idsgn (a design blog): Design and branding news

Design School Confidential

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Looking back, many designers fondly remember a particular class project that helped build their first portfolio. Design School Confidential is a new book that attempts to showcase these ‘extraordinary’ class projects, compiled from design schools around the world.

Curated by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico, over fifty international art and design teachers were asked to present their most interesting or challenging class projects. The result is 200 pages of fresh ideas—some inspiring, some forgettable, but all lending to an accurate overview of the work coming out of top design schools from Chicago to Seoul.

What can we learn from these projects? Aside from seeking fluency and expertise, the teachers are attempting to instill as sense of wonder in their students, and the students are trying to use their design talents to convey narratives as well to explore forms that they will use later in their careers.

A few of our favorite projects:

Helvetica Nation, Maryland Institute College of Art (Maryland, United States)
Students were asked to create a set of icons using only the typeface Helvetica Bold and Illustrator’s knife tool (no scaling or skewing allowed). Icons pictured above by Alex Roultette (left).

Development of Type Families for Magazines, Senac University Center (São Paulo, Brazil)
Students were given real magazines and ask to design typefaces that were not only original, but also technically and aesthetically sound. Vazari Sans family, pictured above, by Marcela C. Santaella Mamede (Regular), Irina Serrano (Bold), and Felipe Zveibil Fisman (Italic, kindly available for free download).

What Happened? School of Visual Arts (New York, United States)
Students were asked to select a period in their lives and tell the story using traditional information design, without any decorative illustration of any kind. Above infographic by SVA student Lesley Weiner.

Product Design, Alberta College of Art and Design (Calgary, Canada)
This project asked students to create a powerful and memorable identity system for a hypothetical product, featuring work (above) by our own Josh Smith, a contributing writer at idsgn (so we may be a bit biased on this one).

Do you have a favorite class project?

Dig up your old portfolio and share your link in the comments below. Design School Confidential is available now in bookstores and Amazon.

New wings for Chrysler

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Following a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, all-time low sales, and a new partnership with Italian automaker Fiat, it comes as no surprise that Chrysler wants to reinvent itself.

Yesterday the new Fiat-directed Chrysler Group unveiled its long-awaited 5-year business plan, announcing a plan to sell smaller Fiat-designed vehicles and pay back billions in U.S. bailout loans by 2014. The 7-hour marathon press conference also featured a presentation (PDF) on the Chrysler brand by marketing chief Oliver Francois, which introduced a new logo for the struggling car manufacturer.

Chrysler seen from a different perspective (Source: Oliver Francois, Chrysler)

The new logo was leaked earlier in the week after its U.S. trademark application (originally submitted in July) was spotted online. Clearing up media speculation in the presentation, the new logo will be featured on all Chrysler-branded vehicles, but not replace the logo of the corporate logo of the parent company (which will retain the Pentastar logo). Chrysler also announced its intention to do a ‘complete overhaul’ of its Dodge brand by mid-2010.

The new logo appears to be a heavily streamlined take on the previous winged logo, which has adorned Chrysler vehicles since the late 1990s. While I’m sure it’s the intention of a company billions of dollars in debt to look ‘streamlined,’ it goes too far, creating a strangely wide shape (which almost feels like its been run over by a car). The odd size also renders the tiny wordmark featured in the center of the logo illegible. Although, judging from the proposed website design (below), it looks like the Chrysler wordmark will be repeated again below the logo in some cases (another issue).

Proposed marketing vision for the new Chrysler website in 2010 (Source: Oliver Francois, Chrysler)

Chrysler branding, a brief history

Top: Medallion (1925) and variations (1947); Middle: Forward Look (1955), Pentastar (1962); Bottom: Winged medallion (1998), Pentastar revival (2007)

Chrysler has seen their fair share of logo redesigns since the company's inception, beginning in 1925 with their classic medallion logo. Variations of the logo followed until 1955 when Virgil Exner’s “Forward Look” redesign took Chrysler into the future, dropping the medallion in favor of space age arrows. By 1962, the company adopted the Pentastar which soon became their most recognizable mark. The original medallion logo was later revived in 1996 and sprouted a pair of silver wings after the Dailmer-Benz merger two years later. The winged logo can be seen on Chrysler vehicles made from 1998-2009, while the a new metallic Pentastar was revived in 2007 to become company’s corporate logo.

With recent reports of Ford making a profit, perhaps Chrysler has a chance to turn things around—but it’s going to take a lot more than this new logo.

Thirty Conversations on Design

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Thirty Conversations on Design is a collection of thoughts from 30 inspired designers, authors, and creative professionals.

Releasing the conversations in groups of 10, the project’s initial offering features insight from Erik Spiekermann, Ellen Lupton, Massimo Vignelli, Paula Scher, among others. The project, created by Minneapolis-based design firm Little & Company, asks participants two simple questions: “What single example of design inspires you most?” and “What problem should design solve next?”

