Seth Godin has written a long and thoughtful peace about the current and future evolution of the internet, mobile computing and the internet of things. It’s an important read also for designers, who see their challenges in the problem they are solving right now, or the client they are working for (at least it looks like it).

I think it’s important because designers in their core have always worked with “data” and brought this data into a meaningful form. Data is according to Seth the key of a future proof and sustainable technological future and we as designers are the ones that can help make sense out of this data.

http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2012/04/06/apple-cloud/?single_page=true

#internetofthings #data #inspiration

Embedded Link

Apple and the Cloud: A Cautionary Tale | Xconomy
The consumer’s electronic world as we know it today is shared between Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and a handful of other popular brands. Most offerings

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I’ve discovered today an awesome service – SendHub.com
This service allows you to create a sort of SMS newsletter service. You create a group and can send messages to this group via mobile text. The best thing is, that people can join this list by texting – just like the big shot text services you see on TV.

This functionality has never been exposed on a self service way and makes it easy for small businesses and organizations to reach their customers/audiences with a tool accessible to everyone.

But also consumers can use it in their private life … how many times where you feed up because you couldn’t setup a group on your mobile phone.

Here are 5 uses that I thought of just now

1. A health organization can offer a daily motivational text
2. A Hockey Club can send updates to it’s players about training times
3. Friends can use it to schedule meet ups – Yes, they can send a text back
4. A shop can text special offers to this “vip” group and also wishes for the holidays
5. A business can ask questions and mini surveys

Beyond this use cases SendHub.com has a nice API that seems pretty easy to use – Looking forward to see the first integrations … Maybe ifttt.com might want to do something here.

Have you any other ideas how to use this service?
#sms #campaign #inspiration #selfservice #mobile

Embedded Link

SendHub. SMS for Organizations. Send Texts to Individuals and Groups for free.
SMS for Organizations. Watch a Video. Easy Communication. Send and receive text messages from individuals and groups with no hassle. Free. Simply Text to Join. Your contacts can text to join your grou…

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How great is that – tracking the changes made to a website not a sense of content, but in functionality. Since websites are not longer just containers of content it makes perfect sense.

Is it interesting to the visitor? Sure, here are a couple of reasons:

Feature Discovery
Just like you are interested what are the latest features your favorite app has, website visitors are interested what they can do on your website. Especially if you have a lot of functionality that is not immediately visible.

Help Documentation
While you add more and more functionality a website might need help documentation – it becomes in the end more and more an application. The Version History keeps a log of what features might need to be added to the help section or which description might be out of date.

Showing that you listen to users
By having a version history you can show that you listen to suggestions of your users. Not all new features might be inspired by visitors to your site, but many will be and giving credit is a transparent way of showing your commitment.

Reduces feature redundancy
It also gives you a place where you can look up if a similar feature might be already in place. If you are part of a big website with multiple developers and units the chances are high that you don’t know all the functionality of the whole website – and you might want to add something which is already there. Even if the site is small you might take over from another developer/designer you might want to know why the site works the way it does. The version history shows you when and where new things got added and might give a hint why the CSS file is messed up the way it is.

It doesn’t have to be public
You can also make the version history just for yourself – as a reference when you introduced a feature. This can than later be used for measuring how effectively that introduction has been – have you met the goals you have set for the new feature (you have set goals right?).

These are just a few of the benefits I can see for the version history on a website, what are yours?

#website #ux #idea

Reshared post from +The Verge

We’ve got a Version History!

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Version History | The Verge

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No time for reading about Design? Want to get an insight what designers/developers/artists think about their work directly from their voice? Why not listen to some design podcasts. I often feel that written interviews are edited versions of the voice of designers – interpretations of the designers thought by writers and editors. In podcast interviews I can not only hear the voice but also get an idea about the character and the importance of a subject to a designer – it’s a real conversation after all.

I will share weekly a podcast who inspires me to do better work and/or think differently about my work.

