I regularly teach a workshop at the School of Visual Concepts (SVC) on writing creative briefs. I always set up the workshop with what I believe is the fundamental tension within creative briefs: being comprehensive versus being concise. And while a big challenge in writing a creative brief is cramming a whole bunch of important information into a one-page document that should also be inspiring and…well, brief, this tension goes way beyond just creative briefs. This tension is at play in all communications, especially brand design. This is the set-up I use: If you were mugged at the ATM, you might end up at the police precinct to give a report and offer your description of the villain. While it’s unlikely for (just) a mugging, a sketch artist might be brought in and the two of you might go back and forth with the charcoal pencil and sketch pad, endlessly…
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Sorry I’m late with this year’s picks for trendiest must-have colors. I got mixed up in some Web site redesign project and I haven’t really seen the light of day in several weeks. But, like the groundhog who ponders his own shadow, I’ve crawled out of my design cave just long enough to see the future of color for 2008: It’s five more months of rainbow! (I have no idea what that means.) Anyway, here are the colors that all the cool kids will be forced to use from here to December. Get used to them, you’re going to be seeing a lot of these. (CMYK and RGB values available upon request.) Remember: if it’s not trendy, it’s original.
I am somewhat of a magazine hound and I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting publications. A recent find is Monocle from Tyler Brûlé, the man behind Wallpaper* back in the nineties. Monocle has a lot in common with its predecessor and the attention to detail is what you would expect: great typography, tight layouts, stunning photography—even the various paper stocks are worth noting. What makes it better than Wallpaper* is that the articles themselves feel a bit more substantive. In a recent review of the magazine Business Week asks: Can rarefied information be sold like a luxury product? That appears to be exactly what Monocle is trying to do. But I think what most attracts me to Monocle is a seamless (and beautiful) transition from print to Web. So few magazine Web sites live up to their print counterparts and magazine brands are quite often diluted and…
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Design Observer links to a slideshow featuring 30 different varieties of well designed table of contents pages from various publications. Cool stuff. Michael Beirut on the collection: “Some readers will appreciate their typographic form, while others will see further strategies at work — informational, strategic, philosophical, literary.” Thirty Tables of Contents
As graphic designers we might presume to know our clients’ business in and out — we might even be presumptuous enough to think we know our clients’ business more than they do. However, we do not go to their workplace everyday, we do not experience the ins and outs of their business, we do not participate in the small intricacies that make their business flourish. So, in fact, we will never know as much as our clients’ know about their own company and workplace. But, because we must know all we can about their company to do our job effectively, we must become diggers — or design archeologists. It is our responsibility to know how to showcase our client’s company in the public marketplace. By researching their competitors, interviewing those who play an integral part in the success of their company, and simply listening to them — we can come…
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