Some interesting insight on the ‘green design’ trend by architect Edwin Chan (Gehry Partners):

As designers today, we should address the problem of how to reconcile our own survival on the planet with the quality of life we’ve been accustomed to. Nowadays there are a lot of talk or rhetoric out there about ‘green design’ or being ecologically conscious. Frankly speaking, I think that’s a lot of bullshit. In fact, it’s a little bit of a fad. There’s always been talk about [designing] energy conscious since the ’60s, and to me the current trend is just a rehash of what’s been good design all along.

Massimo Vignelli (Vignelli Associates) says to design for the people:

We really have to define what people need rather than what people want, which was what was done before by marketing. Marketing was looking for what people want—people do not know what they want… Design has to be more responsible to towards design itself, towards the user, and towards society.

Check out upcoming conversations throughout November with Chip Kidd, Debbie Millman, and others at Thirty Conversations on Design.

Parallels: Fizzers, Rockets, and Smarties

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

It’s almost Halloween and no trick-or-treat bag is complete without a twisty, colorful roll of (depending where you call home) Smarties, Fizzers, or Rockets.

Admittedly not one of my most favorites, the chalky pastel-colored candy could usually be found near the bottom of my treat bag. Weeks after Halloween they would remain next to the yellow lollipops, little boxes of raisins, and—the worst offender—the rock-hard, black-and-orange wrapped molasses candies (an oddity of growing up in Canada).

Whatever name you know them by, they are essentially the same rolled-up tablets which originated as Fizzers. The candy was first created in the 1930’s by British confectioners Swizzels Matlow (made famous for their Love Hearts) and are still sold in the United Kingdom and Australia under that name.

L-R: Smarties (Photo: J. Smith, Wikipedia), Fizzers (Photo: Retro Tuck Shop), Rockets (Photo: Danielle Scott, Flickr)

The fizzy candy first arrived in the North America in 1949 when the brother of a Swizzles Matlow partner came to the United States and started the Ce De Candy company. Smarties, as they became known in the U.S., are also manufactured and sold in Canada by the same company. But not as Smarties…

Where Smarties are not Smarties

To the rest of the world Smarties means chocolate (and depending who you ask, a more favorable Halloween treat). Similar to plain M&M’s, Nestlé Smarties were first sold in England as “Chocolate Beans” in the 1880’s before adopting the “Smarties” name in 1937. The equally colorful candy is popular in the UK, Germany, Australia, South Africa and Canada—where it’s common to eat the red ones last.

Above: Canadian Smarties packaging (Photo: pollyalida, Flickr); Below: Comparing M&Ms (left) with British Smarties (Photo: fritish, Flickr)

So, to avoid confusion (and lawsuits) Canadians have the nearly identically packaged Rockets instead—and Americans, unfortunately, miss out on the chocolate variety.

Timeless fizz

60 years after its introduction in North America, Smarties and Rockets are still instantly recognizable. With its timeless packaging and Tuscan-style slab serif type, it has gone mostly unchanged for decades… except as designer Rob Giampietro points out:

Today’s Smarties differ in one unfortunate respect: they depict the package on the package itself. Maybe it’s a symptom of our meta-obsessed times, or maybe it’s a fear of pure abstraction, but this minor graphic revision leaves the prospective Smarties consumer feeling a bit of the Dröste Effect…

In North America, Ce De Candy currently sells an astonishing 2.5 billion rolls of the candy per year—proving that kids today are still addicted.

Also see:

Parallels: Krispies & Bubbles

Is the end of GeoCities the end of bad web design?

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

After Yahoo pulled the plug on GeoCities this week, millions of horribly designed websites are gone. It’s the end of an era, but it’s an eyesore we could stand to lose.

I remember creating one of my first websites on GeoCities in the mid-90’s. Making myself a home on the “SunsetStrip,” the website likely remained untouched for more than a decade—like an embarrassing time capsule filled with animated GIFs, tiled backgrounds, and (of course) Comic Sans.

Once the third most popular destination on the web, GeoCities was shut down on Monday due to lack of interest as users move to social networks. For the nostalgic, we can rely on the Wayback Machine, and a new initiative called Reocities which is mirroring a substantial portion of what was left (in case you want a second chance to join Simsponaholics Anonymous, read Dan’s Guitar Stuff, or find out about this new thing called Google—all found randomly via Reocities).

So does this mean we’ll stop seeing Comic Sans on the web? Unfortunately, it looks like MySpace has taken over that domain for now. But with the growing popularity of sites like Facebook and Twitter which focus on content over flair, it looks like a step in the right direction.