First off a very popular one – Design Matters with Debbie Millman
Design Matters with Debbie Millman is a thought-provoking internet podcast, which profiles industry-leading graphic designers, change agents, artists, writers and educators.

Although very popular I just found out about this great interview series – take you time to listen also to the archive. Here are the links – Enjoy:
- http://observermedia.designobserver.com/show_designmatters.html
- http://observermedia.designobserver.com/show_designmattersarchive.html
- Podcast Subscription URL: http://designobserver.com/show.designmatters2009-10.xml

#podcast #design #interview #inspiration #education

Embedded Link

Design Matters Archive: Observer Media: Design Observer

09.23.11. Jessica Hische In this podcast interview with Debbie Millman, Jessica Hische discusses her attachment to the internet, the differences between being a letterer and a type designer and workin…

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I use podcasts to learn while I work. I listen to design talks, keynotes, interviews and news from science, culture and some entertainment. Especially during the tasks every designer can do without thinking (photo retouching, filling in content, corrections) are the ideal activities to up your game by staying in touch with the latest developments.

Even though graphic and web design are visual media, the most important part in my opinion about design is not visual – the mindset and the different approaches behind design solutions. In the old days it was really difficult to get the inside view of designers because not many had the opportunity to publish books or discuss their point of view in a magazine. Design Blogs fill this space a little bit but mostly podcasts can give you the opportunity to hear what designers think in their own words.

For a selection of interesting Podcasts about design subscribe my Huffduffer Channel – available as RSS or Subscribe in iTunes

To give you a further starting point for the design podcasts I listen I publish here my Subscription list from Google Reader (if you want you can even subscribe to it) – this list will update itself automatically.

Photo by Melvin Gaal (Mindsharing.eu)

Computer Human Interaction and Design?

Designers don’t think about it all the time, but the products/services/websites/brochures etc. are made for interaction with humans. The mobile “revolution” (more about that later) extended the websites and Apps to connect to the real world through touch screens and other sensors and have become Computer Human Interfaces. Therefore the CHI is a good venue for designers.

I just peeked in at the “taste of CHI” for a couple of hours. For $10 I have visited the exhibition and seen a few presentations. I enjoyed most the talk of Bill Buxton and the presentation of his Buxton Collection, an archive of digital input devices. What we can learn from such a collection is that technology is evolutionary. Designers try to create an image of “creation” which comes from nothing. They try to hide where their inspiration came from and the legacy they build on.

This leads in his opinion, and I agree, to two bad consequences. Students in design schools learn from this kind of designers that creativity comes a genius spark and therefore they don’t learn how to improve existing things with better design for example. And secondly the speed of the innovation is slowed down. If everything seems to be magically new and have never been here before we think that we are progressing, even when we progress only a little bit or not at all.

The archive shows that things like the iPhone and iPad and other magical devices are not only nothing new (while improved) but that this kind of devices where already on the market 18 years ago. From the first Smartphone with touch screen, the Simon from IBM, to the iPhone basically the improvements are thinner, lighter, color and maybe a longer battery life. Not a big revolution in 18 years.

To get to the moon on the other site took just 9 years. Why? Because the USA had a legacy they build on – Werner von Braun and his technicians.

What can Designers learn from this?

Designers should not try to reinvent the wheel every time. Don’t copy and don’t be boring, but try to bring a design that inspired you into a new context and push it to another level. I know that it might seem abstract, but in reality it is not.

Moodboards are great way not only to get ideas and as collections for a certain style and design – but also as a starting point for your designs. And when you take the moodboards with you in the presentation your client can actually see where you started and how your design evolved from this starting points.

Impressions from the conference

The exhibition side was more like a design school graduate party. A lot of students showing their projects. Some are really funny but nothing new here. I have seen a lot of the approaches taken by this designer-engineer hybrids already in commercial products on the market or close to market – or in the keynote about Android at the Google IO this morning. I think the real value lies in the panels, but I couldn’t attend any – will see next time.

