PBDH has recently launched a 5-piece update of BECU's in-branch motion graphics. These short spots are now showing on LCD displays at many of BECU's Northwest credit union locations...
categories// Community, Design, Interactive, New Work, Social Media
Just another day at PBDH – a logo critique upstairs with the creative team, and a few extras on the side-lines hoping to get a glimpse of the latest work in development and even interject a valuable opinion or insight. This is one of the collaborative processes we have that helps to make the work we do better, on point and to ensure that we meet the clients' objectives. Too bad Scout and Woody can't share their thoughts too, I am sure they would have something very profound to say. For now, they'll just sit and wait for Leslie to go back downstairs.
The Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s 2010 Season
Skills of the Rockstar Planner is a series of short videos presented by PSFK exploring the world of exceptional Account Planners, or who we in the design industry call Brand Strategists. But whether you're a strategist, designer, account manager or any of the other key roles serving clients in the creative industry, I think these skills can apply to us all. These short, 5-7 minute videos are full of valuable insight shared through a series of interviews with top planners/strategists.
"I never knew my full potential until I got here."
Mahcaiyah Wearing-Gooden, School of the Future Graduate, Class of 2010
After opening its doors for the first time in 2006, School of the Future (SOF) graduated its first senior class last week on June 15, 2010. This 750-student high school, a collaboration between the School District of Philadelphia and Microsoft, was built with a vision to challenge the education status quo. The school partnered with Microsoft to plan, build and support a new model for 21st-century learning communities, applying new approaches in curriculum, teaching methods and staffing. All 118 students, who are called "learners" at SOF, have earned acceptance to at least one postsecondary institution–a commitment they made to each other as ninth graders.
Our own Devin Liddell, Director of Brand Strategy, had the opportunity to fly out to Philadelphia to interview several of the first graduating students profiled for the Graduates piece and press materials PBDH designed for the SOF graduation...
categories// Community, Design, Inspiration, New Work, Technology
Let the herding of the cats begin!
As a trustee on the board of the National MS Society Greater Northwest Chapter I have been enlisted to help promote the Bike MS fundraiser ride in September. I could do like I did last year and recruit staff, family and friends to ride on Team PBDH. But how can I make a bigger contribution to this annual effort? Maybe form some bigger team that could make a difference to the MS community as well as the riders who participate. Thus was born Team AIGA: Helvetica's Angels.
I have started to take a Web Design class at Seattle School of Visual Concepts. We just recently had a class discussion on our first homework assignment that I thought was a refreshing look at what people like best about using the web, what there most common activities are, and what is commonly missing from their online experience. We were asked to create a mood board for the discussion.
I took a different approach by thinking of words that came to mind when asking myself these three questions using Wordle.
1. What's the Best part about using the Web?
2. What are your most common activities online?
3. What's commonly missing from your online experience?
Some Explanation for some of the words I choose:
I have a wondering, A.D.D. mind that most people in the creative world have, and the biggest thing that helps that is being able to educate myself on anything that comes floating in my head on a day to day basis. All I have to do is type a word or a phrase in a search box, and BAM! a whole crap load of things are a click away.
This is something that I have just recently been exploring. The main part of therapy that I lack in doing is blogging. Blogging is therapy, you have something to say and you eject it into the online world for further discussion. Some smaller parts of therapy online that I use frequently are the social sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Within the last couple of years this part of the online experience has been getting stronger and stronger. If I want to learn about things from DIY projects to a new version of software, I can, and on my own time with sites like CreativeLive, Lynda, DIY Network, and even Youtube.
A couple things missing from my online experience:
Website have become a lot of reiterations of the same idea, and when I see something original it inspires me a great deal and gets me excited and motivated to learn new and better ways of getting a point across online. Originality doesn't really mean a whole new way of doing a site, it could simply be a new kind of rollover for a button.
No matter how fast things get, I will always complain that they need to be faster. It's just a simple fact.