Art vs. Advertising

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Over the weekend a group of artists took to the streets of Manhattan, in a battle of art and advertising.

According to the Public Ad Campaign group, there are over 500 ‘illegal’ street-level billboards around New York City, covered with unauthorized wheat-pasted advertising. Participating in an a second round of ‘New York Street Advertising Take Over’ (NYSAT2), the group attempted to reclaim the public space on Sunday, white-washing and creating art over more than 100 of the billboards.

However, the white-washed ads were quickly recovered by workers for NPA Wildposting (a firm who pasted the advertisements to begin with)—with ownership going back and forth throughout the day in what the New York Times calls “a bizarre cat-and-mouse game,” which eventually led to five arrests.

“Despite intense NPA harassment and a major police crackdown… it seems that every artist had the chance to at least get their work up for a few hours. Unfortunately, NPA made a tremendous effort to reclaim all of their space so I think it is safe to say that nothing has lasted into this morning,” said Gaia (one of the group’s participants) on Monday.

It is unclear whether the billboards are, in fact, illegal as the group claims, but here is some of what was seen (for a brief period of time) around the city:

For more see Animal and Unurth.

Save your logo

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cats, deer, monkeys, bats, birds… a variety of species can be found on many of the world’s most recognizable logos. Save Your Logo is a global initiative aimed at these brands as a way to give back to their beloved creatures.

Backed by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the World Bank, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the French-based Save Your Logo was founded to support the biodiversity of the plants and animals represented on logos across the world. The initiative also focuses on education and community engagement in efforts to help preserve a healthy planet.

Clothing company Lacoste, whose iconic crocodile logo has adorned tennis shirts for over 80 years, is one of the first companies to embrace the initiative. The brand will actively support projects selected by the program to “safeguard or protect endangered crocodile, alligator, caiman or gavial species, whose loss would jeopardize the biological balance of their natural habitats.”

Advertising campaign announcing Lacoste’s Save Your Logo initiative.

In 1927 when René Lacoste chose the crocodile as his emblem, he hadn't imagined that 80 years later millions of people would bear this logo. He hadn’t imagined either that the crocodile would be threatened to disappear one day. Today, within the Save Your Logo initiative, Lacoste commits itself to…the preservation of Earth biodiversity.

French insurance company MAAF and ski resort Val d'Isère have recently signed on to protect the dolphin and eagle, respectively.

Hopefully we’ll be seeing many more companies join the program.

iDon’t play nice

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

After what looks like the end of a possible friendship, Verizon Wireless picks a fight with the immensely popular Apple iPhone.

Premiering over the weekend, a hostile new television spot from Verizon hinted at the upcoming launch of the Motorola Droid, a new smartphone running Google’s Android. From the minimalist typography to the folksy music, the 30-second ad mocks Apple’s familiar commercials—focusing on the shortcomings of a device that’s been dubbed the ‘Jesus Phone’…

iDon’t have have a real keyboard, iDon’t run simultaneous apps, iDon’t take 5-megapixel pictures, iDon’t customize, iDon’t run widgets, iDon’t allow open development, iDon’t take pictures in the dark, iDont’t have interchangeable batteries…

Everything iDon’t… Droid Does.

With over 20 million iPhones sold worldwide, its no doubt Verizon is bitter over AT&T’s exclusivity in the United States. Earlier this month, Verizon also directly attacked AT&T’s network in a parody of Apple’s “There’s an app for that” commercials:

While it’s sure to hurt Verizon’s chances of ever getting the iPhone on their network, Apple shouldn’t complain—they are no stranger to mocking the competition.

UPDATE: Things just got a little more nasty. AT&T sues Verizon over the “There’s a map for that” TV spot (above), claiming the maps shown in the ad misrepresent actual service coverage (Nov 4, 2009).

In essence, we believe the ads mislead consumers into believing that AT&T doesn't offer ANY wireless service in the vast majority of the country. In fact, AT&T's wireless network blankets the US, reaching approximately 296M people. Additionally, our 3G service is available in over 9,600 cities and towns. Verizon's misleading advertising tactics appear to be a response to AT&T's strong leadership in smartphones…

-AT&T statement, via Engadget

The Fun Theory

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

How can you encourage people to recycle more? A new campaign from Volkswagen says: make it fun.

With the notion “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better,” The Fun Theory is a campaign by ad agency DDB Stockholm for Volkswagen Sweden that has people opting to do good in a series of public experiments. Its most recent turns an ordinary recycling bin into a “Bottle Bank Arcade,” giving people points and making a typically mundane task seem more like a video game.

Over one evening, our bottle bank arcade was used by nearly one hundred people… During the same period, the nearby conventional bottle bank was used twice.