Here are now some images and movies I grabbed with my phone.

Doing charts is a almost a daily business for any graphic designer. Most of them don’t need to be super-fancy, but some spice can always help. Creating a 3D Effect is quickly done with the standard tools we all use – rectangles, lines and gradients. But if you have to do many charts (for an annual report) then this options can really slow you down. Unless you use a tool to speed up the process.

Why not use the 3D Tools provided by Illustrator. The positive side effect is that you don’t have to worry about the shading and you can apply text on the surfaces (the trick here is to convert the Text into symbols). The best part is that you start from the 2D versions of the charts – easy to change and to manage. The examples I show here are neither fully styled or finished, but should give you a hint about what you can do.

[lightbox_image big_image_url="http://frankie.bz/files/2011/05/chart_illustrator.jpg"]http://frankie.bz/files/2011/05/chart_illustrator-608×321.jpg[/lightbox_image]

Download the sample Illustrator file to get an idea behind the example given. This is a great starting point and you can dress the result up and quiet easily.

[download_box]Click here to download the example Adobe Illustrator File[/download_box]

Stock images are cheaper than ever and access to creative commons material is great, but often not available in print resolution. Having your own stock photography is better – and easy. I show you how.

This will be quiet short and is more a reminder.  Yes a reminder – I want to remind you to take some more pictures for your stock library while you are taking photos for your private albums.

How many times have you bought a wood texture background or a crowded place or a busy street? I have many times. Once I needed a picture of Picadilly Circus, nothing fancy, but all the photos I had where with some of my friends in the middle. I lived in London for 6 month and have not taken one picture of the place except those “tourist” photos.

So remind yourself when you are on vacation or on a business trip – take a few extra pictures with the eye of the graphic designer. You don’t have to have the greatest gear to take good pictures , but you need a little bit of practice. A blogpost over at Boagworld actually tells you how to make unique stock photos for your website

And most important, tell your wife/girlfriend/friend why you are taking pictures of the floor, the wall and the scenery without them on it. The photo of this post for example was shot on my old balcony during a bbq session – perfect for various uses, don’t you think?

So go out and take the lens cap off (as they say in the TWIP Podcast)

Facebook has with its over 500 million Users a nice potential readership if you (or your client) plan to start a blog or website. To publish a Facebook page you just need a few clicks and the tools offered (for the one who likes to learn FBML – the Facebook Markup Language) are not too bad – especially the feature that people who “like” your page get automatically updates is compelling. The design is given by Facebook and if you (or your client)  just want to get the “message” to your readers you might don’t care as much. But wait, here are a few aspects to consider before you put your effort into a Facebook page:

• Facebook can disable pages at will – its their platform
• The content is not yours once posted on Facebook – they can use it as well and at will
• You cannot export the contents in a convenient manner (you are locked in)
• Your can never turn your page into a business
• Facebook shows advertising on your page
• You are tied to facebook – bad reputation can backlash on you
• Facebook is seen as a private space (lol) and not as a serious place

These are a few aspects – there are for sure many more. But there are good arguments for having a Facebook page as a promotional tool for your website. You can boost the number of visitors to your site through Facebook pages. Here are some resources I’ve found helpful and inspirational.

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/07/designing-a-facebook-fan-page-showcases-tutorials-resources/
• http://designm.ag/design/designing-a-facebook-landing-page-12-of-the-best/
• http://icetemplates.com/blog/134/absolutely-free-cool-facebook-template/

Foto by Ray-Franco Bouly

How many times have you looked at your website and wanted to do an complete redesign? And how many times you said, ok I do it next month when I’m less busier. The truth is, that we just keep postponing the redesign and don’t do anything. But maybe just a little evolution and some small tweaking would do the job and would improve the website. How to decide if you need a complete new design or just some improvement? Here some questions to ask yourself and if you answer the majority with yes you need a complete overhaul.

Is your webdesign “trendy”?

