I recently came across this pdf on "Why Design?". It is a free pdf download and has some good writing on why we design. It also has a model to visualize the design process.
Once we start to see our role as catalysts in the process of designing, entirely new opportunities open up in front of us.
Not only opportunities where we can design objects-products, brochures, logos,
books, posters and the like. But where our approach to thinking can also play a huge role.
Held annually on April 27, the World Day of Design, or World Graphics Day, marks the date in 1963 when Icograda, The International Council of Graphic Design Associations, was founded. Icograda is the world body for professional graphic design and visual communication. AIGA became a member of Icograda in 2005.
In recognition of World Graphics Day in Italy, the AIAP, the Associazione Italiana Progettazione Per La Comunicazione Visiva, has created an online design exhibit. There are some interesting works posted there. The focus for the designs are Children (Bambini).
Some time ago Antonio Faeti wrote that childhood is an ossymore:
it is time of happiness and at the same time time of hangst, time to play and at the same time to fear. Children in the age of happiness, careless, beloved and respected, and children refused too.
Children in the North of the World and children in the South of the World. Children soldiers, children in the bombed homes, children as "collateral effect". Childhood cheeried and childhood denegated. Childhood raped. Children.
Labels: AIGA, Icograda, World Day of Design
Another year for the Salt Lake AIGA has come to a close with the 100 show award ceremony held last night at the Rose Wagner Center. It is always an inspiring event to attend. As a designer it gives you that push to create better work and a desire to be recognized as a "Copper Ingot" winner.
The judges for the competition were from the Seattle area. They included
Steve Watson - Turnstyle
Mark Popich - Hornall Anderson Design Works
Terry Marks - tmarks
Michael Strassburger - Modern Dog
and for the Interactive pieces, the judges were
Aral Balkan - aralbalkan.com
Jeff Croft - jeffcroft.com
All of the pieces were taken up to them to view and from what they explained last night, it was a very collaborative process. They were all impressed by the work and amazed at the many scrapbooking type entries. They didn't even know something like that existed and were intrigued by it, wanting to learn more. Since scrapbooking is such a huge part of culture, there were many winners, and they were all very well designed.
The evening went very well. It was held on the stage at the Rose Wagner Center and for being on a stage, the set up was very nice. It started off with some time to mingle followed by dinner. Unfortunately, the food was less than desirable. If I was a food critic, I would go into more detail about it. Luckily, it was the presentation and the design work that I wanted to see and my reason for going.
After dinner they announced the winners starting with the merit winners and then the 10 "Copper Ingot" winners. As they announced the winners their pieces were displayed on screen. It was very well set up so you could see the work and the people involved. The only thing that I would have changed is allow a little more time for the designers to pick up their awards before they moved on to the next one. I am always interested in seeing a face so I can associate it with the name, and I wasn't able to do that because they moved so quick. Plus, it gives the designer a little better chance to shine, which is there right to do.
Most of the work was brilliant and designed very well. Of course, design work is always subjective so there were a few pieces that I had to question. When you think of the 100 show, it just wouldn't be what it is without the firms such as, Axiom, Richter7, Axis 41, and Scott Sorenson winning awards. It's great that these firms, along with others, are consistently producing such great work. I would love to be able to list all the winners and show their pieces, but I didn't keep track well enough to do that. I'm sure they will put that up on the SL AIGA website for all to see.
Congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks to the board and all the volunteers who put this together. Also, there will be a new president for the chapter, Paula Airth. There are also many other opportunities to help so contact the board if you are interested.
The past year of events have been great and although I couldn't attend all of them, I was able to get to some and write up an overview of the events.
As I was doing a little research on the different AIGA chapter websites, I realized how poorly designed they all are. The most impressive ones were template driven so multiple chapters had the same site. Beyond the template sites, the next best one was Colorado's, and I wasn't at all impressed with that. My chapter is the Salt Lake City and I don't love the design, but at least it is clean and organized well. What happened to setting the standard in design. The UI is horrible on most of them. I think we need to raise the bar a little for these websites.
You can check out a few of them here.
I'm sure this will be hitting a lot of blogs but the AIGA redesigned their website. It was designed by Happy Cog. I have to say that the new design is a huge improvement over the last one. I do hope that the bright orange "open" sign will be leaving soon.
There seems to be some confusion on the AIGA redesign, Andy Rutledge dislikes the design and brings up the point that multiple fonts are being use.
Quoted from his website, Design View, he states;
"The markup is certainly a vast improvement over the kludge they had before (even so, I've still not taken a hard look at it), but now they seem to have abandoned any reference to advisable graphic design. For instance, here are a couple of interesting stats regarding the new design (just on the main page):
- Fonts/Faces: 6 (plus italics and bold styles)
- Link Colors: 6
- Link Styles: 2 (decorated and undecorated)"
On the other hand, we have SimpleBits saying "using just two web fonts and a splash of Interstate".
It all goes back to personal opinion and if you want to know how many fonts are being used, you better go count for yourself.
Labels: AIGA, Andy Rutledge, design, SimpleBits
I just came across the symbol signs created by the AIGA for the U.S. DAT. I'm sure everyone knows about these already, but if not, you can view them and download them for free. Here is a brief description on the symbol signs taken from the AIGA website.
This system of 50 symbol signs was designed for use at the crossroads of modern life: in airports and other transportation hubs and at large international events. Produced through a collaboration between the AIGA and the U.S. Department of Transportation, they are an example of how public-minded designers can address a universal communication need.
Well, it's that time of year again where I get to look back on the year and realize that I don't have anything worth entering into the AIGA 100 Show. Maybe next year. But I wanted to comment on one thing, and that is the logo they chose to use for the show. It isn't all that great. My first thought is "what is it?" and "I don't get it". I don't want to go to much into it because all design work is subjective so someone might really like it. It may just be that I don't get it, but I'm sure there could be a lot better solution. Just take a look at the past few years of the 100 show. But, then again, I don't have anything worth entering into the show.