In another experiment, a set of stairs in a Stockholm subway station was turned into a larger-than-life piano to see if people would take them over an adjacent escalator:

But its only a start, Volkswagen wants you to get involved and think of a way to improve things. A competition is open to all until November 15th, with the best entry winning €2500 and the top 10 entries going on display in Stockholm this winter.

See more experiments at Thefuntheory.com.

Crowdsourced branding, a disaster for Kraft?

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

When Kraft launched a spin-off of their uniquely Australian Vegemite spread, they turned to consumers for a name… and it was dropped four days later. Last week another name was announced, can Kraft make it right this time?

The year was 1923 when chemist Cyril Callister took out a newspaper ad announcing his new food invention, a salty yeast extract spread made from the by-products of beer manufacturing, and a £50 award for the best name. Similar to the British Marmite, the sticky brown paste has become a staple in the country, selling more than 22 million jars per year. Over 85 years later, Kraft Foods followed Callister’s plan to name a new milder variation—a Vegemite and cream cheese blend—with much less fanfare.

“Now all it needs is a name,” Kraft launched the new product with a TV commercial by JWT Australia.

iSnack 2.0

Kraft Foods launched an Australia-wide contest in June 2009, putting the product on grocery shelves with special “Name Me” packaging. Over 48,000 entries came in across the country during the three-month contest, (somehow) resulting in the name ‘iSnack 2.0.’

Announced September 26th during the 2009 Australian Football League Grand Final, the name was chosen by a panel of marketing and communication experts in an effort to market the longtime staple to the younger ‘iPod’ generation. Replacing the temporary packaging, the new labels were printed with the tagline: “iSnack 2.0, because it's the next generation Vegemite.”

The name was coined by Dean Robbins, a 27-year-old web designer:

It was all a bit tongue-in-cheek really, the ‘i’ phenomenon and Web 2.0 have been recent revolutions, and I thought the new Vegemite name could do the same.

Left: Original Vegemite spread (Photo: StephenMitchell, Flickr); Right: Packaging for iSnack 2.0 and the “Name Me” contest (Photo: avlxyz, Flickr)

Cheesybite, Vegefail

Within days, criticism was heard all over Australia, especially among the product’s tech-savvy target market who took to YouTube and Twitter (making #Vegefail a trending topic). “The new name has simply not resonated with Australians. Particularly the modern technical aspects associated with it,” Kraft said in a statement on September 30th. The controversial name was discontinued only four days after its launch.

Our Kraft Foods storeroom currently has thousands of jars of the iSnack 2.0 named Vegemite. This product will be distributed around Australia, and will continue to be sold in supermarkets for months to come – until Australia decides upon a new name.

Nameless once again, Kraft scrambled to short-list another six names and let the public decide. Polling more than 30,000 people, Kraft announced the product’s newest name on October 7th: ‘Vegemite Cheesybite,’ which captured 36% of the votes (although many chose ‘none of the above’ and were not included in the vote).

Left: Vegemite Cheesybite, Kraft’s third and (hopefully) last packaging for the new product; Right: Results from Kraft’s survey

The name ‘Cheesymite’ was never considered, due to its popular use for another cheesy Vegemite-based snack in Australia and New Zealand. However it has been reported the name Cheesybite might come with its own legal can of worms (just what they need).

The new Cheesybite jars will replace the iSnack variation in the coming months.

What does this say about the brand?

Kraft assures us this is not a publicity stunt, “We are proud custodians of Vegemite and have always been aware that it is the people's brand and a national icon.” Regardless, the publicity has the remaining iSnack-branded jars flying off grocery shelves and making their way onto eBay as “rare collector’s items.”

Some have said this incident has damaged the Vegemite brand in Australia. No one can deny iSnack 2.0 was a terrible choice—it says nothing about the product, and even the thought of it makes anyone who’s ever used an iPod roll their eyes (who were these marketing “experts” that handpicked the name from over 48,000 entries, anyway?).

But after all this, one thing is very clear: Australians are passionate about the Vegemite brand (and that’s what every brand wants).

Designing Obama

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

A new book entitled Designing Obama will showcase works from artists who contributed to the historic 2008 presidential campaign (…but only if you are interested).

The Obama ’08 campaign was groundbreaking in many ways, but particularly in its use of art and design. Focusing on this aspect, Scott Thomas, Design Director of the campaign, has collaborated with dozens of artists and designers for Designing Obama. The 360-page book is full of artwork created (both officially and unofficially) during the campaign, along with forewords written by Steven Heller and Michael Bierut.

Perhaps most interesting is the book’s Obama-inspired, grassroots publishing model. Using the new ‘funding platform’ Kickstarter—a website that lets people invest as little as one dollar in any kind of project—Designing Obama must raise at least $65,000 by November 5th in order to see the light of day:

The Obama campaign was successful because it was powered by small donations from supporters. We believe this is the right model for things other than political campaigns, so to fund Designing Obama, we have teamed with Kickstarter, whose mission it is to assist the funding of creative ideas and endeavors. We believe the Obama-like fundraising model is the perfect way to ensure the book's integrity and quality.