Design is like fashion, there are trends. And the bigger trends of the last couple of years have been grunge, comics, <insert other trend here>. The beauty of the internet is, that it’s evolving fast. But just like in fashion, your site can look old fashioned in a blast. So if you don’t plan to renew the site design every year or so don’t get too trendy on your next design. And if your design is trendy now, get on to the next trend – sustainable web design.

Are you changing (or need to change) your website technology?

You are on a self hosted wordpress installation and want to switch over to a tumblr blog or get over to squarespace to not have to deal with updates and servers any more? It’s a good time for a redesign. You spend as much time to recreate your website on the new services as redoing the whole design. It can be evolutionary at large but take this opportunity.

Is your website  just in Flash?

While I’m not a Flash hater and I see many uses of Flash in the real world that make sense, I cannot see the point of having a complete site in Flash anymore. It’s not even ok for “business card” sites with no content and who don’t want to get found in the search engine except for your local pizzeria which name you know but not the telephone number. Many of this businesses want something “flashy” and don’t mind the technology. It’s easier for a designer to please them with a nice Flash animation – and often it’s also quicker to do a Flash site, but you will get in trouble when mobile gets more important and the sites won’t work correctly. So I hope that with the advent of HTML 5 we will get rid of these problems – but if you want to prepare yourself now, get rid of Flash.

Evolution is better

I just picked three questions for the revolution section because there are not many reasons to do complete redesigns. Many times small improvements can have a big impact and help your site. Big sites like Amazon and Wikipedia have gone a radical redesign if you compare them to 5 years ago, but the steps where small. One by one. Testing and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Is learning from nature – making a lot of small variations to experiment what works best costs less “energy” that redoing everything from scratch. The are some instances where your have to revolutionize – but more often than not, evolution beats revolution.

Image courtesy of StePagna

Next up in the series of font alternatives for popular fonts is Thesis – or better known as TheSans, TheSerif, TheMix, TheSans Mono. I’ve found 7 interesting alternatives – from huge and expensive to very big and resonable priced.
Thesis is maybe one of the most used font systems in the world. Most non graphic designers don’t recognize it, but be assured it is used a lot. I’m speaking about a font system because the variety Thesis offers is almost uncompared. I like to use it especially in corporate design for corporations with many different departments as I can use different speciments for different resorts.

But if you are sick of using Thesis I have here quite a few alternatives for you.

Top Alternatives

• Compatil (www.linotype.com)
  
• Fedra from (www.typotheque.com)
  

Runners up

• Leitura (www.dstype.com)
  
• Absara (www.fontshop.de)
  
• Generis (www.linotype.com)
  
• Nexus (www.fontshop.de)
  
• United (find it at www.houseind.com)
  

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005. Inspiring and worth 15 minutes

The font DIN typeface family is inspired by the classic industrial German engineering designs, DIN 1451 Engschrift and DIN 1451 Mittelschrift. This font comes since 1995 from two different foundries. While Linotype has the original designs Fontshop made their interpretation with the aid of Albert-Jan Pool under the name FF DIN. FF DIN became quite popular because it had a few more widths and was optimized for graphic design.

Linotype on the other hand just launched their new DIN interpretation called DIN Next under the direction of Akira Kobayashi. In this new interpretation you find 25 fonts and 7 weights. An impressive re-work with many additional features. Find out more on the official website of Linotype.

While this are good news in the tradition of this series I’ve looked around the foundries to find some other alternatives and found some interesting ones. So enjoy.

DIN

from Linotype (www.linotype.com)

Top Alternatives

• Konsens (www.hubertjocham.de)
  
• Gotham (www.typography.com)
  

Runners up

• T-Star (www.gestalten.com)
  
• Flama (www.vllg.com)
  
• Apex Sans (www.vllg.com)
  
• FF Utility (www.fontshop.de)
  
• Brauer Neue (www.lineto.com)
  
• FF Netto (www.fontshop.de)
  
• Notes (www.primetype.com)
  

How storytelling improves corporate publishing

Why more and more companies choose to publish their own magazine is a wider topic I will cover in a future post. I will start my new series about corporate publishing by demystifying a myth – corporate publishing is boring. I will show you in this lesson how you can make a graphically stunning article about the introduction of a new window hardware product line by telling a story.

