaningful connections, it allowed the audience to share what they felt was relevant, the way they wanted to share and consume it.
Opening The Brand: Taking the website experience a step further with a solid brand framework as its foundation, the Obama brand to become an open brand experience. Being an open brand didn't mean giving up control of the message, rather it allowed people to participate with the campaign on their terms. Of course there were blogs, video feeds and real time feedback but there was a sense that this campaign was be co-created with the community. People were interacting and sharing with perfect strangers over the internet through social networking. Micro-communities were springing up all over the internet and created a momentum that took on a life all of its own and became difficult to blunt let alone stop.
Obamamania Goes Viral: This campaign took on a life of it's own through associations wanting to connect to Obama and what the brand stood for. Everything from the will.i.am mash up to inspired citizens creating videos, art and music began to circulate online. You could see tangible evidence of the bottom up model creating content and embracing the message. This wasn't a creation of the media. It was an authentic and it also helped to convert passive online viewers into active (financial) contributors to the campaign.
The Obamamania experience came to a crescendo on November 4th with the celebration in Chicago's Grant Park. Not only did the brand evangelists come out by the tens of thousands but the man, the message and design framework came full circle once again as the echo of "Yes we can" was heard around the world.
I'm certain that there will be dozens of books written in the months to come about how the campaign leveraged marketing principals to reach its goals that will be much more thorough than my entry. But there are a few additional points worth mentioning:
1) The design framework that shaped the open brand campaign approach brought a level of inclusion and intimacy that you don't often find in brand let along political campaigns.
2) An obvious but critical element to the success of this campaign (or any brand) is it was easy to donate (or make a purchase) online. There was also an instant follow up confirming and thanking the individual for contributing. These were design and communication elements that were planned well in advance that gave the user a level of comfort and sense of forethought.
3) People love brands for the experience they deliver not just the product specifications. You'll never see technical specs in a iPod commercial because nobody really cares. Much like a high-end brand Obama was able to project and reinforce the essence of his brand himself without getting pulled down into the marketing weeds. He left the policy specification to other tactical channels and was able to build equity into his core message where his competition couldn't compete.
4) This campaign was less of a political machine and more of a media organization. Control of communication is critical across the organization as well as to the audience. Design can play a significant role in optimizing the message as well as the presentation of the message.
5) Brand design is more art than formula. If there's one thing that was mastered by the Obama campaign it was creating a balance between structure and flexibility.
The bottom line is that building a brand framework that leads to a self sustaining community looks less like marketing or design and more like customer relationship management. It takes the combined effort of different disciplines to bring life into something that has an extreme level of control. It's not a campaign you can launch and let the media buy do the rest of the work. However, if you are fortunate enough to have an audience that wants to connect, it's something worth developing.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Don't try and be original. Just try to be good.
This video is a good reminder of what we should be aiming for in Graphic Design.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Can I get a logo with a symbol on the side? And hold the hyphen please.
Wal*Mart unveiled it's new logo on July 1st as part of an ongoing evolution of its overall brand. One of the reasons for the redesign is to align the identity with Wal*Mart's CEO H. Lee Scott's goal of "transforming Wal*Mart into a more environmentally friendly corporation." From my perspective it seems like they are trying to move beyond the unenviable position that they have held for about the last decade as the greediest and most unethical retail corporation on the planet. (I couldn't resist.)
I actually feel a little sorry for the design team that had to work on this project. The big box retail category is boring enough, not to mention that every designer around is going to shoot holes in your work just because Wal*Mart is the client. But putting all of my biases aside I want to critique the new look. I really wish I could see the strategy document because everything really does flows from this. I suspect that the brand manager set the bar low and settled for an evolution to the identity and I think that was the first mistake. Wal*Mart has a huge image problem and not that a new logo could fix that on its own but it could be a sign that a meaningful new direction was underway. There is a huge cultural shift underway in our country and if Wal*Mart want to capitalize on this and stay ahead of the curve they could of aimed for a revolution instead of an evolution. It obvious to me from the new logo that they're just trying to fix their image instead of trying to reinvent the company.
Onto the logo itself. The typography is strikingly close to the Kmart type. You would think someone would of done their homework on this and created something a little more unique. The new typography is more appealing than where they were but with brands this visible you typically don't see a market leader almost picking up design language from a competitor.
I'm comfortable as a consumer seeing the brand as Walmart instead of Wal*Mart. It will be interesting to see how much of Sam Walton continues to play a part in the brand story or if combining the name starts to fade him out of the conversation. I wouldn't be surprised if they are making a conscious effort to minimize some of their heritage as they expand deeper into foreign markets.
The color selection isn't especially creative but it is appealing and a logical step from where they were. Again I think they are trying to shed a little bit of the red, white and blue and looking to become more color neutral internationally. The new palette does differentiate them a little bit better in the US from Target, JCPenny, Meijer and the almost bankrupt Kmart. Again it's a sideways move rather than a brand ready to make a statement.
I'm struggling with the star or sun or burst or whatever the symbol is at the end of the logotype. I know that sometimes it takes time to build equity into these elements but I really think that this was a lost opportunity. Walmart is a brand that's suffering from "Target Envy" and they probably mandated that a part of the new logo could be applied to all types of branding situations. It will probably come to represent "low prices" or "excitement about low prices" in their next campaign. Not only is this an uninspired mark it's strikingly similar to several icons already. Visually it seems disproportionate compared to the type and it borders on being unbalanced.
One of my favorite quotes about logo design is from Paul Rand: "A logo derives its meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around". I hope Walmart really is changing for the better but that will remain to be seen. If its actions don't support the new identity we can look forward to a new redesign to improve its image once again in about 5 to 10 years.
Overall grade: C-/D+
Once again a conglomerate gets what it deserves.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