Let me know what you think of it.
Last night I had the opportunity to go to our AIGA event in Salt Lake City. Speaking at the event was Joel Templin and Gaby Brink of Templin Brink Design (T.B. D.) They opened their doors in 1998, and since then, Templin Brink Design has created highly original and effective branding, packaging, corporate identity and advertising campaigns for top global marketers like American Eagle Outfitters, Apple Computer, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dockers / Levi's, Janus Capital Group, Lucent Technologies, Oracle, Target Stores, and Williams-Sonoma.
I took some notes on some of the things they talk about, so here is a quick overview.
For a lot of there design they encourage their designers to look at old packaging to get inspiration. Mostly packages with old labels because of the great typography they use.
One company the designed a brand for was Song Airlines, unfortunately, the campaign never was used. At first Song Airlines wanted them to create a campaign to draw the right kind of employees to the company, so T.B. D. designed a poster campaign to do that. They used the emergency guides that airlines had to create a unique, hip look. After showing them to Song, they loved the look and feel and wanted them to create a logo. That is where T.B. D. took it to the extreme and created a whole brand. There approach was to create it from a passengers perspective. It was interesting to see there process of design and they filled there whole office with nothing but airline stuff. This whole brand campaign was the part that never was used.
They also talked about letting loose and doing something that doesn't matter. Joel had the desire to create something using paper and scissors. It had nothing to do with any projects, he just wanted to do it. He created a few items that ended up on some posters, but it was more to feel a creative desire.
Well, as there next client Target came along, the paper and scissor idea came out once again. They ended up doing some concepts with cut outs, which turned into 3d models that were used on the Target campaign.
On the same lines, they used a screen printer to create their moving announcement and agreed to promote the screen printer as well. What the came up with was some interesting decorative elements that they printed on the cards. Those same elements came into play when creating the Archer Farms brand for Target.
They stressed the point that you need to leave room to play around because that can increase your creativity on your next project.
When ask the question "What makes a good client?", Joel and Gaby responded will someone who trusts you and who collaborates with you and listens. But then stated, clients know there product the best so designers need to do an equal amount of listening.
Also, when ask "What do you do to get unstuck?", they responded quickly, "We don't get stuck". They elaborated a little more by stating they look at all visual items, they collect materials that relate to get inspiration. Don't start by sitting in front of a computer, get out in the environment and get inspiration there. Do stuff you know is wrong to get it out of your system. It's okay to be wrong sometimes.
As the questions went on one thing they said that stood out to me was, "Don't show anything you don't want to sell, because the client will always pick that one." When they pitch there ideas, it could be 2 ideas or 10, it all depends on what they are willing to sell.
Overall, it was a very good evening. I was excited to listen to them speak because I have followed their work for years (it's hard not to see it if you look at any design magazine). The evening was a big success, so thank you to Joel and Gaby and the AIGA Salt Lake Chapter.
Labels: AIGA, designer, T.B. D., Templin Brink Design
Last night I had the opportunity to go listen to Nate Morley with Deutsch Inc. He was speaking at our AIGA Salt Lake event at the Salt Lake Art Center. Nate is a Utah born and raised designer who has worked with national brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Target, and A&FTV.
Nate was a pleasure to listen to because he wasn't a typical "big Agency" designer. He was very down to earth and presented himself in a way that gave you a thirst for design in general and not the "look at me" approach.
Here are some of the items he spoke about;
The design business has some harsh realities. Here he was speaking about some of the creative briefs that designers get. The briefs are not always the golden opportunities, but you need to do the best you can on the project you have been given.
He suggested five ways to build this momentum.
1. You need to do for the client is give them what they ask for. This will help you build momentum with them and once you build momentum you can start suggesting new ideas that you think are more creative.
2. When giving them a new creative direction, make sure it is easy for them to understand.
3. Prepare ahead of time for all their concerns about it so all they have to do is say yes.
4. Learn to pick your battles. You can't always suggest new ways of doing something or they will loose trust in you.
5. Last but not least, make sure the idea is good. Don't let personal interests get in the way of helping your client.
Some other interesting points he talked about was motivation. What is our motivation. Is it impressing our peers, winning awards, personal reasons, or is it to help the client succeed. We need to make sure our motivation is correct. We need to be passionate about our work but our responsibility lies with our clients. We need to make the look like rockstars.
I had the great opportunity to go see and listen to Milton Glaser at BYU last night. He has had a powerful impact on graphic design since 1954 and is probably best known for his 
logo. He has designed everything from album covers to packaging, from posters to newspaper designs, from books to logos, from web sites to restaurant interiors, and from theme parks to calendars.
At the lecture, Glaser did not stand up and speak but he sat down with Steven Heller and they had more of a conversation and question / answer dialogue. Some of the key points that I got out of it were;
1. Just enough is more. It's not the idea of "less is more". That was more of a movement that was an attempt to counter Victorian fussiness and so on. It's more of the idea of, "Just enough is more".
2. Don't get labeled doing something that you don't want to do. "If you don't want to do Cocker Spaniels, don't do them"
3. When asked about his thoughts on the difference of images and typography, he stated, "Words are as powerful as images because they are images".
4. Speaking to the students, but to all, he stated, "You have to be realistic and ambitious". Meaning, when starting out you became a designer to make a living, so you can't forget that.
5. You have to activate the mind because most people are asleep. When they look at something they don't see it. But when ambiguity is present, they try to figure it out.
Overall the event was very successful and any designer should have walked away with a desire to do more as a graphic designer.
Labels: AIGA, designer, Milton Glaser