The Briefing

The goal of the article was to inform the clients of the product line – in this market new product lines come every 10 years and therefore it’s big news. On the other side it was important that the client doesn’t get the feeling that he has to switch to the new hardware immediately (meaning a big investment for new tools etc.) and that the existing line will continue to exist.

You see, the difficulty is to push a new product without saying “the old product is crap, get the new one”.

The Idea

To make a graphically great article you have to get a good written article beforehand. If the copywriter knows how you want to “show” the reader the content of the article he can adjust the tone to get graphical interpretation and contents in harmony.

In this case we opted to split the article into a introduction part and a technical descriptive part. The basic idea for the introduction part was “alternation of generations”. A kind of father and son story where the new product line was the son and the old one the father.

In the introduction the article show the reader how window hardware evolved from the medieval times until now. In the second part of the article we just made a showcase of the new hardware pointing out the new highlights without comparing it to the old one. The basic claim here was “We maintained the good stuff and added something new”

The graphical concept

In the graphical concept I thought it would be a nice setting if we let the reader explore the history just like if he was looking at the “window hardware family photo album”. In a family photo album you collect memorable events and pictures of the children. In this case I combined photos of various times with pictures from the different window hardware parts.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

As you can see in the first spread the hardware is nowhere to see, just pictures of a father with his son and some old photos. It was important that the pictures showed only well known Italian places as the magazine aims for the Italian market. I created a real set, simulating that the photo album and the photos lie on a desk and the coffee mug give you the impression that you, the reader are sitting at the desk looking this photos.

The text talks about the new hardware, but gives much emphasis to the whole “generation” concept.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

In the second spread we get more technical. The photo album is gone and there is a writing machine and an old camera along with the pictures showing some old windows and some family and car shots from the 70s. To push the concept even more the frames of the photos change with the time they represent. The older ones have the scrambled edges in the 70s they become Polaroids and later one, the just get a nice white border (as it is in fashion today). I’ve put also an old catalog of the company publishing this magazine because it combined two facts. First it shows the ancestor of the modern windows and with the cover you see that the company introduced this revolution in window technology in 1968.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Revolution in some kind of way is the main theme on the third spread. We moved ahead in time and there is now to see an computer and a mouse. We are close to our present days and just like the fall of the wall in Berlin and the technically revolutionary architecture of Norman Foster the first photo of the new hardware is shown. The concept is now clear to everybody and the certificates for the new hardware are important for the reader and are mentioned in the text, so why not put them here, as some sheets of paper on a desk look quite natural.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

I just show here one showcase spreads to let you see how radical the cut between the introduction and the actual product presentation is. Every spread looks more or less (graphically speaking) the same. We have the background where you can see the window as a whole and details of the new enhancements.

And the lesson is

The importance of a good storyline is obvious to catch the attention of the reader. The layout and design can help telling this story and in combination with the text you can bring the message to the reader in a stronger way. Don’t limit yourself even when the facts you have to deliver seem dull or not exciting. Setup a story and embed the facts. The reader will benefit and you will have more fun designing.

Picture by Marta Potoczek

In the last couple of month I’ve attended to a few workshops related to the new tools we are going to use in our marketing departments. Let me share my thoughts about why workshops are important.

The two main tools I’m talking of is the DAM (digital asset management) and a translation management and approval system based on a indesign workflow (very handy if you manage publications in 32 languages). I know both systems already because I was one of the initiators of the group wide projects and because I tested them before choosing the solutions. This enables me to have quite some notion of “how to do things” with the software. But this does not mean that I already now the fastest way, or the most effective or future proof way to do it.