As of today, $45,450 has been raised (but time is ticking with only a few weeks left to raise the remaining $19,550). Watch the video above for more information, and to show your support visit Kickstarter.

UDPATE: Not only did Designing Obama reach the fundraising goal of $65,000, they exceeded it by almost $20,000 in pledges. The book can be pre-ordered at designing-obama.com.

What book designers think of the Amazon Kindle

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Book cover designer Charles Brock ‘breaks’ it down for us during the first day of AIGA’s Make/Think conference in Memphis.

Sure, you can cram over a thousand book titles on the Amazon Kindle—but as a device that treats books as disposable ones and zeros (with a monochromatic display that shows little more than text), what does this mean for the art of book cover design?

Shot in tribute to a familiar Office Space scene, Brock’s one minute video aptly titled ‘Kill the Kindle’, was created to ask this very question.

Uppercase Magazine

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Uppercase Magazine is a new quarterly publication for the ‘creative and curious.’

In an industry where popular magazines are dying or fighting to stay alive, it's exciting to see a fresh new independent magazine aimed at fellow designers and the crafty-alike (with every issue selling out so far). I'm currently enjoying a copy of issue 2, which is 100 colorful pages full of articles ranging from the world of Pantone color to scissor collecting, along with a creative postcard project that encourages you to get involved in the process.

Enchanted by great ideas and strange inventions; by color and pattern; things fancy and frugal; the charm of vintage in a modern life; the ridiculous and the sublime… curating souvenirs, collecting treasures and celebrating the extraordinary in the everyday.

Uppercase Magazine is published by Janine Vangool in Calgary, Canada—who is also busy publishing books, running Uppercase Gallery (an art gallery and bookshop in Calgary), and teaching at Alberta College of Art & Design.

The magazine’s third issue (Fall 2009) is now shipping, preview it online or pick up your copy at Uppercase and select bookstores.

Know your type: Gill Sans

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Called the “Helvetica of England,” the sixth installment in our ‘Know your type’ series is the humanist sans-serif Gill Sans.

Influenced by the ‘Underground’

The history of Gill Sans stems from Edward Johnston’s iconic typeface, Johnston Sans, designed for the London Underground in 1913. Eric Gill, who had studied under Johnston at London’s Central School of Arts and Crafts, later became a friend and apprentice—and even had a small role assisting in creation of the proprietary typeface.

Left: Johnston Sans printing blocks now on display at the London Transport Museum, 1913 (Photo: Kaihsu Tai, Wikipedia); Right: London's Underground roundel set in Johnston Sans (often confused as Gill Sans), designed 1919 (Photo: danorbit, Flickr)

Creating a ‘fool-proof’ typeface

Not completely satisfied with Johnston’s work, Gill set out to create the perfect, legible typeface.

The first notable attempt to work out the norm for plain letters was made by Mr Edward Johnston when he designed the sans-serif letter for the London Underground Railways. Some of these letters are not entirely satisfactory, especially when it is remembered that, for such a purpose, an alphabet should be as near as possible ‘fool-proof’… as the philosophers would say—nothing should be left to the imagination of the sign-writer or enamel-plate maker.

-Eric Gill, Essay on Typography, published 1931

Drawing heavily on Johnston’s work, Gill first experimented with his ‘improvements’ in 1926 when he hand-painted lettering for a bookshop sign in his hometown, Bristol. Gill also sketched a guide for the bookshop owner, Douglas Cleverdon, who later published the work in A Book of Alphabets for Douglas Cleverdon.

The alphabet, which at the time only contained uppercase letters, was noticed by Stanley Morison for its commercial potential. A Monotype advisor, Morison commissioned Gill to develop a complete font family to compete with the sans-serif designs released by German foundries fueled by the overwhelming success of Futura. The font was released commercially by Monotype in 1928 as Gill Sans.

Left: Eric Gill as a young man, 1908 (Photo: Harry Ransom Center); Right: Drawing by Eric Gill, 1933 (Photo: St Bride Library via Fontblog.de)

While his personal life was later discovered to be rather controversial, Eric Gill (born 1882 as Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, died 1940) was an important British sculptor, artist, and typeface designer who also gave us Perpetua and Joanna (named after one of his daughters), among others.

The Helvetica of England

Gill Sans rose to popularity in 1929 when it became the standard typeface for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), appearing on everything from locomotive nameplates to time tables.

Left: LNER Bittern’s nameplate set in Gill Sans, built 1937 (Photo: Crowcombe Al, Flickr); Right: The Kraken Wakes published by Penguin Books in 1955 (Photo: duncan, Flickr)

The typeface was used in 1935 by designer Edward Young on the now iconic Penguin Books jacket design, putting Gill Sans on bookshelves around the world.