One thing during the discussion that came up frequently was the idea of the web not being touchy feely. Personally I don't have a huge issue with this, and not much was really said about it, I did however share with the class a new site that I discovered called Toy-A-Day that can, in a way, give you the touchy feely feeling that print has.
One last thing that I got out of last nights class was a great sentence to ask clients and yourself early in the discovery process of building a site, I think this sentence alone can dig a lot out of clients and get to the reason a site is needed for them:
"What do people need to do on your site for business to be effective"
Designers, when you post comps for open critique, switch on the hot box! It's like raising the flag on your mailbox. Never again will your amazing, creative, ground-breaking work hang on the whiteboard, unnoticed. Read on, if you want to know why and how I made this.
PBDH encourages open-collaboration, cross-pollination and a lot of other great hyphenated phrases relating to idea sharing. One way this is accomplished is by posting new design comps on the whiteboard in "The Core" - our primary public space where we hold critiques, eat lunch and argue about last night's episode of Lost. Often a designer will hang up a few design roughs or ideas before the "real" internal review, to see what other folks have to say and get some fresh perspective. The system works fairly well, but I have noticed one flaw: Sometimes I pass right by those comps without realizing they are posted there for public critique. For all I know, they are just left over from a previous meeting and commenting is closed. There is nothing to draw my attention to them. Never again. Post your work, pull the chain and get ready for an influx of insightful, relevant, meaningful feedback.
And if you see the light on.... please take a look at what's on the board and offer your thoughts. That light is somebody's beacon asking for your input.
No doubt somebody will ask "How did you make that" which is usually a long answer, but I can give you one hint. I found a little laser-cutting shop right around the corner from our office. Take them a vector file and they can cut your design out of wood, paper, plastic - a lot of things. Check out Metrix Create Space, it's a haven for tech geeks, "makers" and design-nerds like myself.
OK, let's settle this right now. I get a lot of incredulous looks from my friends. You're on Twitter?? Who cares what I'm eating for breakfast? Sounds like a waste of time.
Well, I could argue the benefits of sharing the details of your life with friends and family, but that's another topic - and I use Facebook for that. For now let's just say that I agree with you. I don't use Twitter that way, and I wouldn't follow anyone who did - friend, family or favorite deity. For me, Twitter is a business and learning tool. I use it to stay abreast of what's new in my profession, and likewise to share with other interested parties. And I get a LOT out of it. Twitter is a realtime live feed of all the best tips, tricks and discoveries made by people with similar interests as myself, pre-filtered and delivered straight to my hungry brain in a tidy, little package. Awesome.
I said that the feed is "pre-filtered" - What does that mean and how does it work? With Twitter you can "follow" anyone you want. It's up to you. Simply put: I don't follow people who tweet about breakfast, movies, moods, concerts, or any number of other uninteresting, "teenagery" topics. I am strictly interested in finding the little gems that make my work better, faster, more relevant, etc. It's a learning tool. I follow people who post useful, interesting or educational things. If you start talking about Will Smith - you're dumped in a heartbeat. Don't waste my time.
About that - Isn't weeding through all the "bad" feeds to find the good ones time-consuming? This is the beauty of Twitter. First of all, this isn't really a problem, if you only follow people who say interesting things, as stated above. Second, every post is limited in length to 140 characters, so I can tell in 5 seconds or less if a post interests me. In 1 minute, I can scan all the morning's updates and move on. Most useful posts include a link to an outside article, blog, etc. If there is something worth following, you can chase it down. If not, you don't follow the link, and you've lost very little of your precious time.
What kind of "gems" do you really get out of this? As a graphic designer and aspiring web developer, I get all kinds of useful content. A link to an artist's blog can be inspiring for days or weeks. Maybe it's a link to a website full of free fonts, plugins, or texture files. Maybe it's a how-to page about using a feature of my favorite Adobe software product. I get a lot of useful information for educating my clients and language for communicating expertly about my profession. Sometimes it's a link to an industry event that I might like to attend. Web developers find and share snippets of code, online resources, the latest technology trends, updates and how-tos. I'm telling you. It's a goldmine - if you follow the right people.