It’s much like when you learn Photoshop or Indesign. There are many ways to get results, but you might not figure out the best way by yourself. I’ve expected to get from the software vendors some advice, some “best practices” as they are called, what is the most effective way to get your taxonomy (keywords and structures) right and what are good workflows to follow. They should know as they see what theyre clients are doing and what works well and what not. But this was obviously not the case. You get the usual “Every firm has it’s own way to do things.” and “Our system is so flexible that it can be customized and setup to your needs.” This might be true, but if I just match my current workflow I could miss some great improvements or even worse, I discover later on, that if I structured the system or prepared the documents a little bit different in the first place I would get much more out of it. Nobody starts over such a project without a bad need. I hope, that with the spreading of this kind of systems there will be more user groups and tutorials to help firms setup their DAMs, in the meantime I will stick to this subject and bring my experiences.

Foto by foreverdigital

Back again with some more alternative fonts for your graphic design pleasure. This time I want to show you some very fresh fonts, none of the presented fonts are designed prior to 1999. This is partly because Interstate itself is quite new (1993) and it would be strange if I found an alternative that is older than the original. A bit of history – Interstate is based on the font used by the Federal Highway Administration and was one of the most popular typefaces in the 90s. Used often for corporate design and quite flexible enough for a broad range of “topics”. Enough bla bla, lets get started.

Interstate

Top Alternatives

• Proxima  Nova (www.fontshop.de)
  
• Stag Sans (www.vllg.com)
  

Runners up

• Voice (www.hubertjocham.de)
  
• Ministry (www.fontshop.de)
  
• Parisine (www.typofonderie.com)
  
• Skopex Gothic (www.primetype.com)
  
• Reykjavik (www.psyops.com)
  
• ITC Conduit (www.linotype.com)
  

You ever wondered why some magazines appeal you more than others? One thing you rarely been teached is how to do appealing covers. Even when you are in corporate publishing and layout the corporate news magazine having a nice cover is good. Besides the text layout having an appealing foto is key. But not every photo does the same good job. Here a few examples and why they work.

Working well

This cover works quite well. The copy and the photography are nice and complement (showing water and the title says “everything flows”). The colors harmonize and it gives the whole a high quality look.

Working better – with a human

Same as the previous the copy and concept expressed by the picture work together. But this covers has a higher appeal because there is a human being. We are hardwired to watch at other humans, so if you compare a picture with a human and one without a human the later will before appealing.

Working best – right into the eye

To do a cover with even more appeal you have to not only show a human, but to show a human eye. Even better when the eye is in the face of a human Humans do not only seek for humans in pictures, they actually seek for the eye to make “contact” with the human portrayed. If you show a human watching in direction of the viewer this connection can be made and it is much more likely that the prospect reader will grab the magazine and have a look.

On a newsstand obviously nearly every magazine nowadays portraits humans facing the reader so the effect is minimized, but the same effect is also true for covers of brochures, web pages etc. By knowing this you can steer the concept of the cover page towards showing humans facing the reader.

Pentagram, a historic graphic design firm is releasing a new book. It will cover 400 logotypes and symbols made by Pentagram from the 1960s until now on over 800 pages. Neddles to say that this is a must for every serious graphic designer and a top inspiration source.

And if you preorder it now you can save 37% off the retail price. So get yours now.

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Let’s get fashionable. Gill Sans is for sure one of the most used fonts for corporate design in the fashion industry. Whe a brand claims elegance and self confidence this font is a sure shot. But with the wide use (since Mac OSX it’s even a standard system font) one brand looks like another, so let’s get some alternatives.