Many other notable companies (particularly in England) adopted Gill Sans as a corporate typeface by the mid-1900’s, including the BBC, British Railways, and ultimately Monotype themselves—making the typeface Monotype's fifth best seller of the twentieth century.

A diverse family

Originally released as metal type, over 36 derivatives emerged between 1929 and 1932—many of which were created by the Monotype drawing office (with input by Gill). The typeface is renowned for its inconsistencies between weights, as they were not mechanically produced from a single design (opposed to others like Helvetica).

…each weight retains a distinct character of its own. The light font, with its heavily kerned ‘f’ and tall ‘t’, has an open, elegant look. The regular font has a more compact and muscular appearance, with its flat-bottomed ‘d’, flat-topped ‘p’ and ‘q’, and short, triangular-topped ‘t.’ The bold font tends to echo the softer, more open style of the light, while the extra bold and ultra bold have their own vivid personalities.

-Monotype Imaging Inc, Hidden Gems: Gill Sans

The Gill Sans family ranges from Light to the exaggerated Ultra Bold—“because every advertisement has to try and shout down its neighbors,” Gill explains in Essay on Typography.

Gill’s lettering is based on classic roman proportions, which give the sans-serif a less mechanical feel than its geometric contemporaries. The typeface was initially recommended for advertising and headline use, but as the public got used to reading sans-serif, Gill Sans turned out to work just as well for body text.

Gill Sans today

Today over two dozen Gill Sans designs are available digitally, with mainstream reach thanks to its inclusion on Mac OS X and Microsoft Office. It can be seen everywhere, used (or overused) on everything from corporate logos to movie posters—one industry that has actually embraced the unusual Ultra Bold.

Meanwhile, the legendary Johnston Sans typeface became available commercially for the first time in 1997 as P22’s London Underground, licensed by the London Transport Museum. A variant called ITC Johnston was also released 1999.

Usage

Also see:

House of Cards

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

As part of the House of Cards campaign, 53 leading artists and designers have come together to create a limited-edition deck of cards for UK’s housing charity Shelter.

Shelter provides advice and practical assistance for families in the UK faced with homelessness and bad housing. Not to be confused with the classic House of Cards designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1952, the playing cards feature designs from Alexander McQueen, Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Kyle Cooper, M/M Paris, among others. The cards come in a slipcase designed by Pentagram London, who’s own Domenic Lippa is also featured in the deck.

Only 1,000 A5-sized decks have been produced, and are now available for £70 (while they last) with proceeds benefiting the charity.

The playing cards are an extension of the campaign by Leo Burnett London, which produced the acclaimed TV commercial, directed by Nick Goffey and Dominic Hawley, earlier in the year:

Bruce Mau: Ending the interruption

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

As Advertising Week 2009 wraps up in New York, we’re presenting the last of our coverage: A lecture presented by the legendary designer, Bruce Mau.

Bruce Mau is a Canadian designer who is known as a ‘re-thinker’ and ‘design futurist.’ He’s an author, designer and thinker who remains committed to moving our industry forward.

Most designers are familiar with S,M,L,XL, Mau’s hefty design volume created with Rem Koolhaas. As author of the design manifesto, Massive Change, Mau sought to push the definition of design forward. The concept that designers really do ‘make’ the world around us and continue to produce images, concepts and physical space for everyone, led to his proclamation that design will be the driving force for global social evolution.

Selected work: S,M,L,XL book (Photo: Hans Werlemann, AIGA Archives), Museum of Modern Art signage (2004), Walrus Magazine cover (2007), Too Perfect multimedia exhibition (2004), Guatemala branding (2004), Massive Change exhibit (2006, Photo: grifray, Flickr)

Changing the industry

His presentation focused on the change the advertising industry needs to make in order to be successful in the near future. This message was essentially to end the interruption that is at the core of all ads. A perfect example of this interruption is the 30 section television commercial. Advertisers have warned of the demise of the 30 second spot for years, yet it still remains a benchmark for most of the industry.

Even though we say that our agencies are media agnostic, the reality is that there is a pyramid of status and focus around the 30 second spot.

So how do we move beyond it?

Mau’s answer is to find purpose in the product and contribute to the ‘love object,’ rather than interrupt it. Demonstrating this point is a documentary in which IBM partnered with National Geographic to contribute to the content (below). IBM’s technology made it possible to pick four strangers at random from Grand Central Terminal in New York and trace their genetic code back to a single family, proving that we are all interconnected.

Rather than ‘interrupting’ with commercials, IBM contributes to National Geographic's Genographic Project documentary.

