About two years ago we decided we were long overdue for a new Web site. The old pbdh.com site, while still mostly functional, wasn’t quite the spring chicken it was when we launched it back in 2003. So we got together and started to figure out how we could improve the site as a whole. The look, the functionality, the usability and even the overall purpose of our site were considered. When all was said and done we came up with one major goal: simplify. In the words of Albert Einstein we decided that “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” We started by looking at the many different sections and pages we had produced over the years. Some of them were from the original site-map, others were add-ons cobbled together over various marketing initiatives, and one or two pages just showed up one day out…
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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.
It was never my design objective that the furniture be different or novel; only that it be good to sit in, good to use, good to look at, and easy for everyone to buy. Charles Eames Designer, architect and filmmaker
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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Don’t covet your ideas. Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you. Paul Arden Creative director, writer and filmmaker
A short history of transparency The restaurants George Orwell described in his 1933 novel Down and Out in Paris and London were not places you’d want diners to see. A wall separated the dining room’s calm ambience from the chaotic grime of the “cold, filthy kitchen.” Architecturally, the wall between these two interconnected worlds was a good thing, and important for both sides. For the restaurant, it concealed the ugly frenzy behind the scenes. For the diners, it preserved a shinier belief in what they were buying. The model that Orwell experienced persisted for six more decades before restaurateurs and their architects in the early 1990s—mostly in the Bay Area—did something unexpected: they brought the “back of house” front and center, putting chefs and line cooks on display to diners. This was done primarily as a means of demonstrating spotless kitchens and the use of fresh ingredients. Arguably, this design…
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When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. R. Buckminster Fuller Architect, author, and designer