Gill Sans

from Monotype (www.fonts.com)

Top Alternatives

• FS Ingrid (www.fontsmith.com)
  
• Priori Sans (www.emigre.com)
  

Runners up

• Bree (www.type-together.com)
  
• DTL Prokyon (www.dutchtypelibrary.com)
  
• FF Milo (www.fontshop.de)
  
• DTL Argo (www.dutchtypelibrary.com)
  
• Whitney (www.typography.com)
  
• Bliss (www.typography.net)
  
• Auto (www.underware.nl)
  

Serj asked me in a mail if I could list some books about graphic design theory. The amount of books on the market is astounding these days and I understand that surfing through the internet, with its wast resources, tutorials and inspirational site,  its good to have the foundation to build on. Most of the theoretical stuff is normally taught in design schools and most of the books I will recommend are used in this context.

The list

Many are not fancy or new, but the principles of graphic design still apply (just think about the bible printed by Gutenberg, is still considered one of the best justified text layout on the world). So lets get to the list – just a last word, I only recommend books I own or have read, so this list its genuine.

[asa_collection]Basic_Theory[/asa_collection]

You want something more efficient than brain storming? The results of brain storming are not satisfying? You want alternatives where you can get great results with the least effort. Guerilla fighters are known for having a great impact without huge investments in humans or weaponry. I translated this concept into my guerilla alternatives to brain storming.

Steal

Get as many Design Annuals, Award Books and other resources with great designs. Many graphic designers say that they are inspired by them, I go further – steal the design. There is just one important rule – Don’t steal the design of a related topic. If you have to do a website for a lawyer, don’t steal a design from a lawyer website. Steal the design from another branch and adapt it to your client. In this process (changing the colors, adding the content, add and detract elements) you will create a unique design. You see its inspiration with a touch of honesty.

Combine

Very often you will get more than one job by one client the same time. They are treated as separated projects with no connection one to another. Some smaller, some bigger. Especially for the smaller ones its difficult to come up with something new – the lack of content and uniqueness to the project is often the cause. By trying to combine them into a bigger whole you can gain deepness and have a bigger base upon creating something unique. For example you have to do a key ring as gadget for the company, a two brochures for two different products and an advertising for one of the products. Combine them together to find out if there is a common reason why the company released this new products. You bundle it into a campaign so to speak and find one idea you can use on all formats. The company made this products to help workers with their job? Good, your campaign will state: “company X helps you do your job” and the products are the proof that the statement is true. Reuse this on the key ring and the advertising (you can make 2 since most of the work is already done). Instead of four projects you did the job on one, this is what I call efficient.

Improve the strengths

As with the precious technique this works best when you realize that the briefing if too thin or the content is not suitable for the project goal. If your client isn’t capable or willing to provide you with more substance for the lacking points, then focus on the strengths. If the text for example is not written well, but the pictures are great, focus on the pictures, make them stand out – add graphical elements to enforce the message you think should be transmitted. The text must be there and readable, but don’t let it stand out. Vice versa when the text is ok, but the pictures are awful (believe me, you will have to deal more with this cases). Many successful sportsman succeeded by improving the things they can best and dealing with less effort where they lacked. For example, if you take two boxers or fighters. One has a great defense but lacks in offence, the other is in both attack and defense good. The first doesn’t gain much if he improves the offence. If he gets an even better defense, the opponent has no chance to hit him, he will get tired and his defense will be low enough for the other fighter to strike the winning point.

Invert

Not everything from your briefing can be inverted, but most factors can. If they tell you to make one big brochure with everything in it, split it. Don’t invert the content but the physical aspects. This is very powerful when the content is already ready and the form is practically fixed in the briefing. The content may be suited for the form stated in the briefing, but if you have to make it work in another format you find creative solutions automatically by solving this problem.

Reject

Get a feeling if the briefing is too fuzzy, lacks information and whatever you do, the client will make corrections to a point, where he did the design and not you. Reject this jobs. Explain to you client why you reject it and decide with him if he wants to redo the briefing, drops the project or if he has to look for someone else. You often save more and money if you reject a project, then doing a sloppy or low quality work. If you can explain your reasons (politely, you will never call a client an idiot) it will actually gain respect and increase your value. Remember, you are evaluated by future clients by the results of prior projects – a future client isn’t interested in phrases like “the other client wanted it like this”, he just sees the bad design.