IBM is not only a sponsor, they’re actually doing the thing that the program is about. So it’s an example where you can actually see that demonstration of the intelligence and capacity in IBM’s thinking, put to an application. There is no ad necessary.

Understandably, not every product has the opportunity to copy this particular case study. The rise of unlimited choice has and will continue to create consumers who will no longer stand or respond to the old advertising tactics. It will ultimately be up to the community of creative’s to find ways to contribute purposeful collaborations between media content and clients, ending the interruption.

Related: Glimmer, a new book featuring the ideas of Bruce Mau (by author Warren Berger) will be available October 15, 2009.

Lessons from innovative advertising campaigns

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Is your work useful, relevant and/or entertaining?

Jessica Greenwood, the Deputy Editor of Contagious Magazine gave a great presentation this week at Advertising Week 2009. Greenwood's presentation, entitled ‘The Future in 4D: Brands, Communities, Content & Technology’, focused on trend spotting in new media and technology. The overarching theme was to take advantage of every existing technology and keep in mind the mantra: ‘useful, relevant and/or entertaining.’

Some exceptional campaigns were selected to illustrate her message. Each solved problems in innovative ways using new technology. They were inspiring for designers, advertisers and all creatives, demonstrating that innovation and good ideas lead the way toward solutions that resonate.

Here are a few of the outstanding examples, and the lessons we have drawn from them:

Lesson 1: Entertain with high production values and vision. Be truthful. Inform.

Campaign: Johnnie Walker, The True Story

High production values recap the true story of Johnnie Walker in 6 minutes. How do you sell a brand’s story? The answer here was the simple, straightforward truth and it resonated. It is mind boggling that it could be done in a single shot.

Lesson 2: Don’t be so pushy with your identity.

Campaign: DC, Gymkhana Racing

There is no need to make your logo the most important thing in an ad. Here DC gains the cool-factor of gymkhana racing by orchestrating a crazy video and having their logo, fairly small on the racecar. By embedding with something truly interesting to their customers, without making it seem like an advertisement, DC is bestowed the ‘street-cred’ and legitimacy by association.

Lesson 3: Innovate around any problem. There are no low interest categories.

Campaign: Comparethemarket.com, Compare the Meerkat

Comparethemarket.com was the #4 insurance comparison website in the UK. Insurance comparison websites were seen as a low interest category, which is adspeak, means ‘no level of ad money thrown at the industry will make it cool’. Another problem was that the words ‘compare’ and ‘market’ were expensive keywords to buy from Google. Enter ‘Compare the Meerkat,’ a brilliant campaign that turned everything around, making Comparethemarket.com #1, putting two of its competitors out of business and making ‘meerkat’ the new expensive keyword. BBC even had to produce a warning to parents that meerkats do not make good pets as a result of the huge public reaction. A great follow through is the website where you can actually ‘compare meerkats’!

Lesson 4: Be part of your audience. Contribute things that appeal to them.

Campaign: Virgin Mobile: Vanilla Ice Says ‘Sorry’

Virgin Mobile felt its respect among young audience in Australia was slipping. They also noticed a trend in 90’s nostalgia amongst youth there and decided to capitalize it. Hiring one of the most notorious 90’s poster-boys, Vanilla Ice, and having him apologize for the bad music and bad taste he inflicted upon the world, they created a campaign that became a sensation. As a result Vanilla Ice gained great popularity and embarked on a stadium tour (for which Virgin itself provided a tongue-in-cheek apology).

Lesson 5: Create the tech you need. It’s not all about digital.

Campaign: Nike, Chalkbot

Tour de France fans write chalk messages on the race path to show support. Nike wanted to include fans from around the world in this practice. They cobbled together a machine, using many technologies, which wrote any (clean) message sent via Twitter. The machine replied with a photo of your physical message and GPS co-ordinates to allow fans to physically contribute and be a part of the event.

Lesson 6: Find new uses for technology that exists for other reasons.

Campaign: Adidas, This is Not a Jersey

An unusual use of a technology outside its intended purposes is at the heart of this Adidas campaign by TBWA\WHYBIN. Nanotechnology was used to engrave the tweeted messages and names of fans at a microscopic level on black thread. These threads were woven together to create the Jerseys worn by players of the All Blacks rugby team.

Lesson 7: Digital doesn’t mean cold. Create stories that people care about.

Campaign: Sagami condoms, Love Distance

This is a beautiful campaign for Sagami condoms in Japan, where condom advertising is more difficult to air on television. The identity of the brand was not even revealed until there was a large public interest in the campaign.

Somehow this condom ad is… beautiful!

Empowering a Sustainability Movement

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Non-profit Conservation International convinces two of the world’s biggest brands to ‘go green.’

Continuing with our Advertising Week coverage, we caught a surprisingly engaging discussion with Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks), Rob Walton (Chairman of Wal-Mart), and Peter Seligman (Co-Founder and CEO of Conservation International).