So how do you find the right people? Start with people you know, in the business. Look for Twitter links at the bottom of your favorite blogs. Filter the Twitter feed for relevant topics with a tool like Tweet Grid (highly recommended). Publish your Twitter username on your website/blog/Facebook profile, and start tweeting valuable content yourself. When you start gaining followers who are interested in what you are saying, they are likely worth following back. As they say, if you want a friend, you have to be a friend. Network, share, inspire, learn. Go forth and tweet!
I started writing this to share about this life-changing ice cube tray that I discovered, but the topic has quickly grown into something bigger. We'll get to the ice cube tray shortly.
Charles and Ray Eames, one way or another, introduced to me a phrase/concept that has been stuck in my head for years: "Designer as host." Try as I may, not even Google can help me find out more about this particular phrase. I'm probably remembering it incorrectly, but the concept is valid regardless: A designer is a host, of sorts, to any user/viewer who finds themselves at the mercy of whatever it is that the designer has designed (products, printed material, websites, etc.). Hopefully they are a good host. If you are a designer or are hiring one, imagine that your users/viewers/readers are guests in your house. How would you treat them?
Example. Bad Host.
I was graciously gifted a stainless steel water bottle. It is attractive, well-made and well-concieved, except for one important detail: the opening at the top is exactly the wrong size for the human face. A little bigger and you could drink from it like a glass. A little smaller and you could chug from it like a soda bottle. The way it is.... nearly impossible to use without choking, spilling or splashing yourself in the eye. I thought maybe it was just my big nose or funny chin so I asked around - the problem is nearly universal. Too bad. It could have been a really nice bottle. If only the designer had imagined (or tested) what it might be like to use their product. Not a very good host, I'm afraid. Makes me think they must have been more interested in making or selling bottles than what it might be like to use one. Puts me off a bit. I feel jilted. I often find myself angry at a product or company, muttering that they must not be a very good host. If they ever invite me over for roast beef, I might think twice (maybe).
Good host: Oxo Ice Cube Tray.
Besides a few special or novelty shapes designed for particular purposes, most ice cubes seem to work just as well as the others for the purpose of chilling your average drink. Some are smaller, some are bigger. They are round-ish or square-ish. You may have a preference, but in the end, the differences are not great - functionally speaking. But what about the user's experience - in particular: getting the little bastards out of the tray? I'd venture a guess that 10-20% of ice cubes fall to the floor/sink/counter top during the noisy and frustrating effort of extraction. At least as many break in the process, and some of them never come out at all. You twist the tray, bang them on the counter, try to pop the perfect amount of cubes out with a deft flipping motion - without losing any over the edge. I'm picturing the frustrated, bedraggled house wife at the beginning of an infomercial. There must be a better way! Indeed there is. An ice cube with a rounded bottom is easily extracted by pushing down on one side... the other side pops up like a Whack-a-Mole, and you can grab it easily. That's it. Good host. The designer had the user in mind. Makes me feel welcome, like they care about me as a person, and the quality of my life. I honestly appreciate that.
Why is this so interesting to me? It's a great example of how a silly little detail can greatly change your user's attitude about your product or company. It can color their whole experience. The same principle applies to print and website design. Is it easy to find the information I am looking for in your brochure or website? Do I have to dig for five minutes to find your phone number? Where are the office hours listed? Are you really going to make me count the months on my fingers when I'm giving you the expiration date on my credit card, or do you include the numbers in the pull down menu?
As designers we are in a position to play host, and in so doing we not only make people's everyday experiences a little happier, we reflect well upon the clients that hire us to represent them. Everyone wins when our designs are considerate - like a good host.
I can't remember the last time I bought an ice cube tray. I guess they come with the refrigerator most of the time. This is worth upgrading. Chalk it up as one of life's little triumphs and drink to that!