People getting to work in the creative business often don’t are aware of how many times they must come up with an idea for a project. No matter how big or small a job is there is some creativity involved. Most people think that creativity is some magical thing that creative people have, and others don’t – the ideas come naturally from somewhere inside of their mind. But how can anyone relay on something magical to do business. And how can you avoid having a stall? Here some insights and tips.

Creativity is not about inventing things

First of all, what is creativity? We consider that something is creative if we haven’t seen anything like it before. But if we have a closer look we might say better – We consider something creative if no one before has thought doing it this way. This difference is important – it reframes the mindset. It means that some really creative can be achieved by using things and techniques already “invented” and use them in a different context. So you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but you can use it a way nobody else has used it before.

A very nice example is the work of a graphic design graduate. She made a small book with poems – the theme of the poems was about traditional living in the mountains. There is an old embroidery-culture bound to this living and so she didn’t “print” the book, but she had the text be stitched on cotton and cord the cotton-pages together. It looked like a book and it worked like a book, but it was different. Neither the stitching, the cotton, the book form where invented by he. Even stitching text on cotton is nothing new, but bringing it together to form a book was the creative act.

Creativity is not an coincidence

If we convey, that creativity is bringing together existing things to form something new, then we have to know the existence of the “things”. If you are interested in a broad range of topics you will have not many problems finding techniques, materials, styles, knowledge from different cultures together. If you are just interested in product design, graphic design, illustration, photography or something else specific you may be the best technically speaking, but you will lack on real creativity. You might have heard about the famous “Get a life!” spoken by William Shattner at a Star Trek convention to the attending crowd. It meant getting out of the narrow perspective of a geek into the interesting broadness of life. Now I tell you “Get interested in everything!” – You don’t have to know everything exactly about everything, but try to know that it’s there. You never know if the way a certain flower looks like or how handcrafted wheels where made will be useful to you in the future, but if you know that there was a special technique behind the wheel making you might apply it to making a mailing out of paper.

The pool of knowledge you gather this way can then “on demand” be accessed through the various creativity techniques. Brain Storming, Leathering, Mind Mapping are just tools. You need raw material to build something and in the creative business the raw materials are all around you. So collect them and use them.

In the next part I will tell you how to use and collect this ideas in an art director way.

Getting inspiration from nicely designed magazines and books is common habit for graphic designers and art directors. But buying all this stuff is expensive and when you are still a student or in early working years you might not have the financial resources to afford them. Public libraries normally don’t have many magazines you want to use as a inspiration – and most of all you won’t find many international design magazines. So where to find online access to international design magazines for free.

The internet is a great resource for inspiration, but screen design follows other rules than print. But now you can go to Issuu – You might already read about it as the best PDF online viewer – and it sure is – but it is also an online library with a massive collection of design magazines. They have a category called “Visual Inspiration” – exactly what you want. Really neat so check it out.

Here is an example of a publication I’ve found there.

Presenting the ideas you develop to a big audience in most cases is a pain. Most of the time the layouts you make (unless they are screen-designs) don’t feel right, you cannot go through the pages of a folder for example. Therefore is even more important that you engage your audience. Same thing for powerpoint presentation you get to pimp. The most of time are just plain awfull. The following book gives you in an easy and understandable language the basics on how to structure presentations, not just powerpoint. It’s caled “PresentationZen” by Garr Reynolds and a foreword from Guy Kawasaki. Don’t get fooled by the title – it’s nothing esoteric. It helps you bring your audience to go out of the presentation wanting for more. It also helps you to guide the authors of the powerpoints, if you are just the one who overhauls them, to get you better material to work beforehand.

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I use this approach with quite some success, by getting into the process of structuring a presentation right when the authors has his material togheter. This is even before they make their manuscript. Try it – it’s just a few bucks investet in the right place.