Conservation International (CI) is a large, non-profit, conservation and environmental protection agency that approached both Wal-Mart and Starbucks with the intention to work with them in any way that could reduce their environmental footprint and increase their social awareness, while keeping the business profitable.

This was an important step in the environmental movement that took the great thinking of prior decades and put it into action. While at the time it seemed counterintuitive to be ‘sleeping with the enemy' in this way, the impact of changing the culture of large corporations has created measurable impact that can't be accomplished at the consumer level.

Peter Seligmann, recalls his first meeting with Wal-Mart:

As an NGO or environmentalist you go in with lots of prejudices. What I learned from the conversation with Wal-Mart and the intensive conversations with Starbucks has been that the people in those companies are inspired to do the right thing and extraordinarily smart. Their engagement has taught me and my colleagues in the non-governmental arena, I think, much more than we've taught them. You go from concept to application. And application is the name of the game. You can't always have your head in the sky… you have to deliver for your community.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz spoke briefly about the shifting tide in corporate culture with respect to environmental issues and corporate responsibility, “I think we've come to the crossroads where companies will make more money and generate more loyalty with their customers and more trust with their customers and their people if they achieve a balance, which is fragile sometimes, between profitability and social conscience.”

Wal-Mart shipped 727 less cargo containers by reducing toy packaging last Christmas, saving $3.5 million in transportation and 1,300 barrels of oil. (Photo: sevensixfive, Flickr)

Curiously, Wal-Mart has quietly been making changes behind the scenes to make a positive environmental impact—including alternative energy sources for stores and transport vehicles, increased awareness and evaluation of the items they carry, reduced packaging and putting pressure on manufacturers to improve. “We think when informed, customers will make good choices,” says Rob Walton. “We also believe that if we do the kind of job we should do, those choices wont involve paying more for products that will be sustainable.”

CNBC's Carl Quintanilla moderated the discussion and questioned Wal-Mart's strategy to allow their environmental initiatives to go unnoticed by much of the mainstream media. Starbucks takes a more direct approach to their corporate philosophy, informing customers of the efforts they are making. Instead, Wal-Mart has made the (largely unseen) changes without the consumer's knowledge. Walton explains:

From a marketing standpoint we didn't engage on this at all. With that in mind, it has become a part of our communications, but really the communication is done best by people outside of the company. But I would say that when you're telling the truth and you have actually accomplished things, people will hear.

Much could be said to protest the environmental impact made by these two organizations. Both have come under fire as icons of overconsumption. That being said, these small steps are encouraging signs of a shift in corporate thinking. It is hopeful to hear that corporate giants are listening to their consumers and environmental groups. It's more encouraging still, to know that those of us working in creative industries, media, and advertising have a chance to encourage and create impact in the changing world to come.

Google: Experiments in Digital Creativity

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

No longer just for programmers, Google’s APIs are increasingly becoming commonplace for creative mashups—allowing people to “take something cool and make it insanely cool.”

As a part of Advertising Week, Andy Berndt (Managing Director of Google Creative Lab) spoke about the limits being broken in digital media, not by research teams like his, but by users who go beyond the boundaries of the tools being created by companies like Google.

Bernt spoke specifically about the ways digital content, tools, software and applications are being mashed together, customized, remixed, or otherwise re-imagined to become something totally new and exciting.

What's happening is people are just jamming all this stuff together… I have a customer or a client or both and I'm trying to think of how to make an experience that would either be useful or entertaining or magical or something, and what are all the pieces that I could put together that might create that?

Creative examples

Markus Dreßen created a design portfolio using the Google Maps API (and some imagination). Similar examples include: blaubo and Stas Kulesh.

Uniqlo 1000 makes use of the Google Maps API and Flash video to show people all across Tokyo trying on their clothing in a creative way.

North Carolina-based ad agency BooneOakley makes use of YouTube annotations to create their website entirely within YouTube videos.

Presentation

Audio from this and other presentations can be found at WADV (download MP3), the slideshow is also available online and can be viewed here:

Related: Check out Goollery for a collection of Google-related mashups from around the world.

Reporting from Advertising Week 2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Today was the kickoff of the 6th annual Advertising Week conference in New York City.

We are happy to be here meeting so many other creatives in the industry. Conferences like this one are host to so many talented people and influential speakers, that one can't help but be inspired.

Throughout the week we will be reporting on some noteworthy presentations for those unable to attend (or for those who can only attend select lectures). If anyone is in New York this week and would like to join us, registration is still open at The Times Center (242 W. 41st Street). We'd love to see you there and/or hear your own comments from Advertising Week 2009!

Stayed tuned for updates all week long, and check out audio from select presentations at WADV.